World Mental Health Day may be over, but looking after your mental health is important every day. Making some simple changes to your lifestyle can be a great way to prioritise your mental health, here are some of our favourite tips to get you started:

Keep Active:

Physical activity has been shown to be effective in reducing stress and anxiety, as well as improving your mood, with exercise outdoors being especially good.

For many of us, working from home might mean we miss out on our walk to the train station, or to and from work. Try to make sure you still get these steps in, going for a quick walk on your lunch break, or before you start the day, can be a great way to recentre yourself.

Sleep well:

Poor sleep can not only leaving us feeling tired, but can also lead to worry and exacerbate feelings of depression and anxiety, and this can make it even harder to sleep!

It’s recommended that adults get around 7-8 hours of sleep a night; if you’re finding this difficult there are a few tips you can try.

Drink sensibly:

During the pandemic, we have seen a rise in poor mental health, with one in five drinkers reporting that they have been consuming more alcohol since March. Although alcohol and recreation drugs can temporarily make us feel good, this is not a sustainable way to deal with problems and often leaves us feeling worse in the long run.

If you drink alcohol try to stick to the recommended low risk guidelines, and try to reduce the days that you do drink each week.

Connect with others:

Connecting with other people has been shown to be great for our wellbeing; it can give us a sense of belonging and give us time to relax with people to talk to.

Although it might feel harder to connect with people around us, due to social distancing and government guidelines, there are new and creative ways of reaching those in your community (and across the world) online. Why not join an online book club, take up Geocaching or join a local Facebook group to deliver groceries to vulnerable people in your community?

Once you start looking there is loads that you can learn about looking after your wellbeing. Why not try implementing one of these small changes to look after your wellbeing?