What Creates Mental Wellness?

Learn what mental wellness is, why it’s important, and how you can strengthen your own.

An illustration of a young woman in striped socks about to write or draw in her notebook. In a word balloon extending from the page, various elements related to improving mental are depicted, such as listening to music, walking a pet, and so on.

Supporting your mental wellness

In addition to getting help from others, there are many ways you can support your own mental wellness. Teen and young adult years are the right time to explore what brings you joy and what you value in life.

Helping yourself includes identifying things that relax you and make you happy and then taking time to do them. It also helps to recognize situations that stress you out, and to learn ways to regulate yourself (cope with your emotions) and handle tough situations.

What’s on your mind?

A great first step in supporting your own mental wellness is to take stock of how you’re feeling. Taking care of your mental health includes gaining a better understanding of your emotions and moods and learning how to respond to them.

Most likely, your emotions and moods vary. Some days you might feel overwhelmed by homework or nervous about a test. Other days you might be excited about an upcoming weekend with friends or relieved after a big game. Maybe you’ve been upset for a while by something going on at school, in your community, or in the larger world. And some situations probably affect you more than others.

Daily mood tracker

You can use a daily mood tracker to help you become more aware of your moods. Mental health providers sometimes ask you to use a daily mood tracker to help identify patterns — whether you are feeling low persistently, for example — and possible triggers. You might also decide to use a mood tracker yourself to get a better sense of this.

What you can do:
You can use a journal, a Opens in new tabworksheet, or an app to help track moods.

Emotions vs. moods

Emotions are strong, physiological reactions, often sparked by an event, individual, or thought. They usually last seconds or minutes. Some familiar examples are joy, anger, disgust, or fear.

Moods can be described as a positive or negative state of mind. A mood can last hours, days, or longer. And it can color how you think other people see you and how you think about the world around you.

Many things contribute to positive moods and negative moods. For example, getting enough sleep and seeing a friend can tip your mood in a positive direction. Being hungry, tired, or stressed about a bad grade or an argument can tip it in a negative direction.

What you can do

Ask yourself: What’s coming at me today? How is it making me feel?
Try using a Opens in new tabFeeling Thermometer, which can be an effective way to help you identify what’s going on.

A Feeling Thermometer is a simple tool you can use to track how strongly you are feeling an emotion. To use the Feeling Thermometer with a calming exercise, you would first label the emotion you are experiencing, and then rate its initial strength on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 being not feeling the emotion at all and 10 for when it is the strongest and most intense.

Then after using the calming exercise, rate the strength of your emotion from 0 to 10 again. And if the exercise worked, we would expect your rating to be lower!

Learning to problem-solve

It’s normal to experience different challenges throughout the day. Some may be minor, while others may not. These challenges aren’t always within your control. But often you can take an action or choose self-care that will help you feel better.

What you can do

Ask yourself: Is there anything I can do to help myself feel better? You can try this type of Opens in new tabproblem-solving approach to address a specific issue, brainstorm solutions, and choose actions to take.

“I always walk home from school, which takes an hour. In that time, I'm alone with my thoughts, which oftentimes resolves some sort of emotional conflict I might have been facing.”

— submitted by a Young Person

Everyone is different. You may like and respond to different self-care tools than a friend does. And what works well in a stressful moment may look different than what you do on a regular basis. Here are two videos from The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds of young people explaining what self-care means to them and which tools they find effective:

Self-care

Taking stock of your emotions and moods can help the way you engage in self-care. Usually, when things bother us, there are ways to help cool down emotions or relieve stress. Even when you can’t change a situation or control how it makes you feel, you can practice controlling how you react to it. For example, you may not have a say in whether you have to take a test, but you can control how prepared you are.

What you can do

Start by acknowledging how you’re feeling and why.
Ask yourself what you need. Do you need a study break? Some alone time? Time outside or with friends? An energetic activity or one that is calming?
Try out different self-care tools and decide which work best for you based on the situation.

As you consider what works best for you, here are some self-care ideas to try:

“Drawing helps me focus and calms me down. I do it whenever I can: doodling in class, drawing before bed, and creating things for others.”

— submitted by a Young Person

Self-care tools

As you figure out what works best for you, here are some self-care ideas to try:

A Self-Soothing Kit

Simple items and activities to help manage strong emotions and reduce stress when needed.

An illustration of a young woman laying on her back, arms cross behind her head, her eyes closed. Visions of things that might ground a person float above her.

Grounding Exercises

Quick techniques to reconnect with the present moment when thoughts feel overwhelming.

An illustration of a young man sitting cross-legged on the ground, blowing bubbles through a bubble wand.

Breathing Exercises

Easy patterns to calm your nervous system and regain control during stressful situations.

An illustration of a young woman relaxing inside a giant pink pair of over-the-ear headphones.

Calming Tools, Apps, and Audio

Helpful resources to soothe your mind and body when you're feeling anxious or upset.

What brings you joy?

Even with — or especially with — a busy schedule, it’s important to carve out time for fun. Making time for things that make you happy can lift your mood and offer opportunities to build authentic connections with friends and family that are so important to mental wellness.

Although you may associate the word “play” with your younger self just running around, research shows that it’s beneficial to continue throughout your life. Play is simply time to do things that you enjoy, not anything that has to be organized or part of an extracurricular activity.

Talk to your parents about the importance of making time for this type of fun. In addition to being joyful, play during the teen years helps develop executive function skills like goal setting, organization, and planning. If you’re making the case for computer or video games, just be sure to talk about screen time limits (see Social & Digital Life).

“Trying something new or refining a skill I care about keeps me going forward.”

— submitted by a Young Person

What you can do

What’s fun for you? It might be:

hanging out with friends
playing sports, playing or listening to music, cooking, participating in theater or in volunteer efforts
doing projects that interest you — is there anything that absorbs you so much that you lose track of time (in a good way)?
playing strategy games or even computer or video games (within reason).

Do you like animals but can’t get a pet? See if you can walk dogs at a local animal shelter. Feel like getting outside? See if a friend will toss a Frisbee around with you after school, or find a place that has disc golf.

Try new things. This can help you figure out what you like and don’t like, which helps in discovering who you are. Shared interests can also help you find new people that you click with outside of your everyday peer groups. Or think about something you liked to do when you were younger that you no longer seem to have time for, or stopped doing because your friends were no longer interested. Maybe it’s a good time to revisit, or try different but related activities.

Glimmers

As you practice self-care and carve out time for fun, look for the “glimmers” in your day. A glimmer is a small moment that makes you feel centered, happy, or calm — anything that makes your heart smile. Glimmers are different for everyone but can be something simple like seeing a friend, smelling cookies baking, or feeling the sun on your face. Glimmers can help give you a sense of well-being even during a difficult day. Notice when glimmers happen and how they make you feel. You might consider writing your glimmers down or sharing them with someone.

What makes you who you are?

Who are you? What are your strengths? What makes you tick — that is, what gives you a little internal push or sense of purpose? Adolescence is a time when people often start to think about questions like these. That’s true even though many teens also feel a lot of pressure around what they have (clothes, shoes, money), what kinds of grades they get, or what kind of job they want someday.

You may not yet know the answers to the bigger questions. That’s fine. It takes a long time to figure out what kind of person you are, what kind of person you might like to be, and how you choose to act in the world around you.

What you can do

Think about three to five things that you like about yourself or want to strive toward. Maybe you value kindness. Maybe you are someone who never gives up. Or you’re not apt to get too worked up and instead you go with the flow. Perhaps you want to be more tolerant or patient.
Think about three to five personal strengths: What are you particularly good at? This might be a school skill or a sport, but it also might be something like listening to others or teaching younger children.

Writing down these lists or keeping them on your phone can help remind you of who you are, what your strengths are, and how you want to act. Reminders like these can provide positive affirmation when you’re feeling worried or down.

For more guidance, see Opens in a new tabFigure out What’s Important to You from the Action for Happiness.

“When I play soccer, I feel really proud of myself. It also gives me the confidence to do more in my day and make decisions that normally I would put off.”

— submitted by a Young Person

For Young People

An illustration of a young from behind, pulling open black curtains to reveal the sunny, beautiful day outside.

Getting Help

Find support options, understand your rights, and take steps toward better mental health.

Brain-Body Connection

Understand how your physical and mental health interact and influence each other.

Social Connections

Build healthy relationships that support your mental wellness and sense of belonging.