Summary
As you know, many factors contribute to our mental well-being. The factors – exercise, diet and environment – discussed here are chosen because they can be controlled by us to some extent.
Firstly, doing exercise can help mental health for people of all ages. Specifically, exercises like aerobic and resistance training can improve mental disorders, self-image, satisfaction with life and happiness, and sleep quality.
Secondly, eating a balanced diet (such as the Mediterranean diet) can also help mental health. Diets containing protein, minerals and vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids, carbohydrate, and fibre are good for your brain besides your body.
Lastly, being at peace with your environment is important too. Environment (includes the people, buildings and nature around you) contributes significantly to your well-being.
Read this article to find out the details on what help mental health. If you have any comments or questions after reading, you may send them to me.
1) What Help Mental Health？Exercise
Most people know or at least suspect exercise is important for our well-being. However, we might say we need more reasons or proofs to convince ourselves to drop our sedentary habits and to start adopting an active lifestyle. Here are some good reasons:
1a) Exercise Helps All Age Groups and Improves Many Mental Disorders
According to Ashdown-Franks (2020), consistent evidence showed that exercise can reduce symptoms of mental disorders in patients of all age groups (children, adults and older adults). Mental disorders here include: anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, attention-deficient/ hyperactive disorder (ADHD), pre and post-natal depression, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders.
What are you waiting for? There is real proof that exercise helps mental health; hence, you (whatever your age is) should quit sedentary and start to do some exercise to improve your mental well-being now.
1b) Aerobic and Resistance Training Supplements Treatment
Given its benefits and low side effects, exercise (such as aerobic and resistance training) can act as an adjunctive part of core mental health treatment for major depression, pre and postnatal depression, anxiety, stress disorders and schizophrenia (Ashdown-Franks, 2019).
In other words, even if you are already taking psychiatric medicine and having counselling sessions, you can further your recovery by taking up aerobic and resistance training. There you go, you have another reason to incorporate some physical activities in your lifestyle to help your mental well-being today.
1c) More Active, Less Unwell
In another study on children and adolescents, researchers (Rodriguez-Ayllon and her team) showed that when you engage in more physical activities, you are likely to feel less stressed (less risk of depression, stress, negative affect, and total psychological distress) and more positive (better self-image, satisfaction with life and happiness, and psychological well-being). Conversely, the more inactive you have been, the worse is your mental health (more and greater mental disorder symptoms as well as lower self-image, satisfaction with life and happiness, and psychological well-being).
This is to say, for young people, exercise reduces stress and improves self-image. Is this impetus is forceful enough for you to get up and do some stretching now?
1d) Exercise Improves Sleep Quality Too
A recent study found that exercise has a large statistically significant effect on sleep quality which in turn is linked to mental illness symptoms and physical comorbidities (Lederman, 2019).
As generally known, people with mental disorders tend to suffer from poor sleep quality. We understand from the study, if you exercise, you get rewarded with better sleep, and also improved overall well-being. Is this carrot juicy enough to make you hop like a bunny?
1e) Light Exercise Helps Too
Another study found that performing even light physical activity may help alleviate depression symptoms that older adults may be experiencing while isolated and adhering to Social Distancing Guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic (Callow, 2020).
This means doing light exercise at home can bring benefits to your mental health although doing more strenuous outdoor exercises might bring greater benefit. If completing a marathon sounds too overwhelming, you can always start small. For example, you can increase your activity rate by five percent for the first week, and then slowly up your amount of exercise over time.
Moral of the story?
To help mental health, you should do some aerobic and resistance training on top of other treatment methods, or at the very least, gradually increase your activity rate starting with some light exercises.
2) What Help Mental Health？Diet
I bet you are not surprised that diet is the next factor that can help your mental well-being. In fact, research evidences support what people have been saying – you are what you eat. Find out here what you should and should not eat:
2a) Different Folk, Different Food
According to Begdache (2019), young adult (18 to 29 years) mood seems to be dependent on food that increases availability of neurotransmitter precursors and concentrations in the brain (eg, frequent meat consumption and exercise, respectively).
However, the mood of mature adults (30 years and older) may depend more on food that increases availability of antioxidants (eg, fruits) and abstinence of food that inappropriately activates the sympathetic nervous system (eg, coffee consumption, high glycaemic index, and skipping breakfast).
Brain maturation may not complete until the age of 30 which may explain the differential emotional control, mindset, and resilience between young adults and matured adults.
It is simple, you should adopt the appropriate dietary habits according to your age group if you want to improve your mood.
2b) An Apple A Day Keeps the Psychiatrist Away
In a study done in the UK by Kontogianni in 2020, the participants in the HPD (High Polyphenol Diet) group reported a decrease in depressive symptoms and an improvement in physical component and mental health component scores. There was however no difference in anxiety, stress, self-esteem or body image perception between the HPD group and the LPD (Low Polyphenol Diet) group.
Polyphenols are naturally occurring organic compounds found in plant-based foods. Examples include: flavonoids (found in apples and berries), phenolic acids (found in grains and seeds), polyphenolic amides (found in chilli peppers and oats), and other polyphenols (found red wine and turmeric).
The HPD consisted of six portions of fruits and vegetables (including one portion of berries per day) and 50 g of dark chocolate per day. One portion is 80g according to UK guidelines.
In short, for better mental health, you should take more fruits and vegetables, specifically berries.
2c) Lousy Diet, Bad Mood
Adopting the Mediterranean dietary patterns – high consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes; moderate consumption of poultry, eggs, and dairy products; and only occasional consumption of red meat – is associated with a reduced risk of depression (Firth, 2020).
As most people know, diets with a high glycaemic index and load (eg, diets containing high amounts of refined carbohydrates and sugars) cause physical health risks. The bad news is that they may also have a detrimental effect on psychological well-being.
A diet high in calories and saturated fat is another bad news because it was found to link to inflammation and depression. Major depressive disorder in humans is associated with alterations of the gut microbiome, and a diet high in fibres, polyphenols, and unsaturated fatty acids (as found in a Mediterranean diet) can reduce inflammation.
In other words, you should go for the Mediterranean diet, and skip high glycaemic index and load diets, and diets high in calories and saturated fat.
2d) Higher Fibre, Healthier Gut
Taking dietary fibre improves overall metabolic health (through key pathways that include insulin sensitivity) and many other health risks that include heart, stomach, intestinal and colorectal diseases (Barber, 2020). Put differently, dietary fibre intake correlates negatively with mortality (higher fibre intake means lower death risk).
The reason is that the microorganisms in our digestive system use dietary fibre to control our appetite, metabolic processes and chronic inflammatory pathways.
As said earlier when discussing the Mediterranean diet, depression increases when inflammation increases. Hence, you should take more dietary fibre even if you are not adopting the Mediterranean diet.
2e) A Case Study
Here is a case that shows us what a bad diet can do to our mental and physical health. In a study done by Aucoin and Bhardwaj in 2016, the client, AB is a 15-year-old female who presented with concerns of generalized anxiety disorder and hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar level) symptoms.
She used to intake mainly carbohydrates during her meals. The addition of protein, fat, and fibre to her diet resulted in a substantial decrease in anxiety symptoms as well as a decrease in the frequency and severity of hypoglycaemia symptoms.
A brief return to her previous diet caused a return of her anxiety symptoms, followed by improvement when she restarted the prescribed diet. This shows that her diet was linked to her symptoms.
Moral of the story?
To help mental health, you should adopt a balanced diet consisting of (1) protein mainly from meat and legumes, (2) minerals and vitamins mainly from fruits and vegetables, (3) unsaturated fatty acids mainly from seeds and nuts, and (4) carbohydrate mainly from whole grains. Of course, what help mental health can be good for physical health too.
3) What Help Mental Health？Environment
No one lives in a vacuum. Many of us have family, friends and colleagues. Moreover, we come into contact with pollutants in the air, water and soil, and we live in a house or apartment. Find out these environmental factors’ effects on mental health here:
3a) Relative Deprivation Theory – More Relatively Deprived, Less Mentally Well
Lacking food is of course troubling. However according to a study in 2021, it was how much more lacking compared to other people around the individual that was negatively related to his or her psychological functioning (regardless whether he or she was young or old). It was found that being more relatively deprived was linked to more mental health symptoms, lower positive well-being and lower life satisfaction. It is a case of “hunger amid plenty hurts more than hunger alone.”
Moreover, mental health problems were worse in relatively better-off countries. In other words, being poor in a city full of billionaires makes one feel lousier than in a place full of beggars.
To improve your sense of well-being, you should stop comparing, and instead start living. Or you can consider moving to a poorer place and flaunt your wealth there (a joke to relax your tension).
3b) Environmental Improvements Ensure Mental Well-being?
People who moved to East Village (the previous London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Athletes’ Village) lived closer to their nearest park, in more walkable areas, and had better access to public transport, compared with people who continued to live in their original homes. From a study by Ram, it was found that living in East Village was associated with marked improvements in neighbourhood perceptions but there was no overall effect on mental health and well-being outcomes. Are you surprised?
The reason is that people can still feel anxious and empty in their safe and well-furnished palace located in a beautiful garden. Hence, you should crave less for materials, and start caring about more meaningful things and people.
3c) Deteriorating Climate. Worsening Mental Health
Mental health impacts come from three types of climate-related events: (1) acute events such as hurricanes, floods, and wildfires, (2) subacute or long-term changes such as drought and heat stress, and (3) the existential threat of long-lasting changes, including higher temperatures, rising sea levels and a permanently altered and potentially uninhabitable physical environment.
Between 25% and 50% of those exposed to extreme weather events will experience negative mental health outcomes (Palinkas, 2020). Extended heat waves and droughts can further burden those with underlying mental illnesses. In the long term, poor countries will continue suffer economically from climate change much more than rich countries. Young people, including those living in high-income countries, are believed to be especially vulnerable to the existential threat associated with climate change. There will be a sense of despair and hopelessness associated with a bleak future amidst a worsening climate.
Evidence proved that climate problems are not to be ignored because your mental well-being depends on them. Therefore, you should protect your outer world, not just your inner world.
Moral of the story?
To help mental health, you should adopt an enlightened view of life, live in a comfortable environment (need not be luxurious), and do your part to protect the environment.
What entail “an enlightened view of life”? Look out for our next article on this topic.
In short…
You can improve your mental health by doing some things differently in small steps although not every factor can be controlled. Exercise, diet and environment are factors that you can control to some extent.
All the best for your attempt to lead a new and better lifestyle. If you want to start learning to take control of your mental health, you may contact me.