Here's how to improve your mental fitness

Consider two people standing at the base of a mountain. Both have the same goal – to get to the top.

One is physically fit and the other hasn’t exercised in years. For the fit person, the journey will probably be fairly easy, while the unfit person will struggle.

It’s the same with mental fitness, say experts.

“Physical fitness means being able to tolerate the muscle strain and cardio requirements of exercise,” explains Lauren Moss, a counselling psychologist from Sandton. “In the same way, mental fitness is the ability to not become debilitatingly overwhelmed by the stress of everyday life.”

Keeping mentally fit is challenging, especially in today’s world, she says.

“Nowadays there are so many options for everything – television on demand, online shopping, even dating is reduced to swiping left or right – so we may feel like we don’t need to develop or maintain mental fitness for persevering through things that take patience or are uncomfortable,” Moss says.

Just as it’s easy to opt for the couch and Netflix rather than exercise, it’s also easy to feed negative thoughts and behaviour patterns that ultimately add to being mentally unfit, says Canadian psychologist Andrew Miki.

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“The more we feed negative thoughts and behaviours, the more likely they will occur. This is due to the neuroplasticity of our brains,” Miki says. 

“Science has proven that as humans we have an enormous capacity to constantly rewire our brains throughout our lives. Thoughts that evoke certain emotions cluster together via neural pathways. This means that every time we allow a negative thought to repeat, it strengthens.”

Mental fitness is about being resilient and having a positive sense of who we are and how we feel, think and act. While some people are naturally more resilient or more positive than others, it’s possible for everyone to improve their mental fitness.

Neuroscience research has shown that the mind can be trained – but of course it takes time, practice and consistency. 

Here’s what you can do to keep your mental game strong.

Strengthen your emotional regulation

Emotional regulation – control over your emotional state so that your nervous system doesn’t become overwhelmed – can be strengthened by things like deep breathing and exercise.

“Practising these activities have been shown to improve mental fitness,” Moss says. “Learning to slow your breathing, focusing on longer out breaths and taking belly breaths (diaphragmatic breathing) all aid in better emotional regulation, which will lead to a better tolerance of uncomfortable situations.”

This is particularly helpful when it comes to feelings of anger, resentment and disappointment.

Work your mindfulness muscle 

“If you can improve your brain’s ability to be mindful you will improve your mental fitness,” says Moss. 

She says mindfulness practices can include inward-focused practices such as mindfulness meditation or outward practices such as being still and focusing on the world around you through your five senses. 

“I would also suggest journaling as a regular practice – it allows one to connect with what is going on and doing so can help you develop a tolerance for uncomfortable emotions or thoughts that emerge.”

Don’t sweat uncomfortable situations

We don’t enjoy situations that are uncomfortable or possibly overwhelming, but they do present opportunities to improve your mental fitness. Learning to tolerate uncomfortable feelings is really what mental fitness is about.

Think about things or situations that make you uncomfortable or frustrated and how you can create opportunities to learn to deal with these feelings. “It may be something like joining Toastmasters because public speaking makes you anxious or signing up for music lessons to learn an instrument you’ve always wanted to play but have given up on before because you get frustrated,” Moss says.

“If you pay attention to what situations make you feel uncomfortable it will give you clues about what to pay attention to that will improve your mental fitness.”

Put feelings in their place

Feelings are not facts. Of course feelings are important, but they are subjective and we need to recognise that they are a filter through which we see the world.

Our feelings are often transient – we feel a certain way today but the next day that feeling fades away.

Your feelings may be very real to you in the moment, but they are not facts.

“Many things may produce an emotional response,” says therapist and Chicago Tribune columnist Barton Goldsmith. “Some are in the moment, others are from our past, and many people get destabilised worrying about the uncertain future. Still other emotions may be a response to mere fantasies, lies we tell ourselves that make us needlessly unhappy.”

Acknowledge that feelings come and go, can be positive and negative, and that they can be the result of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Learn to step back from them and question them.

Let go of perfection

Don’t let your quest for self-improvement become weighed down by the idea that you need to be perfect. “Perfectionism doesn’t lead to perfection,” says Australian psychologist Gareth Furber, who runs workshops on mental fitness. “It leads to significant distress and negative impacts on multiple aspects of life.”

Understand your personal philosophy

“Each of us needs a personal philosophy that guides our decisions,” Furber says.

“For some that might be religion or some kind of spiritual practice. For others that might be a mission or a job they feel they need to do or complete. It might be a mix of all these things.”

Be aware of your coping modes

Your mental fitness is also affected by your emotional “burdens” and your coping mode, says Ushmita Nana, a counselling psychologist from Roodepoort in Gauteng.

“Adverse life experiences can result in emotional burdens and in response we develop coping modes,” she explains. “For example, a child who is constantly demeaned or belittled is likely to develop the emotional burden of inadequacy.

“Coping modes then form to protect us, so in the above example the person may become a perfectionist in order to ward off feelings of inadequacy. This helps them cope with that particular emotional burden but it can also be a source of excessive stress.”

Another way it could play out, Nana adds, is that when that feeling of inadequacy is triggered by, for example, a poor performance review at work, the person turns to self-soothing activities such as compulsive online shopping or excessive consumption of alcohol. 

“In this instance, these impulsive activities serve to distract the person from the emotional pain of that feeling of inadequacy.”

She recommends cognitive behavioural therapy to help observe, accept and understand your emotional burdens and coping modes so they don’t have a negative impact on your life.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES: PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM, STARLINGMINDS.COM, FLINDERS.EDU.AU