I work with men of all ages in my counseling practice. Some of the main areas of concern are uncontrolled stress, experiencing a lack of purpose in life, unproductive or negative self-talk, and problems with their partners. From their time working in counseling, I’ve seen men of all ages gain more understanding of their lives and find practical solutions to these challenges.

If you’re experiencing some of these issues, here are 7 ways to improve your mental health.

1. Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is critical for positive mental health. It allows our bodies to fully rest and gives our mind time to process the day’s events. Enough sleep helps improve our energy and prepares us for the day.

Not getting enough sleep negatively impacts our relationships, cognitive abilities, physical strength, and emotions. Our mental health is directly linked to the quality and amount of sleep we get on a daily basis.

There are stages in our lives when getting a full 7 – 10 hours of sleep is not possible (thanks newborns). But those times should pass eventually, allowing you to get a full night’s sleep. If you are still not getting enough sleep even when life is “normal” then I encourage you explore why that is. Does your job require unhealthy work hours? Do you wake up in the middle of the night and have sleep apnea? Do you stay up too late from managing your fantasy football team?

Whatever the reason, find solutions to prioritize sleep. Your mental health and overall functioning will improve.

2. Meditate Regularly

Meditating on a regular basis has been proven to have many positive effects. Meditation helps reduce stress, blood pressure, anxiety, and depression and improves attention, memory, self-compassion, and mental clarity.

The act of meditating is simply sitting on the floor with your legs crossed, hands resting on your knees (similar to image on the right). Set a timer for 5-10 minutes then close your eyes. Focus your attention on your breathing. Don’t change how fast or slow you are breathing, just notice the experience. If you have a white noise machine, it can be helpful to focus on that sound.

When any thought comes into mind, acknowledge it, then redirect attention back to your breath. It’s normal for us to focus on many random thoughts in this process. After a week or two of meditating 5-10 minutes per day, you will get better at focusing your attention on your breath and nothing else.

You will start to see a positive difference in your mental health when you meditate. You will feel lighter, more at peace and more easily able to accept what happens around you. Many of us have to change or fix things in our lives to create a positive outcome. But if we try to control or fix everything, we can cause problems. Meditation helps us accept things how they are rather than trying to create certain outcomes.

3. Exercise Consistently

Our bodies and minds need physical activity. Not only will our bodies get stronger when we exercise, but our minds do too. Movement stimulates thoughts and ideas. Exercising requires some amount of internal motivation or drive. Those with depression have low motivation and drive. Exercising daily increases our motivation, drive, energy, and helps combat depression.

I encourage you to do any type of exercise that your interest in. If you hate the idea of lifting weights but are excited about CrossFit then do CrossFit. Working towards an athletic goal like running a marathon or a cycling event like the Hotter N’ Hell Hundred can help with exercise motivation. Talk to a friend about their workout routine and jump in with them.

If all else fails, play Pickleball.

As long as you’re doing something that’s getting your heartrate up, you will see the benefits of consistent exercise. Your mental health will improve through increased self-esteem, confidence, and reduced stress. I’ve seen the benefits with my clients, and myself, when we exercise around 30 minutes to 1 hour, 3-5 days per week. And if you haven’t been working out, your sleep will improve when you start exercising.

4. Change Unproductive Self-Talk to Productive Self-Talk

Internal self-talk is the voice in our head commenting on what we do and say. We have positive mental health when we hear kind, uplifting, and empowering statements. But our mental health suffers when our internal self-talk is discouraging or unkind. You might have heard about negative self-talk (internally speaking unkindly to yourself) but another way to look at is it is unproductive self-talk.

Unproductive self-talk is anything that’s not positively contributing to you and your health.

You don’t have to be positive in everything you tell yourself, but you can look at a negative situation and think, “What could I do different next time?” or “What lessons can be learned from this issue?” Be honest if you messed up. But in that honesty, explore how you can make a different, more positive outcome happen next time rather than beating yourself up internally.

Working Through Negative Self-Talk:

What helps my clients is first to identify what their negative or unproductive self-talk sounds like. If it’s around work, maybe it sounds like, “I’ll never get that promotion. I’ll be stuck in this same job forever.”

Once we identify the unproductive self-talk, we start to challenge those ideas with truthful, positive, statements. A challenging statement could sound like, “I have struggled to get a promotion in the past, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn new ways to improve and grow. I can talk to my supervisor for ideas on ways to improve. I’ve advanced in my career and education in the past so I can do that again.”

That statement is true. We’re acknowledging the problem while exploring solutions. It’s helpful to pull from past successes. We also are staying away from “always” and “never” ideas. This encourages a growth mindset and changes unproductive to productive self-talk.

By changing unproductive self-talk to productive self-talk, your mental health will improve.

5. Fight the Problem, Not Your Partner

This is for all of us who are in a romantic relationship. Relationships are difficult and I see many of us fight our partner rather than the issues we are fighting about. Two of the most common topics couples fight about are sex and money. When a couple is fighting about sex, they are fighting about problems around sex. Yes, your partner is the person to have sex with but intimacy, connection, and feeling loved are all parts that make up the problems around sex.

It's natural to become frustrated and resentful towards our spouse if we have an unsatisfied sex life. But if we able to address the problems around sex like maybe communication and closeness, then sex will most likely improve. By fighting the problems rather than our partners, we will improve our mental health considerably.

I see many men struggle with relationship challenges. It’s natural to become angry and frustrated with our spouse when our needs are not being met. The men who make improvements to their mental health work on the problems in the relationship and lean into their relationship. By seeing your spouse as your teammate in working through communication issues, unmet expectations, or financial struggles, we set ourselves up for success with working through those problems.

6. Clarify Goals

When men are depressed, anxious, and/or overwhelmed, we often lose sight of our goals. If we do not see progress in our work and feel struck, we struggle to find the purpose of working hard. If we are overwhelmed with relationship challenges, we can feel like giving up on the relationship entirely. The clarity of our work, personal, and relational goals diminish.

When you experience struggles of any kind, clarifying goals dramatically increases the likelihood of getting to a better place. The goal needs to be realistic and clear. It’s helpful to be as specific as possible to provide direction and action steps.

I worked with a client struggling with work pressures. They lost the drive and passion they previously had due to the lack of progress they saw in their company. Discouraged and dismayed, they struggled to find motivation to continue to strive for advancement.

However, once they re-established their goals for working in the company and their career, they started to make positive strides in their work. They started to challenge discouraged thinking and intentionally focused on a positive mindset to progress in the company. They reaffirmed what they were good at from colleague feedback, objective success from their past work, and practical steps on ways to improve their work output.

Their progress towards improved mental health started with setting clear goals.

7.  Authentically Connect With Other Men

This last point I believe is one of the hardest but most important ideas to implement. As men, we often pride ourselves being strong, secure, and most of all, independent. Being vulnerable and authentic with others, especially with other men, seems counter to what we believe and what we strive to be.

However, I’ve found in my practice, and personal life, connecting with other good men is a catalyst for personal improvement.

When men form strong, deep relationships with each other, they are better able to face problems. To have friends you respect and can open up to about your life reduces stress and isolation. We feel seen, heard, and understood. We are strong independently, but stronger with others.

It’s hard to open up others. It’s natural to feel uncomfortable with being vulnerable. But when our vulnerability is met with understanding, kindness, and respect, we grow. We feel empowered from knowing others are facing similar challenges. We are better able to work through problems. We are better able to face the world.

We should not open up to anyone and everyone. I’m advocating for having a few close friends or a group up to six you can rely on and build strong relationships with. Be purposeful about who you connect with and make sure it’s a mutual desire to build the relationship. When you build strong, authentic connections with other men, your health will improve.

There are many ways to improve your health as a man. I’ve seen these few positively impact my clients and I hope they do the same for you. If you are looking to improve your mental health but not sure where to start, reach out to us to get started.