Caring for both your physical body and your mental health are essential for truly feeling your best. After all, if your mental health is suffering, you won’t be able to enjoy the full advantages of a well-balanced diet and exercise plan. And without taking care of your physical body, you won’t optimize your mental health. That’s why I consider health a full-body—and mind—effort.
If you’re not sure where to start, read on to learn 6 fundamental strategies for building inner and outer strength. Consider this a cheat sheet for living your life to its fullest potential. Whether you start small with just 1 of these or incorporate all of them, I promise that you’ll notice the difference.
How to Feel Strong Inside & Out
Inner Strength Building Techniques
With mental health issues on the rise in the wake of COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to practice strategies that help us feel calmer and more centered. Here are a few of my favorites—including action steps you can take right now—for better mental health:
1. Think Positive
Your thoughts create your reality. And negative thoughts create a negative reality—because they’re actually detrimental to your health, contributing to dementia, depression, anxiety, mood swings, and irritability. They affect every cell of the body.
My husband, Daniel, calls them ANTs, or automatic negative thoughts. Unfortunately, doom-and-gloom thinking keeps us in a cycle of self-pity and victimhood. Among other manifestations, ANTs can include catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, blaming, wallowing in guilt, or negatively comparing yourself to others.
On the other hand, positive thoughts keep us looking at the brighter side of life. Your relationships and well-being improve. Your stress levels reduce. You even look younger!
Action steps: Start to question your ANTs and ask if they’re really true. Recognize your negative thinking patterns and start to re-examine situations in a more positive light. Start a daily gratitude list and incorporate positive affirmations into your day.
2. Build Healthy Relationships
When a landmark Harvard study tracked participants over nearly 80 years, researchers found that relationships are one of the top predictors of health. Our social connections are crucial for staving off physical and mental decline, supporting us through hardships, and even helping us live longer. Sadly, so many Americans today are suffering from the epidemic of loneliness.
It’s important to not only create more genuine connections in our lives, but to ensure those relationships are as healthy as possible. Unhealthy relationships can actually damage our well-being. But great relationships don’t just happen; they’re built over time, with consistent effort and practice. Relationships require being proactive and investing your energy and effort over the long haul.
Action steps: Follow the 8 principles outlined in the acronym RELATING: taking responsibility, showing empathy, listening, being assertive (yet kind), spending time together, inquiring about negative thoughts, noticing what’s going right, and offering grace to your partner.
3. Put Yourself First
While many women are taught to take care of everyone else before themselves, we now know that we need to make ourselves #1—only then we can fully show up for others. Prioritizing self-care, which can take many forms, will help you navigate the ups and downs of life with more resilience. Plus, when hardships do happen, you’ll have plenty of coping strategies to help you through.
Remember that taking care of your mental health means taking responsibility for your life and avoiding the blame game or a victim mentality. So, when troubles arise, ask yourself what you can do about it right now, focusing only on what you can control. Set goals and celebrate wins. Ask for support from your loved ones.
These are just a few ways to put yourself first. The more you get into these habits, the more they will come naturally to you. Eventually, they’ll be second nature.
Action steps: To reduce stress, reflect on your life, and help process your emotions, try meditation, prayer, deep breathing, and/or journaling. Take better care of yourself inside and out by avoiding alcohol and instead indulging with a piece of dark chocolate, a soothing herbal tea, or a hot bath with relaxing lavender oil.
Outer Strength Building Techniques
We need to match the above strategies for sound mental health with the utmost care for our physical bodies. Here are some of my non-negotiables for staying at the top of my game every day:
Eat a Balanced Diet
We’ve all heard the phrase “You are what you eat,” and that’s a problem if you’re relying on the Standard American Diet, chock-full of ultra-processed “FrankenFoods.” These create inflammation in the body and can trigger an ugly cycle of dependence—researchers have found them to be addictive in the same way cigarettes are. They also harm your mental health, while increasing your risk for dementia and many other chronic diseases.
Instead, aim to fill your plate with 70% plant-based foods and 30% high-quality protein, the ratio I recommend in my book The Omni Diet. You can also eat healthy fats, like those found in nuts or avocados, but avoid trans fats or fried foods like the plague. An occasional splurge (not a binge) on a less-healthy food is fine—but make these rare. I suggest the 90/10 rule, which means sticking to a healthy diet 90% of the time. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Practice Healthy Movement
Exercise isn’t just something we do for 30 or 60 minutes a day—we must all make healthy movement a way of life. Yes, you’ll want to commit to a routine of strength training three days a week (both upper and lower body moves), to strengthen your bones, build muscles, and enjoy a more toned appearance. And interval training is a must for busting stress, boosting endurance, and improving cardiovascular health.
But you should also work movement into your life in other ways throughout the day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Go for frequent walks—as a bonus, getting out in nature provides instant stress reduction. Enhance your flexibility with sessions of yoga, tai chi, or qigong. Or take up a martial art to feel seriously empowered and work toward a worthy goal (I got black belts in both Tae Kwon Do and Kenpo Karate). When movement becomes a part of your life rather than just another daily chore, you’ll reap round-the-clock benefits.
Maximize Brain, Heart, and Gut Health
Practices like eating a healthy diet, exercising, and reducing stress levels all contribute to a healthier heart, so if you’re following the list above, you already have a great start. And because your heart and brain are connected and communicating through blood flow, a healthy heart will also help protect your mind, mood, and memory. Get check-ups regularly to make sure you don’t have high blood pressure, diabetes or pre-diabetes, coronary artery disease, or other conditions.
You’ll also want to care for your gut, often called the body’s “second brain.” Scientists are discovering just how much gut health impacts our overall health, from maintaining a strong immune system to improving mood and mental health. They’ve also found that, thanks to the gut-brain axis, the gut (like the heart) is in constant communication with the brain. To boost gut health, avoid pesticides, dairy, processed meats, excess sugar, food additives, and alcohol. Consume foods and supplements that are rich in probiotics and prebiotics.
Know Your Own Strength
We often don’t know our own strength—mental or physical—until it’s tested. And we usually find out that we’re much stronger than we think. Still, it’s important that we take steps to strengthen the body and mind before we need to face those challenges.
With any or all of the simple strategies above, you’ll feel better prepared for anything that comes your way. You’ll also be well-equipped to overcome setbacks, age with grace, inspire your loved ones, and live every day with more joy. I’ve learned from experience that these goals are worth working for!
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Meet the Author
Tana Amen, BSN, RN, Writer
Tana Amen, BSN, RN is a New York Times bestselling-author, health and fitness expert, Vice-President of Amen Clinics—the world’s leader in brain health, mentor, motivational speaker, and former neurosurgical ICU trauma nurse. By providing science-based guidance along with her authentic, no-holds-barred approach, Tana has won the hearts of millions with her simple, yet effective, strategies to help people win the fight for a strong mind, body, and spirit.
