6 Ways to Balance Your Physical and Mental Health

Your mental health has a physical element, too. Although the mind and body are often viewed as being separate, their wellness is closely related. Good mental health can positively affect your physical health. On the other hand, poor mental health can negatively affect your physical health.

Often we don't realize that some of the physical symptoms can be related to our mental health. When we talk about someone being healthy, we should include not just physical fitness but also emotional and social well-being. These are as essential as other material resources a person needs to live a full life. Health isn't just the absence of disease. It also refers to a person's ability to bounce back from an illness or other challenges in life.

There are many factors that contribute to our physical and mental well-being. They include a person's genetics, their living environment, relationships, education, and employment.

---

A Balancing Act: Mental and Physical Well-Being

Striking a balance between the mental and physical health is not as difficult as it seems. As research shows, little changes in your everyday life can contribute to your holistic well-being.

1. Diet

Most people are unaware of how much their diet impacts how they feel and think. An improper diet can harm a person's brain and mood, mess up their sleep patterns, deplete their vitality, and compromise their immune system. Foods that negatively affect your thoughts or behavior include caffeine, alcohol, snacks high in chemical preservatives and added sugar, fried food, and refined carbs.

2. Keep Moving

What is your favorite physical activity? Dancing? Cycling? Or taking a walk alone or with your pet? Most importantly, try to discover a physical activity you enjoy that suits your level of mobility and fitness. Being active every day causes changes in our brain that can positively affect our mood. Exercising can make you feel good and improve your mental health.

3. Sleep on It

In the current way of working and living, it's often difficult to fall asleep as soon as you lie down and close your eyes. After a long day, your brain needs time to relax. To get a good night's sleep, regular physical activity and a few bedtime habits are quite useful. Journaling, expressing gratitude, mindfulness, listening to soothing music, and staying off gadgets could help. Above all, refrain from any fights, worrying, or brainstorming.

For those who are busy, sleeping less can seem like a good idea, but when it comes to mental health, sufficient number of hours in the couch is a necessity. Your mood, energy levels, mental clarity, and capacity to handle stress can all be affected by sleep. So you should comply the next time someone tells you to "sleep on it."

4. Therapy

We can better understand ourselves and learn how to evolve if we can tune into the mind-body connection. A therapist may ask you to tell them where you feel the emotion in your body. At first, it may be odd and hard to understand or tune into. You may not realize it, but the reason we have thoughts or emotions come up is because our body has a sensational reaction to whatever we are experiencing in life.⁠

The reason we acknowledge the connection between emotions and sensations is because our emotions have a sensational impact on our bodies. If we can identify what our emotions feel like in the body then we can learn to recognize when that anxiety or depression is hitting us and accordingly help ourselves. As we begin to identify our sensations, we can then move through them. Therapy is there to help you be better able to move through all experiences and in order to do so, we have to learn how to "sit with" the sensations that come up in our experience. ⁠

Learn how to find the emotions in your body. (Image via Pexels/Polina Zimmerman)

5. Track Your Hobbies

It might be simple to lose track of the hobbies you once loved or to find time to relax with a good book in our hectic lives. You'll be happier and have more energy to deal with challenging emotions when they occur if you schedule time to do the things you enjoy doing.

6. Have Fun

Adult social life follows a strict rule: conversations should center around ostensibly "big" themes—careers, finance, politics, wars, and so on. Simple topics seem insignificant and restricted to women. Such a perception has a gender bias, too. According to this view, adults should focus on larger domains and articulate upon them, especially among close friends. This throws out the notion of letting our hair down and having fun. However, go ahead and jump on sofas, run on the beach, get drenched in the rain, or dress up like cartoons when you're with friends.

We forget to have fun as we grow up. (Image via Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk)

---

Takeaway

Scientific research has concluded that people think leading meaningful lives is worth striving for. Now, more than ever, healthy eating and exercise are popular among individuals of all ages. The same is true for understanding mental health and well-being. Mental health is important for everyone, even those not suffering any overt illness.