 Hey, Psych2Goers, welcome back. Thank you for being here. When you think of the phrase, creating healthy habits for yourself, you probably think of eating healthy, exercising, and getting to bed on time. These are all great things to do for your physical health. But what about creating healthy habits for your mental health? Keeping a healthy mind as just as important as keeping a healthy body, because one can easily influence the other. If you wanna know more about good mental health habits, here are six surprising habits that make you mentally strong. Number one, you are in control of your emotions. Did a recent argument with a friend leave you feeling hurt or upset because of what they said? Have your parents ever told you that you need to do a better job on your chores when you thought you were doing a good job already? In both of these situations, it's understandable that you may feel upset, anxious, annoyed, or even outright angry. And that's okay. Feeling these kinds of emotions doesn't make you weak. It's perfectly normal. It's when you don't allow those negative emotions to take control of you that makes you mentally strong. For example, while arguing with your friend, you didn't take your anger out on them and chose to keep calm, even though you were upset at the time. Or maybe when you're sad, you don't let that heaviness drag you down and keep you from moving forward. You try to move past your emotional hurdles. You recognize these negative emotions and choose to acknowledge them. In doing so, you're able to calmly process them and work through them, leaving you with the ability to respond to most situations with a clear head. Number two, you question your thoughts and beliefs. How does questioning thoughts and beliefs make you mentally strong though? When you think critically about your thoughts and beliefs, you're challenging yourself. With the internet at our fingertips, there is so much information to take in and explore. This can be overwhelming when you're trying to keep up with what's true and what's lies or what's just a rumor. It can be really easy to blindly accept everything you hear as truth. Mentally strong people make a habit of questioning or thinking critically about things they come across, whether it's something a close family member told them or a news article they saw. Questioning things that you read or hear gives you a reason to dig deeper, allowing you to learn more and gives you the opportunity to learn about different people's perspectives. By doing this, it gives you control over how the information affects you. Number three, you have healthy boundaries in place for yourself. Do you feel like a doormat for people to walk all over? Do you drop everything you're doing to help out a friend or family member when they need a favor? Creating healthy boundaries for the people in your life is a good habit for a mental strength. According to an article from PsychCentral, boundaries are a measure of your self-esteem. When you create healthy boundaries, you're letting others know how to treat you while allowing you to be your best self. When you don't have boundaries, it's easier to always say yes to people. You let your friends frequently vent all of their problems to you or you let that one friend poke fun at you a little too much. While wanting to be there for others and help them isn't necessarily a bad thing, always being available at everyone's beck and call can put unneeded stress on you. You can't pour out of an empty cup. By not setting healthy boundaries, there's a good chance that eventually your cup will run out. To stay mentally strong, it's important to create boundaries with those around you so that you don't drain yourself of all of your mental and physical energy. Number four, you actively learn from your mistakes. Have you ever said something that wasn't nice, born out of anger or frustration, or have you gotten a lower grade on a test than what you were expecting? You might dwell on situations where you weren't acting your best and focus on them. Obsessing over things you've done in the past only adds more stress to your plate. When you start to think about what happened, figure out why it happened and make a plan for how to improve on it next time. This will make you mentally stronger because it shows that you're choosing to grow and learn from past mistakes. Number five, you limit your time on social media. How many hours do you spend on social media a day? Social media is a huge part of our society and our daily lives. It can be a great way to connect with friends and family and is filled with endless memes and cute cat pictures. But there can be risks to scrolling through Instagram. Apps like Facebook and Instagram make it easy to compare your life to others. Those glossy filtered photos and the posts about their happy lives can make it look like the grass is greener on their side and an unhealthy game of comparison can start in your heart. According to a study, prolonged use of social media sites and apps may be linked to symptoms of depression. When exposed to all of that social media, you can start to think you aren't good enough or be envious of the things you see people doing online. Limiting your use of social media can help you avoid this harmful comparison game. Whether you give yourself an allotted amount of time to check social media each day or you only check at night or in the morning, limiting your time on social media can help make you mentally strong. And number six, taking time for yourself. Do you have long days at school or at work? Do you often choose to do more work than what is asked of you? Are you constantly on the go and feel like you have to be doing something to stay productive? Going above and beyond and keeping up on productive tasks is great, but if you don't take time for yourself to recharge, your mental health can take a hit. According to an article from PsychCentral, downtime allows your brain to restore attention and motivation. It promotes creativity, strengthens memory and can even make you more productive in the long run. When you take a little time out of your busy day to go for a walk, read a book or even just lay on the couch and watch your favorite TV show. You're allowing your mind to take a break and recharge. Just like you sometimes need a nap after lunch to boost your physical energy, your mind needs rest too. Do you practice any of these habits to stay mentally strong? If so, have they helped you? Or do you know someone who could benefit from these habits? Let us know in the comments below. We'd love to know your thoughts. A huge shout out to Coursera for sponsoring this video and offering a Yale University course to our viewers. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more Psych2Go videos. Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.