Habits can be super helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle – except for when they’re bad ones. Did you know that some of your seemingly mundane daily habits could actually be harming your mental health? Here they are!
Poor Posture
Did you know that posture can affect our mental health? According to a study published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, just sitting up straight can reduce symptoms of depression. Good posture also improves self-esteem and mood levels! If slouching is a daily habit for you, try focusing on improving your posture and see what effect it has.
Excessive Social Media Use
Your 6:00 am alarm goes off. Better roll over and check the gram! This is an action that’s probably true for many of us and a behavior that repeats itself throughout the entire day. There’s an abundance of research that shows the detriments of excessive social media use on mental health. It’s easy to feel down about your life when you are scrolling through everyone else’s highlight reel. Try taking a break from social media (or at least cut the use down by 50%) and see how it effects your anxiety levels.
Complaining/Negativity
It’s healthy to express yourself, even if you’re feeling frustrated or upset, but negative thought patterns can be destructive. Fostering these negative thoughts can create a failure mindset, however, which can interfere with your ability to succeed. Thoughts and feelings of failure inflict terrible damage on mental health, leading to anxiety and depression. Negative thoughts discourage you from setting goals, diminish the value of your natural talents, and magnify your missteps.
Procrastination
The longer you put off doing a task, the more anxious you’re going to feel about doing it. When it comes to completing tasks, ripping the bandaid off and just doing it will do wonders for lowering your stress and anxiety levels. Before going after a task, get yourself in the right state of mind by engaging in a mood boosting activity like working out or listening to music.
Taking Pictures Of Everything
Part of the reason we take so many pictures is to capture incredible moments. Ironically, in doing so, we tend to miss out on experiencing it. According to a study in Psychological Science, randomly taking pictures instead of focusing on the present may negatively affect how you remember a moment.
