Tips to achieve life balance and maintain mental wellbeing from the Inspirational Mentor

I am thrilled to be sharing my monthly blog LIVING YOUR FRESH LIFE with Her Edit Magazine. As a keynote speaker, author and CEO of The Works Company, I understand the conflicting pressures on women’s lives. It’s important to support each other and share tips to achieve life balance and maintain mental wellbeing. I would love to hear from you, anytime, so please do feel free to get in touch!

‘Life’ Housekeeping

Do you tidy your life like you might tidy your house, vacuum your car, clean out your fridge or scrub your toilet?

I don’t think many of us could put our hands up and say we look after ourselves as well as we probably should. Ensuring our lives are balanced and aligned with our very being is essential for us all.

But what does this mean?

Through my personal life and professional experiences, I have come to believe that to be perfectly ‘aligned’ is to achieve a balance between our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. Like a perfect pie chart!. By achieving this we can be best equipped to negotiate all areas of our lives. If one of these pieces of our pie is out of proportion, then will we work as effectively? Probably not.

So how do we balance our life to be aligned? It’s a good question and one I am hoping to answer with some of my tips here.

Physical wellbeing

We all know that being active is important for our health. Physical exercise is essential for maintaining our health and the evidence is overwhelming that it can help to reduce our risk of developing disease and life-threatening conditions including dementia.

Without doubt we should be making sure we are moving more. NHS guidelines suggest 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. It’s not so daunting when when you break that down to 30 minutes, five times a week. Are you managing this as a minimum? Getting out for a walk, bike ride or maybe doing some gardening or housework all help to raise your heart rate.

Go on, dust off your trainers and get a little puffy! Maybe get some  professional help to focus on building your strength, flexibility and core strength. You will undoubtedly feel better.

Emotional wellbeing

We all need to talk, understand, listen and learn. We need to work out a way to process the difficulties we face and work out a way forward. I believe we can if we really want to. Finding our route to positivity is not always easy, but talking to someone could be. It isn’t always easy keeping negativity away from our door, I know, but celebrating the positives in your life helps you build better resilience that supports your emotional health.

Technology has also become such a massive part of our society. It has been shown to be at the root of mental health problems in adults and youngsters alike. Can you limit the time you spend online? Try a digital detox to encourage more talking in your life, maybe more reading, writing or exploring and of course getting outdoors to exercise. Being at one with nature is fabulous for our minds. Wrap yourself up with fresh air and green trees. Ditch the Instagram scrolling for a while. Make it more about hugging nature and yourself. Be accountable – own this.

Mental wellbeing

Being mentally well was something I had to really spend some time on as a young girl suffering from PTSD. Now I rave about this part of my life, because I understand wholeheartedly the importance of maintaining our mental wellbeing and embracing the challenges we encounter. Of course, life events can be difficult, but if you can view your challenges with a new set of eyes and develop strategies to work out how you can get through them, then you can start to feel mentally stronger and more capable. Therapy can be one way to help you negotiate difficult areas of your life. I dip in and out when I feel the need to. It is great to have someone who can listen and support you

Over the years, I have learnt how to balance out my physical, emotional and mental wellbeing by understanding the power of fitness, diet, sleep, conversation, meeting challenges and keeping our brains active.

Taking time to care for ourselves is a good thing. We all need to keep on top of our ‘LIFE’ housekeeping and it should not be postponed and neither should shaving your legs. 😉

Written by Emma-Jane Taylor aka The Inspirational Mentor