139: How to Improve Your Mental Health: 10 Simple Wellness Habits

We are talking about 10 simple, realistic “micro-wellness” habits to support mental health without feeling overwhelmed. Often wellness habits are suggested as large, complicated tasks to be completed at a set time and schedule. 

Today we are emphasizing starting small and acting right away. Wellness habits are not a replacement for therapy, but they are a fantastic way to increase your daily wellness. 

Join us on the Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast as we discuss:

• What are the 6 pillars of mental health
• What are the 10 micro tools to increase your mental wellness
• Discover the 1% Mental Wellness Challenge

00:00 Welcome and Episode Goal

00:45 Start Small Mindset

02:15 Six Pillars Overview

05:04 Therapy Disclaimer

05:46 Micro Wellness Concept

09:51 Body Micro Habits

14:51 Thoughts and Emotions Tools

18:56 Gratitude Practice

21:14 Boundaries and Energy

23:03 Connection and Relationships

24:26 Music for Regulation

28:00 One Percent Challenge Wrap

31:58 Closing and Share

Please note this podcast is not a substitute for mental health therapy or seeing your physician. Please see a qualified professional if you think you have mental health struggles. 

Get your Downloadable copy of How to Choose Your Right Therapist

https://go.feedyoursoulunlimited.com/choosetherapist-completeguide

Here are some links we discussed:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/136-the-missing-pieces-of-mental-health-6-pillars/id1473042304?i=1000772847927

 Connect with Kim

Therapy: https://feedyoursoultherapy.com/

Coaching: https://feedyoursoulunlimited.com/

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTuSnNrSDhLvbhxoTMXZgog

Kim McLaughlin, MA

Kim McLaughlin is a psychotherapist. coach, speaker, and author. She helps people who feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and overloaded, and it shows up in feeling unsatisfied in your life. She has a Master of Arts Degree in Clinical Psychology. Kim is a certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, helping people to gain peace with food. 

We would love to get your feedback on this show and let us know what you would like to hear about in upcoming shows. Email us at info@FeedYourSoulUnlimited.com

Thank you for listening.

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast. If you're looking to feel better in your life and want to feed your soul, you are in the right place. I'm Kim McLaughlin, I'm your host. I'm a psychotherapist, I'm a coach, author, and speaker, and here we believe life just doesn't have to be so hard. Today in the podcast, we're talking about 10 simple, realistic wellness habits that you can use to support your mental health, and we're gonna encourage you to choose one or a couple to try right after this podcast is done. 'Cause you know we like to get into action and have do-ables that you can do right now. So I wanna start with the idea that what I'm going to tell you is not new. This is not gonna be revolutionary to you or mind-blowing. It's going to be things that you already know, that you've already heard of, and what I suspect- Is that you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that you've gotten about wellness, and the kind of different viewpoints on how long you should do things, how many times, what's the best way of doing it? And we're gonna just break through that and get to something that really is doable and that you can do. We hear people say what you're supposed to have done. You're s- you're supposed to exercise, you're supposed to journal, you're supposed to meditate, you're supposed to sleep more, you're supposed to set boundaries, blah, blah, blah. And I say that lovingly because it can feel overwhelming. And so what we're gonna talk about today is how to start small. How to sm- start small because what we tend t- to do is go all in and make it this big project, this big journey that we're on, this big thing that we have to achieve. And I wanna talk about making this really doable and manageable and literally having a very quick impact on your life. So let's go through some ideas first before I give you the 10 habits that you can try. Your... What we know is that your mental health is influenced by the things that you do, by the behaviors, by your habits, by your thoughts. And we've talked about this before, what I call the six pillars of mental health, and they're actually in a previous podcast called one of our podcasts called The Missing Pieces of Mental Health: 6 Pillars That Can Actually Help. So I'm gonna link that, that episode in the show notes so that you can go back and listen to that because I think it will really dovetail into what we're gonna talk about today. So let's just go over and make sure that you all know what the six pillars are. The first pillar is physical health, and that involves your physical mo- body. It's about food, it's about movement, it's about sleep, it's about how your body works. The next pillar is your emotional health, and that's about how your nervous system regulates the emotions that you have, the stress that you're under, the things that go on emotionally within you. The third pillar is about your thoughts and your mental challenges, the things that you think that really create a life sometimes that feels horrible and your thoughts can sometimes be your worst enemy, and that's the third pillar. The fourth pillar is what I call lifestyle, and those are the things you do on a daily basis: going to work, going to school, having a routine, the things that go on with your family, the things that you might do on the weekend, the holidays. All of the things that have to do with lifestyle really fit in that pillar. The next pillar, the fifth one, is called mindfulness, and that is about being in touch with what you really want what your intuition tells you to do, what... maybe what your higher power or whatever that higher purpose you have, whatever name that goes by, what is that like for you, and how are you engaging with that? And the sixth pillar is called self-love, and I like to say that self-love could have been first, but I think... where actually most people generally argue with me and say, "It's not first" then... And what I find is that when we come back to being more in touch with that idea of self-love, that you actually feel better. When you engage more in loving yourself, you feel better. Listen to that, all of that, on the, the podcast Missing Pieces of Mental Health: 6 Pillars That Actually Help on the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast, and I think that will give you some more ideas in addition to what we're talking about today. So I wanna start with this kinda disclaimer is that wellness habits are not a replacement for therapy. They're- they don't take the place of therapy, and I think it's important to determine when therapy is needed because you can't do a tool, a wellness tool, and help yourself out of a really deep spot that, that is really challenging for you. So I want to encourage you that if you're finding that tools and habits are not helping you, it's really the time to look for some outside support with mental health, with therapy, with some kind of licensed mental health professional. It's something that I would really encourage you to do to address something if it becomes a bigger issue, let's address that Another point I wanna talk about before we get into the 10 wellness habits is I wanna introduce the idea of what we're calling a micro-wellness. Micro-wellness. Sometimes what people do, I talked about this earlier, is that they think that they have to go all in and make a big plan and just go in and do it, and I think that ends up being really hard, and we end up sabotaging it. And as I was thinking of this concept, I thought of the idea of dieting. It's like dieting, where you say, "I wanna lose weight," and you go all in and you change everything, and everything's new, and then there's a point where it feels good, and then there's a point where it feels overwhelming. And I think having wellness be this larger project, like something like dieting, it doesn't work. Actually, dieting doesn't work, and we talk that a lot in our other podcast episodes. So I wanna lean into the idea of doing a micro-habit, a little thing, and when we add these little things, they add up to something bigger. So instead of dieting we do something where we change something in our eating style that would then help us. Instead of dieting we talk in our podcast about starting when you're hungry, noticing your hunger and really engaging in that hunger aspect and really leaning into that. So that's one thing you could do instead of dieting. Another idea is that instead of this large goal of or a large habit of I need to exercise every day, you can do something like I'm gonna take a 10-minute walk today. Just walk outside. I even like the one break it down even further, where I'm gonna take a walk around the block. So you make it a smaller habit, a smaller wellness habit the micro-habit that we were just talking about. Another idea is instead of saying, "I'm gonna meditate for 30 minutes every day," doing something like I encourage people to do is to while you're washing your hands, feel the water on your hands. Feel the water and feel yourself centered in that idea of the water on your hands, and just feel that. Or while you're washing your hands, which you probably do a couple of times a day, is also take a deep breath and just notice the breath coming in as you're doing that. And so you become more intentional of engaging in these habits at little points throughout the day. Instead of journaling every day I'm gonna write down one feeling in my one feeling that I had today and write that in your daily planner. So it becomes this idea of having something consistent that you do on a regular basis- Rather than having to be perfect or rather than having to have this large goal, this large thing that you're leaning into. I really wanna encourage you to do that as we talk and move into the idea of our 10 wellness tools or 10 micro tools that we're gonna talk about. I think when we talk about these 10 tools, we can talk about putting them together in kind of these basic ideas. When you listen back on that podcast about the six pillars of mental health, each pillar, it depends on which pillar you want to lean into, that then you could actually choose which wellness tools you might want to utilize to help with that mental health challenge or that, that pillar that is really feeling out of balance. the first pillar we have is about your body. So what can be some things that you can do that would be this micro habit, this micro wellness that you could engage with around your body? One way, one thing to do is get some kind of movement, and that means taking a walk outside. Literally, as I said earlier, walking around the block, five minutes. Walking out, I've done this, where I'll walk down the street. I've... It's like, "I've gotta get out of here. I've gotta go do something." So I'll walk down the street to pick up the mail. It takes five minutes, 10 minutes at the most. It's not that far away. But it gets me out of the house. It gets me walking. It gets my feet on the ground, and it's a micro wellness tool, a micro way of moving into my wellness. Another thing that we do in relations to our body, besides having some kind of physical movement, is breathing. I think this is one of the ones that is really not practiced very often, and it's one of the tools that have the most profound effect on your body, mind, spirit. Breathing is something we do all throughout the day. All throughout the day, you do it. Day and night, you breathe. And what we're talking about with this tool, this micro wellness tool, is to focus on a breath. One breath. Breathe in and feel that breath and breathe out I'm not talking about doing them 10, 10 of them in order. I'm not talking about doing it for 10 minutes. I'm not even talking about doing it for one minute. But one mindful, body-focused breath where you can feel yourself reconnected in your body is very intentional, and it moves us into our wellness. Another t- tool that I think is also put to the wayside and not seen as important as it really is sleep and how you can get sleep. We talk about having to have eight hours of sleep. You have to sleep soundly throughout the night, and I don't know that many people have that anymore, at least not the people I talk to. But there are things to do that really help more be in that regulated sleep, this restorative sleep, like keeping your bedroom... A wellness tool around sleep is having your bedroom cool, having your bed cool. Those we know increase the likelihood of deeper sleep, of more sound sleep. Having a regular bedtime. You could just focus on that as your micro-wellness tool is I go to bed, I go to bed at 10:30, asleep by 11:00. That's it. It- I don't stay up later. I have found that's really my sweet spot, and I've found that when I do that every night, I feel better. It is one of my micro-wellness tools that I do more often than not, and I find that it works. So leaning into the something around sleep is really helpful. Another one around the body and wellness is sunlight. Getting out in the sun. One of the things I've been listening to more about is the idea of getting out in the first morning light, getting out in the sun. I haven't done that yet. That's, I like to sleep in more than I like to get up at when the sun comes up, so that's kind of my thing. So I tend to go out later in the day. I was just out before I did this podcast. I was outside. We have a turtle, a tortoise, Tutti, the desert tortoise, and I needed to move her out so she could walk around a little bit out in the sun and get some food. So I was out there with Tutti, and I know for myself I need to have those blocks of sunlight during the day because they're so critical to my wellness. It gets me out in the sun. It gets my body feeling more lively. I'm then walking around a little bit. I'm engaging with our desert tortoise, Tutti. I am feeling better because I'm just engaged in this activity that is outside in the sun. I wasn't out there for a half hour. I was out there for about 10 minutes. So once again, this becomes that micro wellness tool, that little thing that you do that can all add together to this overall sense of wellbeing and wellness. So those are the first what... I talked about four tools right there. Let's go into some other tools that... So those tools were some that help with the body. Obviously, they help with other areas, but they focus on the body. Let's talk about some other tools that help us move through our thoughts and emotions. Those are our some of our pillars, the thoughts that we have that really take us down and the emotions that we have that really take us down. One of the things that I personally find really helpful with my wellness is journaling. And if you've listened to me talk or read any of my blogs, you know I talk about this often when I talk about my personal plan, what I do. What can become hard is that there becomes this idea that I don't like to talk. I... Or I'm sorry, I don't like to write. I don't wanna write. I don't wanna sit down. You're gonna make me write for a half hour. You're gonna make me write about things that are uncomfortable. And I don't think it has to be that hard. And when we're talking about journaling as a micro wellness tool, a way to... a little way to get started, there are things you could do. Like we talked about in the beginning of the podcast where you write down your feeling every day and you put it in your your journal or your your daily planner. Put a app I know people that will do an app on their phone and just do an app and say, "I felt happy today. I felt excited today. Today I'm feeling accomplished because I'm getting the podcast done and I get to talk to all of you." So writing down how you feel is moving in the direction of using that wellness tool in a way that helps you. So make it a micro movement. Journaling doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be hard, and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Do something little. One sentence, this is how I felt today. I know some people that will do, in their journal they'll do one thing that they're thankful for today, one thing that they're thankful for, that they're grateful for, and write that down. And what that does is it gets it out of your head, it gets it on the paper, and it gets to be a way where you can have a way of reflecting and going, "Oh, there it is. I'm putting it to the paper and I'm acknowledging what's going on." Another tool, micro tool that I once again personally use is engaging in more mindfulness. And we talked about this also at the beginning of the podcast. To me, doing something with water, I love using water on my hands, so I will... When I'm at the faucet, I will feel the water on my hands. Sometimes I like the cold water, and I'll feel what that feels like on my hands as I wash my hands. I will sometimes use warm water. I understand about germs and cleaning your hands properly. I get that. I'm talking about how to do this as a mindful way to be reconnected with your body. 'Cause often what we will hear is the only way to be mindful is to sit cross-legged with your, thumb and finger together doing a, a mantra for an hour, and that's just not true. It doesn't have to be that hard. You don't have to go that long. But if we engage in these little mindfulness practices throughout the day, you will start feeling better because you have more things that you're doing throughout the day that supports you, mind, body, spirit, in that wellness idea that we're talking about. Washing your hands, feeling the water on your hands, feeling the soap, smelling, having a nice-smelling soap and smell what that smells like. Then afterwards, put some lotion on your hands. Feel what that feels like. Feel the lotion on your hands, and then smell it. That... Those are things I personally do and love, and it brings more awareness into your body, into your nose, into your feeling in your hands so that you are more centered and more grounded, and that's one of the things we're looking for when we're engaging in these practices, these wellness tools, is that we feel more centered inside of ourselves. The seventh idea that I have for a wellness tool and I know it can be overused, but I think it's pretty valuable, is being in more gratitude I don't know that we do this enough, and I have challenged myself in various places to engage in more gratitude because it really does uplift me and make me feel better. It leads me to feel better. And it's not about pretending that everything's fine. "Oh, it's all right. Oh, it's okay." No, this is really saying, what is good? What am I grateful for today? And as I was thinking about this today, about the idea of gratitude, I remember a long time ago, there was a really big earthquake in California, in northern California, and where I lived, the water and the gas went out. And it took them a day or two to fix it. And I remember when I had my first shower after not having water for a few days, and I s- I stood there in the shower and I go, "I feel so grateful for this water." It was... It's a basic thing that comes out of the faucet here in where I live. It's basic. It comes out. But I was so grateful, and it really reminded me of how I can be grateful for things that I expect to happen. I'm grateful that the water came, and I can be in that gratitude, and that then helps me be in that more positive, flow, wellness sense. And then I add all of those together, and I start feeling better and better. That's a really easy one to try. I connected it earlier with the idea of journaling, and you can do one-sentence journal about one thing that you're grateful for today, and you could do that daily. Just, "I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for that." And just be intentional about it. It doesn't even have to be in writing. You could just say it to yourself. Say it to somebody. I know people that will do that at the dinner table is they'll say one thing that they're grateful for before they eat. And it's a great way to have this routine of being in gratitude. Another the eighth wellness, micro wellness tool that I thought of that, once again, I talk about a lot is boundaries. For me, boundaries are critical, and as I learn more and more, I learn how important they are. And also, I am not so bold to say that I've got it down and I have all of it figured out about how to engage in boundaries. But I try to get better and to challenge myself to wonder if I need more boundaries. And some ideas of boundaries are saying no to the things that are a no. "No, I don't wanna do that. No, I don't wanna do that." I tell people that if I say yes to going to do something, if I'm going to do it, it's a heck yes. Because I have learned to lean into my time is important, what I do is valuable, my energy is important, and I'm going to say yes to things that are heck yeses. And I say a lot, yes to a lot of things. Tonight, I'm going to mahjong. I texted a friend last night, "Yes, I'm in for mahjong," 'cause I really wanna go. I like the people, I like what we do together, it's super fun, and so I'm going to mahjong tonight. I said yes. And you know that when I say a no, it's 'cause it just doesn't fit for me. And it's not personal. It's not necessarily about whoever the person is. It's just it doesn't fit for me. And this ends up protecting my energy, protecting my time, and making sure that I am in... the things that I do are in alignment with what's right for me. And then I'm practicing wellness. I'm engaging in those wellness tools. The ninth wellness tool that I wanna talk about is the idea of making connections and being in relationship, and knowing who are your people and who would you like to talk to? Who would you like to be around? I think this also can dovetail beautifully in with the boundaries. Who would I like to spend time with? What would I like to do with them? And I know that can seem big and overwhelming because I'm s- I'm talking about micro wellness tools, doing little things, and this can feel like a big thing. So what's some little things you can do about connection? One of the things I like to do is when I go to the grocery store and I'm buying something, I literally make it my business to look at the person and I look at their eyes and I say, "Hi. Good morning, good afternoon," whichever it is, "Thank you for helping me." I really look at them and acknowledge them and I c- really I'm acknowledging their humanity. And I do that and I make it a point because I wanna know that they know I'm here with them, that I am in gratitude for their service of what they're doing to help me buy the things that I need for my life. And I think that's one really easy way to make a connection, is to have that eye-to-eye contact where you put the phone down, you put all the things down, and you look at the person you're talking about and you say, "Hello. It's good to see you. How are you doing?" They're simple and they're profound The last one, the last micro wellness tool I wanna talk to you about is how to engage more with music. And when I thought about this being the 10th wellness tool, it made me happy because it's not the one I lean into as much as I'd like to. And I used to be the person who listened to music a lot, and for lots of reason, that's just escaped me. And it's something that every time I listen to some music, I feel good. It just makes me feel good. How can we make this a micro wellness tool? Listen in your car. Turn on something that you like. I actually prefer when I'm using music as my wellness tool is to lean into either a CD or listen on a Spotify channel to a certain musician that I like. And that makes me happy because it's not about whatever kind of is top 40 kind of things. It's about, more about a certain genre or a certain artist that I get to listen to, and that makes me really happy. The music, the intentionality around it, you could do it where, I actually wanna hook up our speakers downstairs in the kitchen and have music more often because I really enjoy it. It makes me feel good. And maybe I'll s- just go... My wellness tool will be putting up the, the speaker and connecting it so that I can listen to music down in the kitchen because that really does give me pleasure. I've also been leaning into bilateral sound. In my therapy work, I help people using a process called brain spotting, which helps people reregulate in their body and their mind. And one of the c- the components of brain spotting is listening to bilateral sound, and I have some bilateral sound. And I just like to put it on repeat. And I just put it in my ear so I can just have it low, in the background, and it engages my brain in a really positive way, especially like if it's the sound of the ocean, if it's the sound of critters outside. That makes me really happy. The other thing I did recently with music is I went to a fun night at my yoga studio with, It was music bingo. Oh, we laughed, we sang. I sang so much. It was so much fun. All I had to do is say, "Yes, I really wanna go to this." I went to music bingo. I had so much fun. And so I get reminded when I do those things about how much Music is a part of my wellness tool, and all I have to do is turn it on. Seriously, it's that easy. All I have to do is turn it on, and it makes me feel good. It makes me feel happy, it makes me feel joyful, and it makes me feel centered. And those are things... And also it makes me feel really connected to my body. Regulating my body through music is really good. So those are 10 different tools, 10 different wellness tools, and we use them in a micro way, in a small way, that add up to something big and really profound that can help your life. So I hope you try one of those. There are many more. There are hundreds more, I know that. I just wanted to give you a list of 10 that you could really do once we end this podcast. You could do one of these 10 micro tools and You'll feel better. You'll feel better. It will help you. It might not be the first time, but if you keep engaging in these micro tools and you just make it a part of a habit when I wake up, I talk about, I think about what I'm grateful for. When I wash my hands, I feel the water on my skin and feel connected, and I take a deep breath. I walk to get my mail, and I feel the sunshine on my brain, on my face. I turn on music when I'm in the room, right? You could see how you could just make these things part of a routine, and then you start having this opportunity for more and more wellness in your life Why I'm saying all of that is I don't want you to turn wellness into a thing that you're failing at, that you're not doing it right, that you're not doing it enough, that you're not being successful at it. And so I thought of some questions you could start asking yourself. Or what... Really the big question is, what do I need right now? What do I need right now? And let's make your... a micro wellness tool. Not a huge thing. I have to write for an hour. I have to meditate for an hour. I have to go to the gym for an hour. Ugh. One deep breath. What do I need right now? I'll do sometimes where I'll just go I take a deep breath, I hold it for a couple of seconds, and then I release it, and then I feel myself just loosen up. That helps a lot. So really leaning into what do I need right now and focus on that. I like this as, as I was thinking of this, the last thing I wanted to talk about is I can't... I thought about this idea of this 1% mental wellness channels. Just do one thing. 1%... Just one. One thing. Don't do all 10, just pick one And do that. If you're gonna say, "What's a small thing I could do to support my mental health? What's one small thing I could do?" And do that. And tomorrow do the same thing, and ask, "What's one small s- thing I can do?" And then maybe later on in the day, "What's one small thing I can do?" Start doing the one small thing, and it becomes this opportunity for they're just what you do. I told you, when I wash my hands, I love feeling the f- the feeling of water on my skin. I just do that now, and it makes me feel really good. It makes me feel centered. I go out and take the tortoise. I take Tutti out so she can get some food and she can walk around. It helps everybody. So I encourage you to try that 1% mental wellness challenge where you're just trying one thing. Just try one thing and see how that goes. Leave us some comments in the in the comment section and let us know what you're doing. I love to hear what people are doing and practicing towards their wellness. I hope you get something valuable out of this today, and I hope you're able to really lean into that idea of micro-wellness a little bit. And just lean into that and see what you come up with. I'm so go- glad you listen to the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast. It makes me really happy to know that we're having this effect on people. If this show helped you, please forward it to a friend. Tell your friends about our podcast. I share other people's podcasts with friends because I think they need to know about them. So if these wellness tools help you, if this podcast help you, please share it with a friend. I would really appreciate it. Until next time, I'm Kim McLaughlin with the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast. I look forward to talking to you really soon. Bye everyone.