Mental health
Building Calm: Six Strategies for Building Mental Peace
Written by
Inner Clarity
September 17, 2024
Chances are that if you’re reading this article, you’re experiencing some sort of stress in your life. That’s completely normal! From navigating the workplace to maintaining your physical health or interpersonal relationships, there are countless aspects of modern living prone to producing anxiety. But that doesn’t mean mental peace must be out of reach. No matter where you are or what you’re going through, it’s more than possible to learn how to cultivate sustainable calmness.
Read over this Inner Clarity guide to gain numerous practical tips for managing daily stress, and consider how partnering with a trained virtual therapist can help bolster your overall well-being.
Regardless of whether you have a hundred outstanding tasks to do, or you’re on vacation relaxing by the poolside, you feel mentally stable. That is mental peace: the ability to reliably maintain your socio-emotional well-being no matter the circumstances. Mental peace is important because by improving your capacity to respond to stressors in a healthy way, you become more resilient to life’s inevitable adversities and gain the freedom to focus on what you find fulfilling.
Yet, external pressures – workplace demands, housing or financial strains, the loss of a close family member or friend – are, of course, destabilizing. Internal habits, such as not allowing yourself to rest or suppressing your emotions with patterns of negative thinking, all get in the way of mental peace.
Just as there are plenty of common obstacles to mental peace, there are plenty of ways to address those stressors and recapture balance. Consider how practicing mindfulness, establishing a routine, engaging in regular exercise, developing a healthy sleep routine, employing gratitude, and seeking treatment from a qualified therapist could help you enjoy the best possible life.
Instead of allowing sources of stress to incite strong feelings, a practice of mindfulness allows us to take a gentle step outside of our inner experiences and consider how we might respond to discomfort with intention instead of just knee-jerk reactions. Mindfulness is a great tool for achieving mental peace because it emphasizes acceptance, but encourages constructive changes.
Meditation is a great way to carve out some mindful time in your day. Even just five or 10 minutes a day spent sitting on a pillow, deliberately paying attention to your breathing and allowing other thoughts to come and go, can improve your state of mental peace before bed or prepare you for the busy day. Deep breathing, stretching, or walking exercises are other mindful options.
Fashioning a new game plan for each day takes a lot of energy. A set outline for what you want to get done that day and the sequence in which you’d like to do things preserves a sense of structure and control over the otherwise hectic demands of daily life. A steady routine can also help clarify when you’re available to be present with friends and family and cement a healthy circadian rhythm that leaves your body ready to fall asleep every evening and energized in the morning.
To create a balanced routine, start by journaling about your priorities, what you would see accomplished on an ideal day, and what is realistic for you to fit in, given your usual responsibilities. Make sure to incorporate relaxation and self-care, and tinker with the schedule until you find a pattern that best supports your mental peace.
Consistent physical exercise strengthens your body and provides countless other benefits prone to building up your mental well-being. Working out helps increase blood circulation in your brain and releases endorphins that boost your mood and improve your sleep; setting fitness goals you can steadily work toward will shore up your self-esteem. Cycling or running clubs offer an outlet to make new friends with similar interests you see on a regular basis.
Starting out small, like even just a 20-minute morning walk before work, can provide an excellent source of low-intensive exercise. You can also obtain that through changes in your commute – parking further away, walking to the train, and taking the stairs rather than an elevator ride. Exercise doesn’t have to be so serious, either. Climbing gyms and dance classes are a fun way to move your body and learn a new skill.
It’s very difficult to have a peaceful mind without good sleep habits built into your daily schedule. Deep rest helps flush waste from your brain because your nerve cells produce waves that push cleansing fluid through dense brain tissue, according to the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Rapid-eye-movement sleep has also been shown to improve cognitive abilities, like your memory. On the flip side, sleep deprivation makes it difficult to concentrate or retain new information, and can exacerbate symptoms of existing emotional issues.
While it can be easy to forgo the hours of sleep you need every night, setting an even sleep schedule will ensure you wake up with a surplus of energy to start your day. Try creating a routine for winding down in the evening: take a bath, do some light stretching, forgo electronics and screen time, and read a book before turning out the lights.
Our minds are naturally inclined to focus on negative experiences. Evolutionary biology shows that helped early humans identify threats and survive. That’s, in part, why it can feel against the grain to establish an intentional practice of noticing all the positive aspects of life. But once you start setting aside time to recognize what gives you joy, you’ll start to notice innumerable other blessings.
To seal in the method, consider starting a gratitude journal. Each day, write one to three things you appreciate about your life – it can be as simple as the refreshing glass of water you had that morning or the time you spent with your best friend that afternoon. Writing a handful of short affirmations you recite each day will also empower you to remember what you value.
You always stand to benefit from incorporating healthy habits into your routine, but seeking the support of a mental health professional can elevate your journey toward mental peace to an even higher level. Qualified therapists will be able to facilitate explorations into the deeper causes of your recurring stress, and fashion a treatment plan suited to your own personal goals. This way, you’re not just developing new coping skills, but addressing what you need them for.
While individualized therapy may be more common, group therapy can also help you hear from other people struggling with similar conditions. Family or couples therapy also provides a structure for improving your interpersonal relationships.
One of the best ways to access mental health support is through virtual therapy. Inner Clarity allows you to browse the profiles of numerous diverse virtual therapy providers who bring a unique background and training that helps personalize your care. Online therapy services enable you to bolster your mental peace from the comfort and privacy of your own home – effectively removing any time-consuming commutes that prevent you from including counseling in your busy schedule. Inner Clarity’s online therapy also offers the flexibility of finding providers from all across the county; you’re no longer restricted to therapists only in your local area.
Stress is an unavoidable facet of life, and it can feel overwhelmingly difficult to get out from under it. Fortunately, there are many different practical ways you can protect and nurture your state of mental peace, no matter the circumstances. Starting off with certain practices, like establishing a steady sleep routine, getting in frequent exercise, and beginning a gratitude journal, is a great idea. But partnering with Inner Clarity to work with a virtual therapist to dig deeper and gain informed guidance will essentially guarantee you’re best suited to foster a thriving well-being.
Check out which Inner Clarity services will match your mental health care situation – whether that be for virtual cognitive-behavioral therapy or trauma-focused counseling – and request an appointment today to benefit from our holistic approach to supporting your balanced life.
