What is Intellectual Health?
Intellectual health is a subset of mental health that should be addressed for a well-balanced mood. Often times depressed moods stem from a lack of success in areas of life. Many of these can be improved upon by focusing on intellectual health. Our psyche is a complex machine and one squeaky wheel can throw the whole engine off.
How do I know if I need Help?
Self-examination is a great place to start. Look at areas of your life and find areas that seem to be lacking such as:
- Creativity
- Learning
- Self-Confidence
- Self-Awareness
- Critical Thinking
- Goal Setting
- Stress Management
- And Many More…
Often times these things can get lost in the noise of daily life. By addressing them and taking time to reflect upon them can ease the daily strain. A little self-work now can curtail small problems before they become too overwhelming.
Habits for Intellectual Health
So what should you do about it you ask? Depending on which problems seem most critical after your self-examination, there are many different ways to improve.
Read for fun! It’s a cheap and easy way to expand knowledge, discover new topics and maybe find yourself in a character.
Write! Make listing and journaling a part of your life. It’s often interesting what you can discover about yourself. For productivity, take the last 5 minutes of your day to make a to-do list. This will clear your mind for better sleep and get you started on the right track in the morning.
Learn a new game. Whether it be a solo game like sudoku or an old school game of gin rummy with grandma. The mental elasticity gained from breaking the norm has great intellectual health benefits.
Constantly challenge yourself. This is the basis of all the ideas above and the way to keep your mind engaged. It doesn’t have to be anything daunting, just something new, refreshing, or 1 level up. This goes right along with goal setting and by being self-aware the plateaus can become leaps and bounds.
Connecting Intellectual and Spiritual Health
Spiritual health is another important factor that links intellectual health with overall mental health. It doesn’t have to be spiritual in a higher-power sense although it can be. But spirituality can play a role in many aspects of life. Such as, learning how to be compassionate and sympathetic. Learning to forgive or give away your time in forms like volunteering are all forms of spiritual growth.
Moving Forward
Once you’ve taken the time to deep dive into yourself, keep going. Self-improvement should be a lifetime habit, you and the people around you will benefit from the little things you do. You will likely inspire people along your own journey and they can spread it into their world as well. Good energy is contagious, so don’t quarantine that. If you are struggling to find internal happiness the great staff at the Neuroscience Center will be happy to hear and help you. Give us a call or submit a simple form and we will reach out. Be the light!
