Your mental wellbeing

A poor diet will increase your stress levels, and that can make small problems harder to deal with. If you’re not sure what you should be eating, talk to your general practitioner, or a dietician.

Sometimes we end up focussing on our problems and stop doing the things that we used to find enjoyable. Even if you don’t feel like getting involved in hobbies or other activities, being active is important for your mental and physical health.

Exercise is vital to managing stress. Just a half an hour of vigorous exercise most days will greatly improve your fitness and sense of wellbeing.

Problems often appear much bigger than they really are when you’re tired, so getting a good night’s sleep is important. 

Setting goals on a regular basis helps to bring structure, achievement, and a sense of satisfaction into our lives. You may be up against a barrier that seems too big to overcome. But if you set realistic goals to take small steps and achieve them then you can make progress, and gain satisfaction when you overcome that obstacle.

The way we think about ourselves affects how we feel and act. People under stress often develop thinking habits that make them feel worse about things. Unhelpful thoughts might make you feel distressed, or hold you back from getting along with other people. By making you feel overwhelmed or hopeless they make it harder to deal with your situation.

People don’t often think about how they’re thinking, so unhelpful thinking just keeps happening. With a bit of practice, you can teach yourself to replace unhelpful thoughts with helpful ones — thoughts that help you deal with the situation and generally improve your mood.

When we’re not doing so well, certain situations can trigger reactions that affect our mood, health, decision making, our ability to get things done, and our relationships with other people.

Learning skills to manage these reactions can improve self-confidence, relationships, and health. It can reduce our reliance on unhelpful ways of coping, like drinking too much or avoiding situations that make us anxious, stressed, or angry.

It’s easy to pull away from people when you’re not feeling great. But having someone around you to support you through difficult times is really important.

You might feel like your friends and family don’t understand what you’re going through, or that hanging out with the guys from your old unit brings back too many bad memories. It is true everyone needs time to themselves now and then, but being alone for too long isn’t good for you.

Try building up your social connections so that you have a few people that you can turn to for different types of support.