Mental Health. You are no stranger to the term, but I want to explain the exact meaning as there are many misconceptions.

Mental health refers to how you keep your state of mind healthy, maintaining a positive relationship with yourself mentally. The most common forms of mental illnesses that have been on the rise lately are anxiety and depression. These mental illnesses can be managed, even treated, if we prioritize taking care of our mind through daily self-care rituals, meditation over medication, therapy, and personal coaching.

The truth is, asking for help is probably simultaneously the hardest and bravest thing you can do to enhance your mental health.

How to Ask for Help for Mental Health in 3 Ways

With these recommendations to help obtain and maintain good mental health, here are three ways to ask for help.

1. Ask yourself: “What is stopping me from asking for help?”
   Many barriers that can keep you from reaching out for help. Fear of being shamed or judged. Feelings of being scared or vulnerable. Possibly thoughts that threaten your sense of self-worth holding you hostage from seeking support. Asking yourself this question will help you look at what’s challenging you to break the barriers that are blocking you from asking.
2. Pay attention to what your body is telling you.
   Get out of your head by listening to what your body says whenever you are under mental stress. Tightness in the muscles, unrelaxed shoulders, tensions in the neck, even stomach pains can be indications of mental duress. Perform daily rituals to calm your body, ease your mind and raise your vibration. Here are 11 of them! 
3. Seek professional guidance.
   I cannot stress the importance of getting professional help for your mental health. Contact a therapist, coach, or doctor and express how you are truly feeling. These experts will know how to best support you. If making the call to set up your first appointment is a hard step to take, please ask a close friend, family member, or someone you trust to take that first step with you. Don’t know where to start? Here are five of my favorite mental health experts that you can turn to for guidance.

3 Ways to Protect Your Mental Health

Now that I’ve shared three ways you can ask for help let me share three more ways you can protect your mental health once you receive the help you need to enhance it.

1. Get in touch with your emotions.
   Practicing journaling and meditation is so beneficial for your mental and emotional well-being. These practices help you return to yourself, identify your state of mind, and be more aware of what triggers you. Use journaling as a brain dump to put all your thoughts to paper without thinking critically or suppressing anything. Creating a space to tap into your emotions will help keep them from exploding unexpectedly. Allow yourself to return to that space and utilize those practices that make you feel better in those vulnerable moments. 
2. Stand by the boundaries you’ve set.
   Often, our mental health is at risk by the simplest, most automatic things we accept daily. Realize that you are, in fact, in control of your daily activities, your decisions, and who you choose to spend your time with. I encourage you to reflect on what makes you feel good and what is not. Learn to say “no” to what you don’t want and “yes” to what you do want. The sooner you realize what is not enhancing your mental health, the faster you can remove them. If you do not know how to set healthy boundaries, here are my three tips on how you can set boundaries for yourself right now.
3. Talk to someone you trust.
   Talk things through with someone you feel comfortable to get vulnerable when things get complicated. This will help provide a safe space for you to feel understood. They can put things in a different perspective for you, give answers to some challenging situations, and permit you to express how you’re truly feeling.

Did you find any helpful tips on how to ask for help for mental health? Let me know in the comments below what tips you found helpful and share any of your own.

For more resources on mental health, listen to my latest interviews with mental health professionals, healers, therapists, and wellness experts who share their best advice on how to heal and protect your mental health on the Get Loved Up podcast on Apple and Spotify.