What does your typical day look like? It probably follows a familiar pattern. Have you ever asked yourself how your daily habits influence your mental health?

The things you do every day can either ease your symptoms or exacerbate them. Here’s why routines are so important to your mental health and how you can tweak yours to improve your outcomes.

Your daily habits influence your mental health. Here’s why routines are so important to your mental health and how you can tweak yours to improve your outcomes.

1. They Help You Manage Your Responsibilities

You’ve probably noticed that you don’t sleep as well your first few nights in a new home. You might also spend an inordinate amount of time looking for your keys. Pro-tip: Make hanging your new hook and hiding a spare first on your to-do list.

Why? You were used to putting your keys in the same location in your old home. The shakeup to your routine means that you could misplace what you formerly found with ease.

Routines can ease stress by creating a predictable rhythm to your days. You don’t have to think about what to do next — after a while, it becomes part of your automatic functioning.

It can also help you ward off symptoms of mental illness. For example, some people slide into a hoarding lifestyle by letting minor cleaning tasks build up until the mess becomes overwhelming. By making a schedule and tackling one or two chores per day, you can keep your house tidy and ease the feelings of overwhelm that haunt you when clutter gets way out of control.

When you practice them often enough, habits such as going to the gym after work also become automatic. One way to ease decision fatigue is to automate your life as much as possible.

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2. They Ease Decision Fatigue

Have you ever noticed that you start to lose your temper when you have too much to do in too short a period? One reason that time causes stress is that it forces you to make multiple decisions in a short span. Doing so can fatigue your brain.

Decision fatigue, also known as ego depletion, refers to the way that your self-control slips a notch the more you tackle in a single day. When this occurs, you could find yourself snapping at store clerks — or family members — and making poor choices, such as stopping at the drive-thru for dinner. One way to ease decision fatigue is to automate your life as much as possible. You might do this every time you have your HR department direct a portion of your income toward your retirement.

When you practice them often enough, habits such as going to the gym after work also become automatic. You start feeling guilty if you have to miss a day. How long does this process take? Unfortunately, it varies by person, anywhere from 18 days to most of a year. However, the results are well worth the concerted effort.

3. They Help Ease Anxiety

Much anxiety stems from not knowing what you’re expected to do. The right routines take that uncertainty away, providing you with a clear roadmap for your day.

These techniques work for your children, too. For example, if your little one has first-day anxiety, why not perform a “dress rehearsal”? You can do everything from getting up and dressed, packing lunch and heading to the bus stop. Do so more than once until they feel comfortable with their new routine.

4. They Promote Healthy Habits

Do you have to stop and think about brushing your teeth before going to bed? Probably not — you likely indulged in this nightly ritual since childhood.

The right routines promote your healthy habits. For example, maybe you go to the farmer’s market every Saturday morning and handle your food prep that afternoon. Before you know it, you have a fridge and freezer full of nutritious nom-noms that you can grab and go all week long.

Perhaps you want to start doing yoga before bed. Start small, perhaps with just five minutes a day. Before you know it, the rewards you reap will have you growing your practice.

5. They Alert Your Support System

Many people complain that they feel very little sense of community anymore. However, let’s say you go for a walk each morning. You pass the same people and puppies and say hi, perhaps pausing to pass idle chit-chat. If you don’t show up a few days in a row, you better believe they’ll take notice.

Routines help those you love know what to expect from you and when. This knowledge is invaluable if you have a crisis and can’t bring yourself to reach out for help. Your support system will notice your absence and check on you.

6. They Give You a Sense of Accomplishment

Finally, people with depression often struggle with feelings of worthlessness, as if the world would be better without them in it. Routines help to break that impression by giving you a sense of accomplishment.

Think about how proud you feel when you check something off your to-do list. Use this document when you practice cognitive reframing negative thoughts. It’s pretty hard to say, “I’m useless. I never do anything right,” while staring at a piece of paper covered in checkmarks representing all that you’ve done.

Routines are vital for your mental health. The right routines take that uncertainty away, providing you with a clear roadmap for your day.

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