“We think constantly, and our thinking is often rife with distress.”

Martha Beck

Psychohygiene starts with addressing ineffectual thoughts and feelings and ends with effectual behaviours and actions.  Take note of your thoughts and feelings that are having a deleterious effect and take the necessary action to change those thoughts and feelings.  This requires excellent self-observation skills, self-regulation, identifying your purpose, realising your boundaries, being determined, staying internal, and fine-tuning your motivational intelligence. 

The development of one’s individual self-regulation of mental states are an important means of healthy psychohygiene in every person. Methods of harmonizing relationships, improving well-being, raising one’s own self-esteem and regulating the level of lifelong harassment are the psychohygienic means of increasing the resistance of each person.  Mental hygiene involves the implementation of a system of measures to preserve one’s own mental health and health in general ⁽¹⁾.

We are not just physical beings that identify and mend physical wounds.  We are complicated beings that require self-management skills that protect and secure our psychological well-being as well.  This concept is referred to as psychohygiene.  We need a system of psychohygiene to stay mentally and emotionally healthy.  What would this system look like?

Develop Self-Observation Skills

We need to acquire and implement our self-observation skills.  How am I doing?  What is going on for me right now?  Am I aware or am I oblivious?  I need to start being more aware of what I am thinking about and why I am having those thoughts.  I need to know what I am feeling and understand what those feelings are about.  Many of my thoughts and feelings are counterproductive.  I need to identify the source of these thoughts and feelings and reframe them into something that works for me and not against me.  I need to improve my self-regulation of my mental state to become more mindful and more psychohygienic.

Develop Self-Regulation Skills

Through self-regulating our thoughts and feelings we will gain more control over our experiences, especially our negative ones.  We can minimise our negative self-talk.  We can gain more awareness and direction in our impulsivity.  We can start to be more self-directive rather than getting stuck in non-productive circular issues like ruminating. 

Ruminating has been found to be contraindicated due to the idea that 7 out of every 8 thoughts while ruminating are negative thoughts.  Clearing the mind from rumination will lead to increased self-regulation.  All these negatives that are being decreased will not only lead to better psychological health but also better health overall.  Physical illness is not unrelated to psychological maladaptive thoughts and feelings.  These thoughts and feelings will deplete our immune system.

Identify Your Purpose

Where does one start to discover one’s purpose? Maybe look to the end instead of the beginning. Where do you want to end up? Determine your destination. Next, believe in yourself. You have the capacity to make it happen. Stay dedicated and inspired along the journey of challenges that are inevitable. Be adaptable, not rigid.

When we start to align with our purpose and stay present and in the moment, we are moving toward arriving at our true self. You can now start to understand and develop a sense of yourself as an independent individual. Your purpose and presence, which are unique to you, will guide you to a place that is self-defining.

You can break away from the limitations of judgment and negativity passed along to you by others. The past labels given to you by others, or yourself, no longer apply.

You have come to recognize the power of your own values, ideals, and beliefs. The past has lost its hold on your present and future identity. You are in the now, not the then.

Through purpose and being present you will also be more fluent at setting and achieving your goals. The core foundation of achieving one’s goals is to know your purpose and stay connected to that purpose by being focused and in the moment.

Maintain Your Boundaries

Set limits on who can access your personal and emotional space. Also, determine how much you will allow others to influence you, use your time and energy, or affect your emotions.  Your self-observational skills will help you to become more aware of when your personal boundaries are not in place.

Be Determined

Your determination is your resolve to not give in or give up.  Determination is a positive thought or feeling that promotes achieving your goals in spite of obstacles. Determination is motivation that propels your behaviour and actions to keep you on course and reach your goal.

Stay Internal

Focus on your inside-out world more and on your outside-in world less.  By staying internal you avoid distractions that will take you off task.  Your psychohygienic pathway is to not get distracted by the externality going on around you.  You will be choosing to be focused like a laser, not a flashlight.  

“When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that's when passion is born.”

Zig Ziglar

Develop Your Motivational Intelligence

What unlocks our potential? What opens up our minds? What allows each of us to achieve and accomplish more? One’s IQ is no guarantee. One’s EQ, emotional intelligence, is no guarantee. The engine that drives our behaviour is motivational intelligence (MQ).

The beauty of MQ is that it is not only about how you motivate yourself but also how you motivate others. Research suggests we motivate others not by what we say to them but, rather, by how we think. Much like Bandura’s social learning theory, we motivate others through modeling motivated behaviour.

The Triune Model of the brain proposed by Dr. Paul McLean of Yale, with supporting research from Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford; Dr. Anders Ericsson and Dr. Yu-Hao Lee of University of Florida; and Dr. David McClelland and Dr. Hans Schroder of Harvard, among others, suggests the brain evolved in three phases ⁽²⁾.

1.     The neocortex is where IQ lives—it’s our thinking brain, which is responsible for logic, reasoning, and solving complex problems.

2.     The limbic brain is where EQ lives—it’s our feeling brain, which is responsible for our emotions.

3.     The reptilian brain is where MQ lives—it’s our survival brain, which triggers our fight (do) or flight (not do) mechanism, which is ultimately what drives/motivates our behaviour.

Success derived from MQ is multifaceted. When delineated, not in any specific order, MQ is about discovering your purpose and your passion.  It’s about  conquering your self-limiting beliefs and fears.  It’s also about  a persistence and willingness to overcome adversity and discomfort, a willingness to accept and embrace change, and building your confidence and your psychohygiene.

^References

^{1-Boltivets, S. (2022).  Psychohygiene is a System of Maintaining Mental Health. Mental Health & Human Resilience International Journal: MEDWIN PUBLISHERS, Sept. 23, 2022.}

^{2-Dweck. C. (2016). What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means. January 13, 2016, Harvard Business Review}