There is good stress and bad stress, but, in a world where 55% of Americans are stressed during the day, it’s important people know how to manage it (The American Institute of Stress). Whether it’s the demands of work, relationships, societal pressures, or personal challenges, no one is exempt from stress. It can creep into our lives and disrupt our sense of peace.
If dealt with correctly, stress can be used as a force for good. The key to navigating through these turbulent waters lies not in eliminating stress entirely but in cultivating mental fitness to find happiness despite challenging circumstances, enabling yourself to have the tools to deal with stress and find happiness in all situations.
What is mental fitness?
The term mental fitness can be open to interpretation but is often defined as having and maintaining a state of well-being and cultivating awareness of how we think, feel and do. A person’s mental fitness indicates their ability to think clearly and to make decisions efficiently and efficiently.
At Balance, we understand it can be hard to know how to work on your mental fitness, and this is why we build personalised meditation programs for each user, guiding them on how to consistently work on their mental fitness and in turn find happiness in all situations.
What are the benefits of mental fitness?
Practicing mental fitness helps us build resilience for life as it allows us to fill our cup with adaptation energy, otherwise known as energy reserves. This is what allows us to cope with stress, changes in expectations and all other demands that we face throughout the day.
If we allow our cup to run dry, we get thrown into fight or flight automatically. To keep ourselves calm and happy, we need to fill our cup with daily maintenance of practising mental fitness. As we continue to practise this, we start to take on a positive outlook, which helps us when challenging situations show up because we can be more emotionally balanced and calm to handle them with clarity.
When you have a positive outlook, you start looking for the good in your life instead of focusing on the negative. Where your attention flows, your energy goes. What you focus on, you experience more of. Mental fitness teaches us mindfulness and how to appreciate the present moment. This is very effective in lowering our anxiety about uncertainties or worries about the future.
Not only does mental fitness help with our mood, but it also improves our focus and attention span, meaning we can more easily find creative solutions and see the opportunities that live within tough situations. When we approach breakdowns in life with this mindset and outlook, we achieve so much more, including having prolonged moods of happiness that are not easily knocked away by the whims of life.
How can this be done?
There are many ways this can be done, one of which is through using Balance, the app brings each of its users a personal meditation coach that helps improve your stress, sleep, mood and focus. This makes it easy for users to have a zen oasis anywhere, anytime- in a way that’s right for each individual. Practices like meditation can reduce stress hormones, helping us feel calmer and more content, in turn creating a peaceful state of mind.
