Daily Mental Health Habits: How Everyday Behaviors Shape Psychological Wellbeing

The word “ritual” has been coming up in my life a lot over the past few months.  I did a professional training on the “rituals of grief.”   I received a gift certificate for a “ritual” tea ceremony.  I came home from a book exchange night with a cookbook about using seasonal ingredients as a ritual to observe the passing of the year.  As someone who grew up going to schools with religious ties, “ritual” had always been contextualized as part of the practice of faith, something that is meant to have significance because of dogma or theology.  That interpretation has evolved a lot in my adulthood, making ritual into something secular that marks and observes the mundaneness of everyday life, while celebrating the unique and special moments that we craft intentionally to find meaning, purpose, and consistency.

Secular ritual is simply the practice of including structured, symbolic, and repetitive actions into your day that help center you and meet your emotional and psychological needs. Many ritual habits are simple.  I like to cuddle with my dog every morning before getting out of bed.  Prioritizing that connection to my pet each day boosts my mood and calms me.  I have a friend with a list of daily household tasks that she does every week in the same rotation.  This routine helps soothe her and dampens the ADHD she has struggled with for the last 30 years.  A client recently described her nighttime skin care regimen as an act of combating “new mom fatigue".  It is the end point of her day, where she has a few precious minutes that are just about her needs before she transitions into the sleep she desperately struggles to get.  

If you look closely enough, ritual habits are everywhere.  I see them in my neighbor who walks circuits around our complex every morning to help combat her arthritis.  We wave to each other almost every day as I drive by, and that moment helps us feel a little less alone in life.  I see ritual habits at the family-owned restaurants in my neighborhood, which are always packed on Sundays and serve “something special” that is not on the everyday menu, marking that day as significant and unique. The same groups of people come to gather every weekend, sharing their lives and their food, relieving a little of life’s burdens with community.  

I see ritual habits in my neighbors who are out every morning putting down food for the cat colony that lives along our stretch of bayou, sharing a fundamental act of generosity with like-minded people.  I see them in our mail carrier, who likes to take her afternoon break in our parking lot, enjoying the rare quiet in one of the densest areas of the city, as she rolls down her windows and sits in stillness for a while. 

Ritual habits are one tool that helps all of us navigate to better mental health and a sense of wellbeing.  They do not have to be expensive.  They do not have to be elaborate.  They do not have to be inconvenient.  They should just be sustainable, meaningful, and specific to you. They should be pleasurable. They should be a small part of what matters to your sense of self, being expressed every day in the small moments that make up your life.  Well-being is often found in consistency, not extravagance. 

Written by Deanna Diamond, LPC