I am a marriage and family therapist. I spent four years in undergraduate school to get my bachelor’s degree in psychology, and then another two years getting my master’s in professional counseling. As of now, I have over 600 hours of experience, as well as over 75 hours of various training. I use all this knowledge and experience to help guide clients through their emotions, thoughts, actions, and ultimately help them achieve their goals and live a healthy, full life. So as you can probably tell, I love the mind. I love understanding thought patterns, navigating complex relationships, and building healthy habits. I am a hug advocate for mental health and firmly believe society is moving in a direction that will help more people in their walk to uncover their past and build their future.

However, there is a huge factor that I believe most mental health professionals (including myself) at times do not consider or sometimes just completely disregard. And while I am passionate about the health of the mind, I think we often forget that the mind is part of the body. And frankly, our bodies are sensitive and frail. They get sick. They get injured. Sometimes, they just stop functioning. They require energy (but not too much) and movement (but not too much) and simultaneously no movement (but again, not too much). Because of this, in my therapeutic philosophy I believe these three big foundations need be met to fully show up for your mental health: good diet, adequate sleep, and proper exercise. There are countless studies showing how improving these three categories of your life can vastly improve your mental health!

I know so many of my clients who struggle with these three things. I won’t go as far as to say it is preventing them from progressing in their mental health, but I will say not developing these healthy habits is not setting them up for success. In fact, I believe neglecting these three foundations makes it much harder to work on your mental health needs. The number one thing I run into is getting started having a healthy relationship with sleep, diet, and exercise. So today, I am going to give some tips that can help you set yourself up for success in your mental health journey!

1. Define what your goals are.

First and foremost, you must decide what it is you are aiming for. What are your goals in your overall health? Is it to put on all the muscle you can? Is to be able to enjoy a day at the zoo without getting exhausted? Is it just to feel more energetic? Find out what it is you want your picture of health to look like, and then see whether the life you are currently living will get you there. This will be different for everyone, and there is no ‘right answer’ that fits everyone, but there is an answer that fits you. Don’t know enough about the big three to be able to know what to do? That’s fine! There are tons of resources, apps, and educators out there that can give you a good starting point. Some of my personal recommendations would be Life Sum, Calm, and My Fitness Pal. For an even bigger picture, schedule an appointment with your doctor to find out specific goals that will be most beneficial for your health.

2. Take small, realistic steps.

Everyone wants big leaps, fast results, and low effort. This is an impossible task to complete. 95% of diets fail within the first year, and we all see how many people are in the gym in January that seem to just disappear by the next month. The issue is not that we are aiming too high, but that we are attempting to run before we can walk. So, this tip is to take small, realistic steps. Instead of dedicating yourself to going to the gym for an hour a day seven days a week, why not start with 10 minutes a day every other day? That zero-tolerance for sugar policy? Try exchanging one item that you usually get for a healthier alternative. Want to get up at 4:00am? One: why would you do that. But two, start with getting up an hour earlier (as long as you are still getting those 7-9 hours of sleep in!). This change doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does need to be something that you can consistently do. This is the key to long-lasting change.

3. Listen to your body.

My wife is the person who comes to mind with this tip. She is a headstrong, dedicated, and hardworking woman, and this shows up in her lifestyle as well. However, this can quickly backfire and turn something that was once a healthy habit into something that is actively harming your body. She is a wedding photographer, and the wedding day is generally very hard on her body. And due to her kick-butt and take names attitude, sometimes the next day she wants to make herself push through and go to the gym and get up the same time she usually does, even though she has less sleep and less energy than she would normally have.

Your body needs to recover, and it is also very good at telling you what it needs. Don’t try and shut down those alarms. Maybe a full weight room session isn’t what she needs that day, but perhaps a 30-minute yoga practice or a light walk. Perhaps it might even need to not do anything at all to fully recover. And I guarantee you the extra hour or two of sleep will put her body in a great position to heal more efficiently. Don’t get so caught up in the grind that you forget why you are doing it in the first place: to live a happier, healthier life. Listen to what your body is telling you, get in tune with that message, and act accordingly.

4. Set timeframes, not tasks.

This one may not be for everyone, but I feel like this is a point that comes up so often in my work that I decided to include it as a final point here. What I mean by setting a timeframe vs a task is this: a task is an item you must mark off the checklist. A timeframe gives you the space to accomplish a task. The reason why I say to mark space in your calendar as opposed to making a to-do list is that allowing time for something that needs to get done (exercise, studying, reading) by intentionally creating a space that can’t be pushed off. A task can be pushed back to the point where you just say “Eh, I’ll do it tomorrow.” Setting aside time does two things: it earmarks the space specifically for the thing you want to do and simultaneously creates a habit. There is a big difference between “Every day this week I am going to read 5 pages” and “I am going to read from 1:30-2:30 every day this week”. When you create a task list, things get prioritized, and the things you want to be doing get put on the backburner. You have to intentionally set aside the time you need to do the habits you want to do, guilt free. It is a small distinction, but I believe one that can be very powerful.

Having solid foundations of diet, sleep, and exercise is an incredible steppingstone for moving forward with your mental health. If you are working on your anger management, putting in all the effort to education, uncovering your past, and doing your therapy homework, but simultaneously getting subpar sleep, eat junk food 24/7, and sit on the couch all day, most likely all that hard work you are putting in for your mental health will not show up as significantly. We are both the mind and the body, which both affect each other greatly. My hope is these tips will help you get started fashioning the life you envision for yourself, in all its various aspects, both mental and physical.