I recently described the mental health benefits of surrounding yourself with a tribe of friends. However, how do we know who belongs in that tribe? Sometimes the people around us can be toxic or perhaps just not supportive. I’ve taken years to carefully craft my circle, so I wanted to share some of the criteria I use.

Thanking your friends for mental health support is a great way to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month, so I wanted to share something powerful about my own health and the tremendous effect creating a tribe and surrounding yourself with great friends has on your mental health.

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.

"Me time" activities are important for your happiness and health. They can be an opportunity for reflection, a break for self-care, a respite from socializing, or simply the expression of an introverted nature. However, for many people like me, me time can easily become a contributing factor for depression. Isolation is one of the more dangerous symptoms of mental illness because it encourages cyclical thoughts and keeps us from recognizing the love in our lives.

Whether your difficulty lies in being on time for work, being on time for school, or just being on time for a lunch with a friend, it can often feel like you're just someone who can't be punctual. Being late can even affect your experience of life by increasing your feelings of stress in traffic (potentially creating road rage) or your meetings even after you arrive.

Online arguments can be so tempting at times. I admit it: I hadn’t slept, couldn’t stop crying over the US’s most recent traumatic event, and had a short fuse, so I went online. I made some legitimately informative remarks on a stranger’s comment but added sarcasm. I stirred things up. And I regret it, because not only was my point lost, I’m now left obsessing over that conversation, while I’m sure nobody else is. Online arguments can often be damaging to our enjoyment of life.

Many factors can cause you to be stressed at work. Unfriendly coworkers, unnecessary regulations, difficult clients, and long hours all potentially release stress and anxiety chemicals, which, without intervention, can affect our entire day. But you can cut down on feeling stressed at work.

What is a bliss book? It developed from a training I recently took that assigned the creation of a brag book. The entries entail at least one thing every day I’m proud of. I’ll admit, I found this quite contrived at first. Full disclosure: I still don’t do it every day like I want to, but I've taken it on, calling it a bliss book instead.

Cyclical thought is one of the biggest causes and symptoms of downward mental health spirals. Cyclical thoughts create a loop your brain seemingly can’t get out of. These cyclical thoughts can invite anything from feeling like a bad friend to panic attacks to depressive episodes. Sometimes the thoughts become so irrational that they’re almost humorous to look back on when we emerge from them.

Any kind of mindfulness trick can seem too difficult or pointless when you're really depressed. During one of my worst periods of depression, I had a coach from a personal development program. He suggested I list all the places and activities that made me happy, then go do them. I became even more distraught when I realized I had exactly zero items to put on my list. But check out this mindfulness trick, it's different.