Support your mind on World Mental Health Day with these simple lifestyle habits
- Lise
- Oct 10, 2025
- 3 min read
World Mental Health Day is marked every year on October 10, serving as a reminder of the importance of good mental health and the need to prioritize and invest in it.
Like physical health and fitness, everyone has a different level of mental health. It can be good when happiness and satisfaction with life prevail, but there are times when poor mental health issues are experienced.
Research suggests that each year, a quarter of people in England will experience a mental health problem of some kind. That’s one in six people experiencing a common mental health problem like anxiety or depression in any given week. What is important to realise, however, is that just like physical health, mental health can be improved by working at it.
Adopting certain lifestyle and eating habits can really improve resilience for when tough times come to test us.
Ways to support your mental health
Move daily
Regular movement and exercise are one of the most important things you can do to protect your mental health. Not only does it improve your mental health, but it also protects against a myriad of chronic health issues, such as stroke, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer. Yet despite these benefits being well established, over a third of UK adults do not meet the recommended amount of activity. Current NHS guidelines recommend that people aged 19 to 64 should do a type of physical activity every day. That’s at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity each week, spread over four to five days per week or daily.
In fact, doing just 15 minutes per day can significantly reduce your risk of getting depression from 10 to 20 per cent.
Walking in nature conveys many health benefits and full-spectrum light helps reset circadian rhythm, the body’s internal 24-hour clock that regulates our sleep-wake cycle. Ideally, get outside within two hours of waking.
Prioritise sleep
Mental health and sleep are deeply connected, with poor sleep negatively impacting mental wellbeing. We spend one third (or thereabouts) of our lives doing it poorly, increasing the risk of having poor mental health. There is no set rule as to how much you need, which varies from person to person, but eight hours is a good aim.
Top sleep tips include going to bed and waking at regular times during the week as this helps set the internal body clock. Avoid caffeine, alcohol and nicotine before sleep as these are stimulants and cause difficulty in dropping off and shallow sleep.
Keep the bedroom as a sanctuary for sleep – avoid watching television, scrolling on a mobile or having heavy discussions in the wind-down to sleep time. Making it a dark, quiet and comfortable temperature will reduce the likelihood of waking during the night.
Diet
One of the most effective things that can be done to support good mental health is to pay attention to what is eaten. A reliance on ultra-processed and junk foods is going to have a knock-on effect on how someone feels. Processed foods lead to poor gut health, resulting in an imbalance between beneficial bacteria that live there and pathogenic, unhelpful ones. This gut imbalance is called dysbiosis, and is associated with poor mental health.
Enter the gut-brain axis. The bi-directional communication system of neurons that links the gut with the brain. Gut microbes interact with the gut-brain axis, helping to create many neurotransmitters that are required for good mental health, like serotonin and dopamine.
Everyone can support their gut microbes and production of neurotransmitters by adopting a diet consisting of unprocessed fresh foods (like fish and meat), pulses, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Aim for five portions of fresh vegetables and two pieces of fruit per day. Colour your life and go for as many colours as you can. They are sources of a variety of phytonutrients that help to keep your gut and immune system healthy.
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