5 Useful Strategies to Improve Your Mental Health in Tough Times

I get it. You’re tired. I’m tired. We’re all tired.

Whatever you feel the need to do to get by right now, do it.

I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to make some suggestions for things you could to not just improve your mental health during current times, but all times.

My goal for myself and for you is to come out of this period in time even stronger than before. Not in some corny cheesy way, but seriously.

If you can come out of these times even slightly ahead, you’re on a trajectory to do even more throughout your lifetime.

Let’s take a look at some habits, strategies, and concepts that can help you improve your mental health.

Stay Informed, To a Point

Recently, I’ve been breaking my cardinal rule of avoiding the news at all costs. These days, it’s pretty much impossible. You have no choice to be at least somewhat informed, but it’s important to know when it’s time to pump the breaks.

When it comes to making decisions, I use a simple rule of thumb. Is this decision useful or is it counterproductive?

From a mental health standpoint, keeping your eyes glued to negativity, true tragedies, and outrage on the news can be useful in that certain problems can’t be solved without awareness of those problems, but this process leads to diminishing returns pretty fast.

That’s my beef with the news.

I want to be informed and I know the value of information, but so much of the news is designed to do the opposite — create confusion, division, and outage. It’s literally not profitable to focus on creating positive emotions and the media has every incentive to gaslight you and take advantage of tragedy.

Every time I take the bait, I never come out the other end feeling like I’ve gained anything. Ask yourself, do you gain anything? Do you actually help anyone? Or are you just left spinning your wheels?

You see something happen in the news that makes you sad, upset, or angry. Maybe you post on social media about it, talk with friends to process it, or even hit the streets to protest — all things that…