The month of January resurrects New Year Resolutions tradition. Begin this year aiming to promote mental health awareness and ways to improve it. January is the month dedicated to celebrate national hug day, national self-love month and national mentoring month. The core objective is to bring forward the importance of mental disorders and remedies to mitigate them. These restorative actions have positive effects on mental health, therefore the focus lies on why they should be brought into practice. An elaborative discussion births an element of need and significance of allotment of these days.

National Hug Day:

January 21^st is the National Hugging Day, an effective way of expressing your love for your dear ones and a way to feel connected with them. Hugs are a non-verbal love language, a sublime expression that can be comforting and encouraging. One can show support and kindness to someone by hugging them, it acts as a distress release for troubled minds in some cases. Hugs can last from few seconds to several minutes. Long hugs (as long as seven or more seconds) are always better as they help chemicals oxytocin and serotonin reach their highest level, therefore maximum benefits rely on prolongation of hug.

It is normal to have a desire to give hugs, human touch is necessary. In some scenarios, people are seen not being fond of physical touch but its importance lies in the healing power it withholds. Having no physical touch can ultimately impact mental and physical health adversely whereas, realizing the need of hugs can have positive outcomes in years to come.

How hugs can improve Mental Health?

A simple hug can have multiple benefits for both receiver and giver. Below are mentioned ways to improve mental health:

• Reduce Social Anxiety:  Some people get anxious around other people and are reluctant to give or receive hugs, even though they desire intimacy. Give them some time until they get acquainted with the feeling, with passage of time social anxiety diminishes.
• Reduce Stress levels: Giving or receiving hugs boosts oxytocin level and helps reduce stress by decreasing cortisol (stress hormone).
• Strengthen Social bonds: Hugs deepens connection, one can have sense of closeness by embracing others and dissolve loneliness.
• Building Trust: Hugging releases oxytocin hormone that builds trust between you and other people.
• Creates positive mindset, attitude and mood: Hugs give you relieving and calming effect, therefore boosting happiness and evaporating stress or sadness.
• Kindness provoking: There’s always a return favor force when you receive kind behavior from someone. This ultimately initiates the compassionate bonding between people.

National Self-love month:

Self-love means caring for oneself, prioritizing one’s own happiness and comfort. There are three types of self-love i.e.

• Physical Self-love: It is all about how you see yourself.
• Mental Self-love: It is about how you think about yourself, if you are good enough or not.
• Psychological Self-love: It is about how you treat yourself basing upon your mental and physical health.

Make yourself a priority and observe changes in your life. Below are mentioned four benefits of self-love:

• Satisfaction: Loving yourself brings inner contentment and adds peace in your life. When you take the hold of your life, you live it based on your terms and that brings satisfaction. Being satisfied has a positive impact on mental health, resulting in a stress free life.
• Healthy Lifestyle: Self-love also includes taking care of your body needs i.e. diet, sleep, water intake and regular exercise.  Developing healthy habits improves mental health, as you are more focused, motivated, active, confident and incorporating your goals in your everyday routine.
• Dealing with adversity: When you love yourself you don’t compare yourself with others or scale yourself minimum. There’s no more panicking or stressing over difficult situations. You become optimistic enough to face difficulties with a positive attitude. 
• Healthy Self Esteem: Having a healthy self-esteem means feeling good about yourself and trusting your abilities. You take the opportunity to learn from your failures and work on your growth. Self-esteem plays a role in improving your mental health, as you are less exposed to bad habits or fall prey of loneliness and despair.

National Mentoring month:

With the passage of time we are getting busier in our lives, it is hard to even take out time for yourself. The mental health spaces are diminishing today when the need is even more. There exists not many supportive communities that spread awareness of mental health.

How mentoring helps mental health?

Mentorship can play an important role in improving mental health for both mentor and mentee. Here are five ways how mentoring helps mental health:

• Supporting Isolation: People suffering with mental illness feel isolated and hollow, having a support system can impact greatly on their mental health.
• Reducing level of anxiety: People suffering from anxiety worry about petty to colossal matters, they worry about the people around them and their abilities. Mentoring can help people feel good and make them learn to take it slow.
• Boosting Self-Confidence: Suffering from persistent mental illness results in blurry confidence. The self-confidence evolves and rebirths after being mentored, for you are appreciated and accepted.
• Feeling heard: Having a mentor gives you support and a feeling of beingheard.
• Building Hope: Mentoring awakens hope, mentors discuss long term and short term goals with their mentees.

The emphasis is on the workplace well-being and mental health, both can be targeted by the organization.