Mental fitness is a term that gets thrown a lot these days, especially now during the COVID pandemic. It seems like everyone is struggling with something, and having strong mental fitness feels more important than ever.
But what does it mean to be mentally fit?
In psychology, mental fitness is loosely defined as creating a state of positive well-being and learning to cultivate awareness of how we think, behave and feel.
Increasing mental fitness has tons of benefits, such as:
- Becoming more aware of your thoughts so they don’t control you
- Increasing your ability to focus and concentrate on tasks
- Building the resilience to deal with the ups and downs of life
- Being able to confidently respond to a situation in the moment (rather than hours later after you’ve had time to think through your response)
- Learning to focus less on negative emotions and the challenges of your life, and more on what’s going well
Just like we need to exercise our muscles in order to become physically fit, there’s a lot we can do to become more mentally fit, too.