EP 305 — If I Could Give Everyone 10 Rules for Better Mental Health, They Would Be These

If I could leave everyone with just ten pieces of advice for protecting and improving their mental health, these would be them. In this episode, we explore ten simple but powerful psychological principles that can help you build greater resilience, manage difficult emotions, strengthen your relationships, and create a healthier mindset over time. From learning to stop believing every thought you have to protecting your sleep, choosing the right people, asking for help sooner, and building a life you don’t constantly need to escape from, this episode brings together some of the most important lessons from psychology and therapy into one practical guide for looking after your mental wellbeing.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to and how does that make you feel an Awaken podcast? I'm Jack, therapist and founder of Awaken Online Therapy. And honestly, over the years I've been asked countless versions of the same question. What's the secret to good mental health? And honestly, there isn't one. Mental health is shaped by so many things: biology, life experiences, relationship, stress, physical health, our environment. There isn't a set of rules that guarantees happiness. But after years of working with people and studying psychology, there are principles that seem to come up again and again. They're not quick fixes, they're habits and ways of thinking that quietly make people more psychologically resilient over time. So if someone asks me what are the ten most important things everyone should know about looking after their mental health, these would probably be my answers. Firstly, stop trying to eliminate difficult emotions. Let's start with what I think is one of the biggest misconceptions around mental health. People think mentally healthy people don't feel anxious, sad, stressed, overwhelmed, angry, or disappointed. But they do. The difference is that they don't panic when those emotions arrive. One of the biggest causes of suffering isn't the emotion itself, it's our resistance to it. Think about anxiety. Someone feels anxious and immediately thinks, why am I anxious? I shouldn't feel like this. What's wrong with me? Now they're anxious about being anxious, and the emotion grows. One of the healthiest shifts you can make is learning to say this emotion is uncomfortable, but it isn't dangerous. Because emotions are visitors. Some stay longer than we'd like, but they all eventually leave. Your goal isn't to never feel difficult emotions, your goal is to become someone who knows they can survive them. Secondly, protect your sleep like your mental health depends on it. Because honestly, it often does. I've seen people convince themselves they're depressed, failing, emotionally unstable, when in reality they've been sleeping five hours a night for three months. Now, of course, poor sleep doesn't explain every mental health difficulty, but it makes almost every mental health difficulty harder. When you're exhausted, you're more emotionally reactive, less patient, more anxious, less resilient, and less able to regulate your emotions. It's like trying to run a marathon carrying someone on your back. Everything becomes harder. So before assuming your mind is broken, ask yourself, have I actually been looking after my brain? Because your brain is an organ, and tired organs, they just don't function well. Third, your thoughts are not always telling you the truth. This one changed my life when I first truly understood it. Just because you think something doesn't make it true. Your brain produces thousands of thoughts every single day. Some are very useful, some are complete nonsense. Imagine believing every thought your brain ever produced. You'd spend your life in chaos. Yet that's exactly what many of us do. We think no one likes me, I'm going to fail, I'm not good enough. And instead of questioning those thoughts, we treat them like facts. One of the healthiest habits you can build is asking, is this thought actually true, or does it simply feel true right now? That tiny question creates space, and sometimes space is all your mind needs. Fourth, your environment shapes you more than your motivation. We spend far too much time trying to become more motivated. But honestly, your environment usually beats your motivation. If your bedroom is chaotic, your phone is constantly distracting you, you never leave the house, you surround yourself with negativity, eventually your mental health will probably reflect that environment. Now think about the opposite. Natural light, movement, good people, a tidy space, healthy routines. None of those things are going to solve every problem, but together they quietly support your mind every single day. Don't underestimate the power of changing your environment. Sometimes changing your surroundings is easier than trying to force yourself to think differently. Fifth, choose your relationships very carefully. This is one of the biggest lessons therapy has taught me. The people around you influence your mental health far more than you probably realize. Think about someone who constantly criticizes you, creates drama, drains your energy, makes you question yourself. Now compare that to someone who listens, encourages you, makes you laugh, accepts you. Your nervous system is going to notice the difference. Good relationships don't remove suffering, but they make suffering easier to carry. Bad relationships often create suffering that never needed to exist in the first place. So protect the people who protect your peace. Sixth, stop comparing your life to other people's highlight reels. Comparison has probably become one of the biggest thieves of mental health. Every day we compare careers, relationships, bodies, houses, holidays, achievements. But here's the problem. We're comparing our ordinary Tuesday to someone else's best five minutes. You never see the arguments, the loneliness, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the failures. You only see what people choose to show you. And eventually your brain starts believing everyone else has figured life out except me. But guess what they haven't? They really haven't. Everyone is carrying something you cannot see. Remember that before you decide your life is somehow behind. Seventh, move your body even when you don't feel like it. Notice I didn't say exercise to lose weight, I said move. Because movement isn't just physical health care, it's also mental health care. Whether that's walk, swim, cycle, stretch, dance, lifting weights, playing football, do whatever works for you. Movement changes your physiology, and when your physiology changes, your psychology often follows it. I've lost count of how many clients have said I didn't want to go for a walk, but I feel better now. Movement is not punishment, it's medicine. Eighth, build a life you don't constantly need escaping from. This one is difficult because many people spend their lives looking forward to Friday, holidays, retirement. They're constantly escaping their everyday life. Now obviously we all need breaks, but if every single week you're counting down until you don't have to live your current life, that's worth paying attention to. So ask yourself what small changes would make my ordinary Tuesday feel a little bit better? Because your life is mostly made up of ordinary Tuesdays, not holidays, not birthdays, not milestones. Your mental health is shaped by your everyday life, not just your biggest moments. Ninth, ask for help earlier than you think you need it. This is something I wish more people understood. People often wait until they feel completely overwhelmed before reaching out. Imagine doing that with physical health. Imagine ignoring chest pain until you collapse. We would not recommend that. Yet we often do it psychologically. We think I'll deal with it, I'll push through, other people have it worse, until eventually everything becomes much harder to untangle. Asking for help is not weakness, it's maintenance. Whether that's a friend, a family member, a therapist, your GP, a support group, you don't have to earn support by suffering enough first. And tenth, your mental health is built in the small moments. I wanted to finish with this one because I genuinely believe it's the most important. People often think transformation happens through one huge decision, one life-changing book, one breakthrough, one therapy session. Sometimes those moments happen, but more often mental health is built quietly. It's built when you go to bed instead of doom scrolling, when you call your friend instead of isolating yourself, going for a walk, eating the meal, saying no when you're overwhelmed. None of those moments seem extraordinary, but together they become your life, and that's something I think people underestimate. The quality of your life is often the result of ordinary choices repeated consistently, not extraordinary choices made occasionally. So if you do take one thing from today's episode, let it be this. Good mental health isn't something you arrive at, it's something you practice. It isn't about becoming someone who never struggles, it's about becoming someone who knows how to respond when life inevitably becomes difficult. Because life will challenge you, people will disappoint you, plans will fall apart, you'll lose things, you'll make mistakes. That's part of being human. The goal isn't building a life where none of those things happen. The goal is building a mind that's capable of navigating it. And if you can remember these ten principles not perfectly but consistently, I genuinely believe you'll give yourself a much stronger psychological foundation than most people ever intentionally build. So be patient with yourself. Your mental health isn't built overnight, it's built in the decisions you make today and tomorrow and the day after that. One small choice at a time. As always, thank you so much for listening. And if you have found this podcast useful, feel free to rate us five stars on your streaming platform of choice or even share it with a friend. It really does help us reach more people. I've been Jack, and this has been And How Does That Make You Feel an Awakened Podcast, and I'll see you on the next one.