Protect Your Mental Wellbeing

As a professional, your mental capacity plays a crucial role in your work performance. Having mental clarity and energy allows you to utilize your knowledge, skills, and experience effectively. On the other hand, when you’re mentally drained, you may struggle to accomplish tasks, leading to decreased productivity and enjoyment in your work. Therefore, it’s essential to prioritize and protect your mental health to optimize your work performance.

Definition Of Wellbeing

After a search for a good definition of mental health, I found this one to be a succinct summary of everything I know and read.

“Mental health is a state of wellbeing in which people realize their own abilities, can handle everyday stress, can work productively, and are able to contribute to their community.”

Under most circumstances, you probably fare well regarding the state of your mental health. However, if you begin to experience some frays around the edges, you know it’s time to take action by monitoring your mental wellbeing vitals.

Four “Vitals” Of Wellbeing

Mental Health professionals point to four primary “vitals” that contribute to a healthy state of wellbeing. All of them have to do with “brain care,” which is the core of your sense of wellbeing.

The first has to do with hydration because your brain is 75-80% water. When you engage in strenuous mental activity, you need a regular flow of water to supply your brain and to flush out toxins and other waste residue. Therefore, HYDRATE. You should be drinking a minimum of ½ ounce of water for every pound of your weight. That’s the minimum. Not surprisingly, most Americans are in various states of dehydration. Are you? For me, this is a discipline that I have to regularly recommit to.

Another vital to healthy wellbeing is activation. When you move physically, your heart rate increases the blood flow that brings oxygen to your brain and carries away the waste from all your mental processing. Get out of your chair several times a day and go outside, if possible.

A third vital is sleep. When your body is resting, your brain is actively organizing information, sorting experiences and repairing itself. These activities only occur when you are asleep, so if you aren’t sleeping, your brain is functioning on overload. Less than 7 hours of sleep a night will put you in sleep deprivation, significantly affecting your brain health.

Finally, your brain requires quality nutrition to operate properly. It’s not about whether you are hungry or not, just like hydrating isn’t about being thirsty. It’s about fueling your mental reserve so you can continue. A general rule of thumb is to eat better; eat less.

Be Responsible For Your Wellbeing

All of these activities take time, yet it’s so easy to believe you don’t have enough. But that’s like saying you are too busy driving to your destination to stop for gas. At some point, neglecting your empty tank will put you on the side of the road, stopped dead. Then it’s too late.

You are in charge of your mental health—your brain health. If you were going to pay more attention to one of these 4 vitals this week, which would it be? Take a small step to protect your mental wellbeing by monitoring you mental health vitals.