Most people are aware that their physical health is largely determined by their lifestyle. If you exercise sufficiently, do not smoke, are moderate with alcohol, eat healthily, and get enough sleep, you generally live longer and with significantly fewer illnesses and ailments. Having a certain routine can help with this. Many people exercise at a set time during the week or go to bed at a fixed time and have a daily routine for their physical hygiene. In this way, we keep ourselves physically fit and healthy.
What is much less common is that we regularly take care of our mental health. Yet, working on yourself structurally offers many benefits. For instance, you save more time and energy if you find yourself in conflict situations less often and worry less. You begin to make more conscious choices about what and with whom you want to spend your time and energy. Furthermore, it is even more cost-effective because you need to buy fewer things to take away that nagging, unsatisfying feeling within yourself.
Mental hygiene
By taking the time to focus on your inner self every now and then, you give yourself the opportunity to process your emotions. This prevents your emotions from unconsciously accumulating until an outburst occurs, where someone else is blamed for the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Alternatively, an implosion in the form of burnout or depressive feelings may eventually follow if you constantly suppress your emotions. Working on yourself means learning to pause, find peace, and develop your capacity for empathy and gratitude. Instead of just struggling on, grumbling and complaining, it means seeing what you do have and consciously experiencing what you go through. It also means learning to communicate openly and letting go of the idea that you must always be right and always do everything perfectly. Nonviolent Communication and Mindfulness are practical tools that allow you to develop these skills.
Nonviolent Communication gives you access to a different level of consciousness. It encourages you to think about how to express yourself effectively and how to listen to anger and reproaches with different ears. You learn to provide considered responses rather than automatic ones, based on an awareness of your observations, feelings, and needs. Mindfulness is a practical tool that teaches you to keep both feet on the ground. You learn to be consciously present in the moment through meditation exercises. Mindfulness is applied neuroscience; thanks to a vast number of medical, biological, psychological, and neurological studies, we know that mindfulness has positive effects on your mental and physical health, leads to greater resilience against stress, sharpens your attention, improves your memory, leads to more positive emotions and an optimistic outlook on life, and strengthens your social relationships. This is how you care for your mental hygiene.
Saving time
And last but not least: it does not even have to take much time! If you can find time for endlessly checking your email, the news, and your social media, then you can surely find 10 minutes in your day for a mindfulness exercise. The same applies to Nonviolent Communication. Sometimes people say that this way of communicating seems too complicated and cumbersome. However, if you consider how much time you spend on a daily basis on endless discussions and resolving misunderstandings, I would argue that those take much more time and energy than occasionally taking a step back to formulate a conscious response, or simply saying nothing at all.
See here which training courses Equanimity offers to further develop your emotional intelligence.