May is Mental Health Awareness Month — a time to pause, reflect, and have honest conversations about something that touches every one of us. Mental health is not a destination we arrive at. It is something we tend to, protect, and nurture over the course of our lives.
This post offers evidence-based strategies for actively supporting your psychological well-being. Mental health is a state of well-being in which a person can realize their own abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and contribute to their community (World Health Organization, 2022). That definition includes difficulty — what distinguishes mental health is not freedom from hard things, but how we move through them.
Mental Health Is Not the Absence of Struggle
The traditional medical model focused primarily on diagnosing and treating mental illness. The positive psychology movement expanded the field’s lens to include what allows people to genuinely flourish — not just the absence of symptoms, but the presence of well-being (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Languishing, a state of low well-being without clinical diagnosis, is a significant and under-recognized public health concern (Keyes, 2002). The strategies below address both ends of this spectrum.
Evidence-Based Strategies for Mental Well-Being
1. Build a Foundation of Physical Well-being
The mind-body connection is neurobiological reality, not metaphor. Research consistently identifies sleep, exercise, and nutrition as among the most powerful levers available for mental health.
Sleep research established that chronic sleep deprivation — defined as fewer than seven hours per night — significantly increases vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation (Walker, 2017). The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7 to 9 hours of sleep for most adults.
Multiple studies have shown that physical activity has significant positive effects on depression (Schuch et al., 2016). Even 20 to 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity most days of the week produces measurable benefits for mood and cognition.
In terms of nutrition, growing research on the gut-brain axis, the bi-directional communication pathway between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain, shows that dietary patterns significantly affect mood and mental health outcomes (Jacka et al., 2017). Diets rich in whole foods and omega-3 fatty acids are associated with lower rates of depression.
2. Develop an Emotion Regulation Practice
The ability to recognize, tolerate, and work with difficult emotions — rather than suppressing or being overwhelmed by them — is a cornerstone of psychological health.
Neuroscience has shown that labeling our emotions reduces the activation of the brain’s threat-response center and allows us to better regulate our responses (Lieberman et al., (2007). Simply naming an emotion to yourself (‘I notice I’m feeling anxious’) creates measurable psychological distance and reduces reactivity.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy both emphasize learning to tolerate distress without immediately acting on it (Linehan, 1993; Hayes et al., 2012). Like any skill, it strengthens with practice.
3. Invest in Your Relationships
The Harvard Study of Adult Development identified the quality of close relationships as the single strongest predictor of health and happiness in later life (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023). Not wealth, not fame, not professional achievement — relationships.
The cost of their absence is equally well-documented. Multiple studies have shown that loneliness and social isolation were associated with a 26% increase in mortality risk — comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015).
Investing in your relationships does not require grand gestures: being genuinely present in conversations, reaching out to someone you have been meaning to reconnect with, or being honest with someone you trust about how you are actually doing.
4. Create Space for Meaning and Purpose
A sense of meaning and purpose is deeply protective for mental health (Frankl, 1959/2006). Purpose in life as a consistent predictor of positive psychological functioning and physical health outcomes across the lifespan (Ryff & Singer, 2008).
Meaning may come through work, relationships, creative expression, community contribution, or spiritual practice. If a sense of purpose feels absent, this is worth exploring — with a therapist, in a journal, or in honest conversation with people who know you well.
5. Manage Your Relationship with Technology and News
Research on ‘doom scrolling’ — compulsive consumption of negative news — has shown that it contributes to anxiety and mood disturbance (McLaughlin, 2022). Similarly, heavy social media use has significant associations with increased rates of anxiety and depression in young adults (Vannucci et al., 2017).
Practical approaches include setting specific times to check news rather than scrolling throughout the day, designating phone-free zones or times, and auditing your feeds to assess whether your online environment is leaving you informed and connected or depleted and anxious.
6. Build a Consistent Mental Health Maintenance Practice
We readily accept proactive physical maintenance like regular checkups, exercise, and dental cleanings. Mental health maintenance deserves the same logic. Addressing symptoms before they become a crises is a crucial step in maintaining mental health (Czeisler et al., 2021).
A maintenance practice might include regular therapy (not only in acute distress), journaling, mindfulness meditation, time in nature, and intentional rest. Even 10 minutes of daily mindfulness practice has documented benefits for stress and emotional regulation.
When Strategies Are Not Enough
These strategies are powerful, and for many people, transformative. Symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma, or other mental health conditions sometimes require professional support.
Please reach out if you are experiencing persistent low mood or hopelessness, anxiety that is interfering with daily functioning, trauma symptoms, or thoughts of self-harm. If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This Month and Every Month
Mental health does not operate on a calendar. The invitation of Mental Health Awareness Month is to bring the same consistent, compassionate attention to your psychological well-being that you give to other areas of your health. You deserve not just to survive, but to genuinely flourish. We are here to support that journey whenever you are ready.
References
Czeisler, M. É., Lane, R. I., Wiley, J. F., Czeisler, C. A., Howard, M. E., & Rajaratnam, S. M. W. (2021). Follow-up survey of US adult reports of mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open, 4(2), e2037665.
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Beacon Press. (Original work published 1959)
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.
Jacka, F. N., O’Neil, A., Opie, R., Itsiopoulos, C., Cotton, S., Mohebbi, M., Castle, D., Dash, S., Mihalopoulos, C., Chatterton, M. L., Brazionis, L., Dean, O. M., Hodge, A. M., & Berk, M. (2017). A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial). BMC Medicine, 15(1), 23.
Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languishing to flourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43(2), 207–222.
Kuyken, W., Warren, F. C., Taylor, R. S., Whalley, B., Crane, C., Bondolfi, G., Hayes, R., Huijbers, M., Ma, H., Schweizer, S., Segal, Z., Speckens, A., Teasdale, J. D., Van Heeringen, K., Williams, M., Byford, S., Byng, R., & Dalgleish, T. (2016). Efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in prevention of depressive relapse. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(6), 565–574.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. Guilford Press.
McLaughlin, K. A. (2022). Future directions in childhood adversity and youth psychopathology. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 49(3), 1–14.
Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. H. (2008). Know thyself and become what you are: A eudaimonic approach to psychological well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(1), 13–39.
Schuch, F. B., Vancampfort, D., Richards, J., Rosenbaum, S., Ward, P. B., & Stubbs, B. (2016). Exercise as a treatment for depression: A meta-analysis adjusting for publication bias. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 77, 42–51.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14.
Vannucci, A., Flannery, K. M., & Ohannessian, C. M. (2017). Social media use and anxiety in emerging adults. Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 163–166.
Waldinger, R., & Schulz, M. (2023). The good life: Lessons from the world’s longest scientific study of happiness. Simon & Schuster.
Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner.
World Health Organization. (2022). World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all. World Health Organization.
