Your mental health impacts every part of your life.

Your physical health, happiness, relationships, success at work, financial stability – literally every single aspect of your world – is influenced by what’s happening in your head. It makes sense to me then that mental health should be at the top of the priority list for all of us.

But it’s not.

Mental health isn’t usually even a consideration for most people until it becomes a problem. And when it does become an issue, believe me, then it gets your full attention because it can totally derail your life. I know. It did mine. (Read that story here.)

I have come to believe that mental health is a lifestyle. Your thoughts, behaviors, and choices you make every day shape the form and function of your brain through a process known as neuroplasticity. Of course, the individual characteristics of the brain you were born with and the events that happen to you in your life over which you have no control, especially during childhood, also have a huge impact on your brain function and mental health.

However, you aren’t stuck with the brain you were born with or even the brain and mental health that you have on this day. Science has proven beyond any doubt that you can significantly improve your brain and mental health with your regular habits. Here’s how.

When you improve your brain and mental health, you improve your life.

Get Enough Sleep

Getting too little sleep, which is a problem of epidemic proportions these days, can make you sick, fat, and stupid and actually shrink your brain. Lack of sleep slows down your thinking, impairs your memory, concentration, judgment, and decision-making, impedes learning, and contributes to depression. Sleep is absolutely essential for your brain to work properly because during sleep your brain is busy processing information, consolidating memories, making connections, and clearing out toxins. When asleep, your brain does its housekeeping and not having adequate time to do this could potentially accelerate neurodegenerative diseases.

In her article, These are the 7 habits of highly healthy brains (in order of importance), Dr. Sarah McKay, neuroscientist, rates sleep as THE most important factor for brain health. She writes:

A good night’s sleep every night should be a priority, not a luxury.

Sleep is overlooked, underappreciated, and the number one, fundamental bedrock of good health. Sleep deprivation (even a few hours a night) impacts cognition (thinking), mood, memory and learning and leads to chronic disease.

Move Your Body

After sleep, exercise is the best thing you can do for your brain. Research shows that physical exercise improves mood, memory, attention, creativity, and learning and reduces depression, age-related decline, and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Moving your body increases the blood flow to your brain which elevates oxygen levels and trig­gers bio­chem­i­cal changes protecting neu­rons by bathing them in nerve growth fac­tor (BDNF). These conditions encourage your brain to form new neural pathways and synaptic con­nec­tions. Exercise also reduces stress and anxiety by increasing soothing brain chemicals, like endorphins and GABA.

The exact amount or intensity of the exercise required has yet to be determined, but it appears that the minimum is thankfully low and studies have shown that modest amounts of exercise yield positive results. According to Katie Jones, an online health advocate and product reviewer at civilizedhealth.com, “Any amount of exercise is going to have some health benefits – even twice a week”.

In fact, even strength training can have lasting cognitive benefits. Research has confirmed that walking just 72 blocks (roughly 6 miles) a week can enhance brain function. One study found that just three sessions of yoga per week boosted people’ s levels of GABA, which generally translates into improved mood and decreased anxiety.

Feed Your Brain Well

When it comes to your brain, you literally are what you eat. What goes into your mouth has everything to do with what goes on in your head. You can promote quicker thinking, better memory and concentration, improved balance and coordination, sharper senses, and the activation of your feel good hormones with the food you eat.

When food hits your mouth and as it moves through your gastrointestinal tract, it causes a cascade of changes in your body and brain. You also have a “brain” in your gut, called the enteric nervous system. Just like the brain in your head, it uses over 30 neurotransmitters including dopamine and serotonin. In fact, 95% of the body’s serotonin, largely responsible for mood, is found in the bowels.

Living in your gut are tens of trillions of micro-organisms, making up your unique microbiome. We’ve always known these little guys play a major role in digestion, allergies, and metabolism, but now we know that the bacteria in your gut influence your mental health. Science has uncovered connections between intestinal bacteria and anxiety, depression, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, and other mental disorders.

Evidence suggests a Mediterranean-based diet consisting of mostly plants, fish, some meat, olive oil and nuts as optimal for brain health. Your brain will also benefit from a diet that includes some fat, wine, chocolate, and coffee!

Learn How To Calm Your Brain

Your brain’s top priority is always keeping you safe and alive.

That preservation instinct today results in a lot of worry and stress. Chronic stress changes your gene expression, shuts down your immune system, increases inflammation, causes belly fat, and more. The greatest impact is usually seen on psychological well-being as depression and anxiety.

If that weren’t enough, chronic stress actually damages your brain. Too much of the stress hormone, cortisol, prevents the birth of new neurons and causes the hippocampus, largely involved in learning and memory, to shrink.

Learning to calm your brain and body, turning down your fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system and engaging your calm parasympathetic nervous system more, allows you to break the negative cycle of stress. Practices, such as mindfulness and meditation, using imagery, connecting with others, changing your relationship with fear, coming into the present, and working with your thoughts and expectations, can help accomplish this.

Stimulate Your Brain

Your brain loves routine. However, research shows that staying in your comfort zone is anything but good for your brain. It kills productivity, creativity, motivation, and promotes backward plastic change. Humans are masters at contributing to our brains’ decline with our habits.

Your brain needs novelty and stimulation to stay healthy. It’s important to kick your brain out of its comfort zone and into the enhancement zone by doing things that are unfamiliar and mentally challenging regularly. You want to push your brain beyond the norm by learning new skills, hobbies, or sports, continuing to educate your mind, putting yourself in new social situations, and traveling to new locations, for instance.

Stepping out of the familiar stretches your brain by forcing it to make new connections and allowing the neuron’s dendrites to blossom like trees with full branches instead of little shrubs, which has been shown to have protective benefits against age-related decline.

Reference: https://thebestbrainpossible.com/5-ways-to-improve-your-mental-health/?fbclid=IwAR2BQexnl-qa6_rjQ3LsEO4P-ADwuoGIEhI4R4Qu-pOttGV5TE_b7Xmj__I

“Teachers have it easy!”

“Teachers get all summer off!”

“Teachers only work until 3:00 pm every day!”

These are sentiments that get shouted from the rooftops by anyone who doesn’t buy into the reality that teachers are grossly underpaid and overworked. Every teacher has heard these words, in some form or another, many times over. On the surface, it appears to have some truth to it. Yes, teachers aren’t in their classrooms teaching during the summer months (well, some aren’t), and yes the average school day is, in fact, shorter than the typical American workday. So, teachers aren’t overworked at all right?

Not so fast my friend.

1. The Typical Work Day

Depending on what state you live in and what your particular district rules are, the average school day is anywhere from 6 to 8 hours long. So for the sake of argument let’s split the difference and say teachers work 7 hours a day. A normal person would point out here that teachers get roughly 30 minutes a day to eat lunch, but a normal teacher would counter that argument by saying every lunch is a working lunch when you’re a teacher. Your lunch and planning time are spent furiously lesson planning, grading, and meeting with fellow teachers to make sure everyone is on the same page. I know teachers that haven’t had 30 minutes to themselves in their entire careers.

So 7 hours a day right? Wrong! Teachers need to arrive at work before classes actually start and stay after school, as well. This time is spent herding children where they need to go, making sure everyone arrives and leaves school safely, preparing their classroom for the day, and of course the always enjoyable staff meeting. This adds an extra hour or more to the day, bringing their total to 8-9 hours per day.

Teachers also routinely take work home with them, far more than the average American in fact. Teachers will grade papers, lesson plan, call or email parents and do other teacher-related work. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that over 30% of teachers take work home every day. On average, teachers do another 1-2 hours of work either before they arrive in the morning or after they leave in the afternoon, leaving them with roughly a 10-11-hour work day.

From an outside point of view, this seems like simple math. 10 hours a day times 180 school days a year equals 1,800 hours a year, right? Well, it’s not that simple.

2. The Typical School Weekend

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted a study recently that found that teachers are more likely to put in work over the weekend than the average American. In fact, the average teacher brings an additional 2-3 hours of work home with them at the end of each school week. Most schools are in session for roughly 36 weeks a year, so that adds an extra 100 or so hours onto a teacher’s yearly workload bringing us up over 1900 hours a year.

3. Summer Months and Vacation Days

One of the common misconceptions most people have is that if school is not in session, teachers aren’t working. Teachers report back to school 1 to 2 weeks before the official “1^st day”, plus there are a few days during the year that teachers work when students aren’t there. Conservatively, that’s an extra 10 days of work at around 8 hours a day. That’s another 80 work hours – bringing the total up to around 2,000 hours per year.

There are also teachers who spend numerous hours during the summer months taking classes for professional development, planning out the year ahead, and making sure their classrooms are ready to go when students return in the fall. 

4. How Teachers Measure Up with Other Professions

As you see by these rough estimates, teachers are putting in close well over 2,000 hours a year, depending on their situation. How does that measure up with other professions? Well, according to the Pew Research Center, the average American only works about 1,811 hours a year. Factor in the thousands of teachers that need to take on a 2^nd or 3^rd job just to pay the bills and the number of hours teachers work throughout the year is off the charts. It’s a staggering mathematical exercise and one that doesn’t seem to be getting better any time soon.

Still think teachers are underworked?

Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/hours-teachers-really-work