Remember using a sticker reward chart or star chart for life as a child? Perhaps your family used one to measure chores or good behavior. Maybe your school utilized a sticker reward chart to keep track of assignments done or kindness to other students. A sticker reward chart, however infantile it may seem now, can actually bring more satisfaction to your life. 

Your mental health and sleep are closely linked. When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re more likely to be irritable or depressed. These qualities don’t make for pretty personalities. However, a little attention to sleep hygiene (habits to increase your quality of and time spent sleeping) can make a large difference in your happiness and overall health. Studies show that lack of sleep can raise the likelihood of developing depression, trigger a bipolar episode, and contribute to anxiety, according to a Harvard Mental Health letter that synthesizes multiple studies.1 How, then, can we improve our sleep in order to experience more of life? Turns out there’s an entire industry around sleep hygiene we can turn to for guidance because improving your mental health through sleep is entirely possible.

If you find yourself hating the holidays, don’t worry you are not alone in your hatred for this time of year (Ideas for Managing Depression Over the Holidays). The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is supposed to be warm, fuzzy, and happy but for many of us, it’s not. Many of us actually hate the holidays.

There is one step positive people take to feel happier. I've always admired positive people, and now I am one. I found that I can be a positive person in only one step. That one step positive people take is to surround themselves with positivity. Really, that's all it takes to be a positive person and join the ranks of positive people living fulfilling lives.

When you have chronic depression or bipolar disorder, depression relapse seems inevitable and you need to know how to survive depression relapse. I’ve been in treatment for bipolar disorder for almost 12 years and I still struggle with these relapses. Here are some tips I gleaned recently on how to survive a depression relapse.

It’s hard to experience peace in uncertainty. If I always knew how the chips would fall life would be easy and I would be happy, right? I’m not sure if certainty really leads to bliss, but I do know it’s possible to experience peace in uncertainty.

Developing emotional resilience does not exempt you from life’s stressors. It helps you maintain hope when you have to face those stressors (Resilience: Getting Up When Mental Illness Knocks You Down). If you can learn how to bounce back from difficulty, you will adapt rather than succumb to adversity. Learn how to develop your emotional resilience. Here's how.

One of the best lessons I’ve learned about living a blissful life is to be happy with what you have. Being happy with what I have has helped me achieve a peace that I never had when I was looking for that greener grass on the other side.

I believe that positive actions will lead to positive thinking. To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, what you think ultimately determines your actions. With depression, however, sometimes you have to consciously choose actions in order to change your thinking. Positive actions will lead to positive thinking.

Staying positive in this negative world is an important part of living a blissful life. Election seasons brings the need for this to the surface. I've learned a few ways to stay positive without letting negativity take up my time.