5 Ways of Mental Wellbeing

Using a broad range of datas collected from the UK government’s Foresight Program focused on nation mental health problem, NEF ( The New Economics Foundation ) develop a set of evidence based actions to enhance people mental well being.

According to WHO ( World Health Organization),mental well-being as a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Feeling happy, contentment, having positive experiences in life, and sense of purpose is crucial for mental well being. 

Evidences show that practicing these 5 shortlist actions contributes positively to mental health. 

1. Connect  Social interaction makes people feel happier and promotes a sense of belonging and well being for people of all ages. Evidences shows that happy people tends to have a stronger social relationship. Social relationships however might have different depths of connection; broader ( superficial ) connections play important role to feeling of worthiness as a part of community, strong relationships creates a more supportive and meaningful connection. For being valued is one of human needs, it is important to broaden and maintain your social network for well-being. 

2. Be Active

Kirkwood longitudinal study in 2008 presents physical activity defends  human body from cognitive decline in later age, depression symptoms, and anxiety. It is not necessary to have a robust exercise, as mood and feeling are proven to improve after less than a 10 minutes exercise, doing a slower pace exercise can also engage social interaction. Furthermore study associated physical activities result in physical and psychological benefit, they increase people ability to cope, effectiveness, proficiency, and distraction negative thoughts. 

3. Take Notice

Increasing awareness to your senses, being mindful of the present has shown to enhance mental well-being. They help people contemplate on their experiences and get to know what matters to their life. Knowing your values and motivations is crucial to be successful in behavior change, being mindful improves your ability to do so. Be aware of your surroundings and how you feel.

4. Keep Learning

Another study from Kirkwood encourage life learning to improve people self-esteem and social interaction. Learning is important for children’s cognitive and physical development, but it also help improve level of depression from the elderly. Adult learning, in particularly practice of goal oriented behaviors, has proven to increase self satisfaction and promote positive mental well being when goals are aligned with their personal values and motivations.

5. Give

Most human behavior are motivated by reward, a feeling that can be gain from social cooperation. People feel a sense of purpose, self-worth, and positive feelings enhancement from sharing, giving, and contributing to community. These effects apply for all ages with social cognition development for kids and sense of belonging to community for elderly. Connecting your self happiness to wider community creates more connection with people and contentment.

Acknowledging these proven set of actions into our design might open up our roadblocks in designing something on an information level and stimulate our brain to think more about creating positive engagement with the tree.