The Art Of Finding Yourself Again: Everyday Mental Health Beyond Awareness Days

Discover 5 ways to strengthen your mental health every day

There is no greater loss than the loss of losing yourself. Here are 5 ways to strengthen your mental health every day, and not just on mental health awareness days. Your mental health is your everyday relationship, not an annual event.

The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever build. Every year, World Mental Health Awareness days trends across social media, workplaces host panels and hashtags bloom with reminders to “check in.” Yet, as the buzz fades, many return quietly to survival mode.

The truth is, mental health isn’t a day on a calendar, it’s meant to be a daily practice. It’s the ongoing relationship you have with yourself: how you speak to yourself in private, how you self-soothe your nervous system, how you handle disappointment, loneliness or self-doubt.

There is no greater loss than the loss of yourself, that slow erosion of joy, energy and identity that can happen when you stop tending to your inner world. And for many South Asian people, who’ve grown up in cultures that prioritise achievement, duty and family honour over self-awareness, this loss often goes unnoticed until burnout, anxiety or illness appear.

There is a strong link between your mental health and your physical health. And your life starts with how you think about yourself and that is your mental health.

The science of everyday mental health

From a neuroscience and human biology perspective, your mental health is not static. It’s sculpted by daily habits and micro-choices:

• Your brain is neuroplastic, constantly rewiring itself in response to how you think, move and feel. Positive self-talk, gratitude and regular rest literally strengthen neural pathways that support calm and resilience.

  
  

• Hormones like cortisol, serotonin and oxytocin fluctuate with sleep, nutrition and social connection. Chronic stress floods the system with cortisol, inflaming the gut, tightening the chest and exhausting the adrenal glands.

  
  

• Organs talk to one another: The heart and gut have their own neural networks that communicate emotional states to the brain via the vagus nerve. When you practice breathing or grounding exercises, you are recalibrating your neurobiology, not just “relaxing.”

In South Asian communities, where stoicism and sacrifice are often mistaken for strength, these biological truths are rarely discussed. But ignoring your body’s emotional signals can manifest in physical conditions like autoimmune disease, heart issues, digestive disorders or chronic fatigue.

How trauma affects your daily mental health work

For many, mental health is made harder by unhealed trauma that operates beneath awareness.

• Intergenerational trauma passes silently through family systems, patterns of silence, emotional repression or hyper achievement designed for survival.

  
  

• Enmeshment trauma blurs boundaries, leaving you responsible for others’ emotions and disconnected from your own needs.

  
  

• Domestic violence trauma or sexual abuse trauma can cause the body to live in constant vigilance, as if danger never ended.

Without daily emotional work, grounding, therapy, boundaries, these traumas continue to live inside your body, shaping thoughts, hormones and behaviours. Healing requires consistency, not occasional awareness.

5 ways to work on your mental health every day

1. Start your morning with emotional check-ins

Before looking at your phone, notice your body. Where is tension sitting? How are you breathing? This activates the insula cortex, the part of the brain that builds self-awareness. When you name what you feel, you begin regulating it.

2. Feed your brain, not just your body

Foods rich in omega-3s, magnesium and B vitamins support serotonin production. Gut health equals mood health, the microbiome produces nearly 90% of the body’s serotonin. Small dietary changes can shift emotional balance.

3. Ground yourself through movement

Gentle exercise, yoga or even mindful walking reduces cortisol and increases dopamine and endorphins. Movement signals to the limbic system that you are safe now, helping trauma held energy release slowly.

4. Practice mental hygiene like emotional decluttering

Journalling, creating a mind map of worries or using vision boards keeps emotions from accumulating. The prefrontal cortex part of your brain (decision-making) works better when the emotional brain isn’t overloaded.

5. Build self-connection rituals

End each day with a moment of gratitude, prayer, reflection or silence. South Asian women especially often give emotional labour endlessly; these rituals reclaim time for the self. When you tend to your inner life daily, you strengthen neural pathways of self-soothing and self-trust.

The South Asian context: Learning to choose yourself

In many South Asian households, emotional neglect is generational, not out of cruelty, but out of conditioning. Parents who survived instability or migration often raised children to be resilient, not reflective. Mental health was secondary to their survival.

But silence is not strength; it’s suppression. Reclaiming your emotional wellbeing means breaking cycles: learning to express rather than endure, to rest rather than overperform, to heal rather than hide.

When we begin caring for our mental health daily, we honour our ancestors not by repeating their pain, but by transforming it.

Mental health is not a campaign or a calendar date. It is a living, breathing relationship that demands daily attention, much like any other relationship that matters.

The greatest loss is losing yourself to the noise, the expectations, the endless doing in your day. But the greatest act of love is to meet yourself, every day, with compassion and care.

Because mental health isn’t something you “raise awareness” for once a year, it’s something you live, moment by moment, breath by breath, day by day. Your mental health needs your attention every day.

About Tina

Tina Chummun is a UKCP accredited psychotherapist specialising in grief and trauma. She supports clients through various forms of loss - from bereavement and health diagnoses to identity and cultural grief. Her approach blends neuroscience, culture, and person-centered therapy to help individuals feel understood and less alone. You can learn more about Tina here.