Mental Hygiene: What It Is and How to Recognise When You Need It

Mental hygiene rests on one straightforward principle: before you can protect yourself, you need to understand what you are protecting yourself from. Without that understanding, no practice will work — it becomes empty ritual.

What mental hygiene actually is

It is not simply a collection of healthy habits. At its core it follows a three-step logic: first, education — learning how the mind works and what damages it; then hygiene proper — stopping the things that "poison" you; and finally direction — actively supporting what preserves and develops neuroplasticity. The third step only becomes possible after the first two.

How to recognise when mental hygiene is breaking down

One of the key signals is perfectionism — when any deviation from an "ideal" produces internal tension, anxiety, or agitation. A simple test: can you walk away once something is "good enough," or does an unrelenting inner restlessness hold you in place? If you cannot leave calmly, that is already a signal. Crucially, perfectionism is not a disease in itself — it is a manifestation, a symptom pointing to a deeper underlying state.

Another marker is the absence of what might be called the "healthy-psyche syndrome": a vivid, rich experience of life that must not be confused with euphoria or artificially induced excitement. When that quality of aliveness is missing, it too signals that mental hygiene deserves attention.

Why classical concepts matter

The doctor deliberately uses classical terms — for example, psychasthenia — rather than fashionable words like "burnout." The reason is straightforward: people have lived on this planet for a long time, and time-tested concepts describe reality more precisely without leading us astray. Understanding *exactly what* is happening in one's mind is itself the first layer of mental hygiene.