Behavioral tools to promote good mental health - Sleep, Exercise and Phones

The most important factor in today's world in order to achieve the results you want in work, sport, relationships, life etc. Starts with your health. I'm a health and wellness advocate, and an avid endurance athlete. I have been working in sales and recruitment for close to 20 years now. I have had some “success” in both. Personally, anything I have been really proud of has always come at a time when I am healthy. However, what I have learnt is that the word “success” is defined only by what success looks like for you. Sure, there are guidelines like targets, goals and metrics in the business world that play a part in that and will, in turn,? allow you to progress in your job and get paid more etc. You can however be the top salesperson/achiever in a company, earning great money, have that fancy car and big house and still be absolutely miserable because your health is in tatters.

The road to personal success comes from the daily habits you build outside of the workplace. These habits enable you to be healthy, thrive and enjoy your life daily. Mental health and physical health are often separated however they are deeply connected and if one is off, the other will follow. If your health is off, then everything you want to achieve will be harder to reach and likely not attainable and the road to get there is much more difficult.?

The bad news:?

I can’t remember a time in my life when there were so many external factors sucking the positive energy out of our brains constantly. Doomscrolling which is now a word we are all familiar with. This will destroy your mental health and it's extremely hard to get away from as we know.?

The good news:

I have never seen so many people doing so much for their health on a daily basis to try and counterbalance external factors. More people than ever are giving up alcohol and it's becoming more acceptable in society to not drink. Businesses are also encouraging and promoting personal health among workforces as they are now seeing the most productive and engaged employees are the ones who feel their personal health is valued by their employer. Let's face it. Times are challenging, so instead of asking people to simply do more… we should be saying do more for yourself so you can be the best version of yourself.??

For me, daily habits impact my health massively. My morning/evening routines/rituals are key to how my day goes. However, rather than list what I do each morning, I will list three things that I think are the most important. Starting with these will open the door to adding other things down the line.?

I recently discovered that in order for my morning routine to be optimal. I actually need my prior evening routine to improve. That starts with sleep and what I do before I go to bed in order for me to have a good sleep

SLEEP - The foundation of your health.?

I didn’t sleep that well and I thought that is just the way I am. My morning routine used to be so important to me that I would sacrifice sleep in order to make sure I was able to do all those things and that required me to get up at 5AM. However, all those things are a waste of time if I am only getting 5 hours of sleep per night and really not giving my body the time it needs to fully recover. 6 hours is now my baseline, 7 is the goal and 8 would be amazing. Matthew Walker’s book? “Why we Sleep '' is a fantastic read and if you want to understand more about sleep, read this book. You will be enlightened and frightened and just how important it is to us. If you are not getting enough sleep it will impact how you function mentally. Lack of sleep makes it harder to concentrate, it takes longer to react, and increases difficulties to do complex tasks. These effects of sleep loss can lead to challenges at work, school, and in daily life and really you will be at 50% of your potential all the time. What I did was, I committed to getting one extra hour of sleep a night by going to bed earlier and being flexible with my morning routine. If you get one extra hour of sleep a night you will be adding one full night sleep to your week and you will start to unlock new levels of mental and physical health you didn’t know you had. Sleep is our superpower so my advice here is to get as much of it as you can and try to avoid things that impair it. IE - booze, eating late, sugar after dinner, looking at your phone etc. Here are 3 simple behavior changes that will help you sleep a lot better.?

1. Eating a healthy dinner 3/4 hours before you go to bed (and nothing after that)
2. Go for a light walk after dinner without your phone (if you can catch a sunset, even better)
3. Don’t look at your phone at least an hour before you go to bed.?

EXERCISE - If this came in a pill, every single person on the planet would take it

If someone told you that if you take a pill that can reduce your chances of an early death by 50 per cent, it's a bit of a no brainer that you will take the pill. Exercise is proven to be that pill, unfortunately you gotta work a bit to see results. Another great book I read recently that has some incredible insights on health is called Outlive by Peter Attia. Peter Attia is known for his medical practice that focuses on the science of longevity. In the book he says “Exercise is by far the most potent longevity drug. The data are unambiguous: Exercise not only delays actual death but also prevents both cognitive and physical decline better than any other intervention” Have you ever gone for a 30 min walk and felt bad after? The answer is likely no. With aerobic or cardio exercise, your muscles need more blood and oxygen than when they're at rest. This causes your heart and lungs to work harder, which, over time, can make these parts of your body stronger. In turn you will feel better daily which will also have a huge impact on your mood and mental health. Mark my words, there will be a time in the near future where doctors will prescribe exercise instead of aspirin for folks with cardiovascular disease.

PHONES - Your relationship with your phone can determine your mental health

These days I feel my phone and my relationship with it is critical to my mental health. I will not sleep for longer than 5 hours if I look at my phone until I go to bed and the sleep I get that night will also be poor quality. So I try to not look at it after 8 or 9PM. I also charge it away from my bed so I can’t even look at it while in bed. Seriously, looking at your phone right before you go to sleep is turning your brain to mush and will mess up your sleep so much. In the morning, I also try to not look at it until after my morning routines. Or at the very least not look at any work emails. Why look at a work related email at 6am when the impact of responding to it at 6 or 8:30AM are the exact same. However, looking at it at 6AM as the first thing you look at in the morning will completely change the trajectory of your day…..especially if it's a stinker of an email. Instead fuel your mind with something that will nourish it and set you day up in the right way. Try meditating, watching a sunrise, reading a few pages from a book, writing in a journal or going for a walk without your phone. One or all these things will set your day off in a far better trajectory than immediately looking at your phone.?