Staying healthy is a major goal in life. Health advice is widely available, but most of it focuses on physical health. Our physical and mental health are interconnected. If the balance of mental or physical health is disturbed, we are harmed. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body, similarly, a healthy mind leads to a healthy body. A person’s mental health is determined by their emotional, social, and psychological levels. A person’s mental health has a significant impact on the way they function, process emotions, and make decisions.

A person with good mental health can maintain healthy relationships, express a wide range of emotions and easily cope with the difficulties that come during change. Our mental health has so much power that it can cure even serious diseases of the body, so we have to keep our brain healthy too. Mental and physical health are deeply related. You must be thinking, how does my mental health affect my physical health? Poor mental health affects the ability to make healthy decisions and fight diseases. Neglecting mental health can lead to serious health complications such as heart disease, high blood pressure, weak immune system, asthma, obesity, depression. Many of us consider mind and body as two different things. We also treat them in different ways, going to a doctor for physical problems and a therapist for mental problems.  However, scientists are finding more and more overlap between the two. A healthy mind helps your body function better, and a healthy body improves your mental health. Together, these two areas form a unit called the mind-body connection. There are many ways in which your mind and body influence each other. One of these ways is the two-way relationship between our gut health and our mental health. The point to note here is that your mental state can influence the physical symptoms that you experience in your gut and vice versa, the health of your gut can affect your mental state. Because it is at the core of how we think, cope with stress and view our physical health issues.

For example, people can react very differently to the same stress. One person may take a mistake pointed out by someone in their work as a challenge to improve their skills or prove the critic wrong and another person may respond to similar criticism by mentally harassing themselves and constantly worrying about future criticisms. This may lead to an increased heart rate, eating unhealthy foods or headaches.

One example is people with chronic pain. Sometimes people experience constant or intermittent pain due to physical anxiety. If they are able to accept the pain as an inconvenience while they try to get better, it is more likely to improve over time. On the other hand, if they become frustrated, annoyed, and frequently angry because of the pain, these thoughts and feelings can increase the pain and its frequency. Frustration can then prevent them from trying to get better.Constant stress, emotional problems, and a generally negative outlook can also increase blood pressure, lower the immune system, and even shorten lifespan.

Our mental health is closely linked to physical health. If one is affected, it definitely affects the other. We also know that the chemicals in our brain affect our mind and thoughts. In a state of mental stress, we generally do not like to do any kind of exercise. Exercise causes the release of endorphins in our brain. These chemicals make us feel happy. The less we exercise, the less endorphins are released. As a result, we are not able to feel motivated in any way. For mental health, it is important that we eat nutritious food, exercise, and get enough sleep. Without health, wealth, property, entertainment and other facilities seem insignificant. The person who is healthy in body and mind is the happiest creature in the world. To a sick person, everything seems meaningless. In this sense, good health is the first happiness, generally a person is said to enjoy good health when he is mentally and physically fit.  But a person will be considered completely healthy only when he is enjoying good physical, mental, social, spiritual and cognitive health. That is, contrary to popular belief, health does not only mean being physically fit and free from any disease. It also means that a person should have overall well-being. This includes being mentally and emotionally strong, having healthy inter-personal relationships, having good cognitive skills and being spiritually awakened.

Being healthy is not a state, it is a way of life. It is a process. To stay healthy and enjoy good health, it is necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle. For this, it is necessary to be mentally alert, right from food, lifestyle, cleanliness. Stay with people who are full of positive thinking and encourage them to do better instead of putting themselves in trouble. Apart from being socially active and maintaining good relations with people, it is also important to look within yourself. Spend some time with yourself so that you can understand your needs better and live your life in the right direction. Due to good health, even the most complex tasks can be done easily. A healthy person is full of indomitable courage, enthusiasm and a sense of religion in abundance. He has self-confidence. Due to which his heart always blooms like a flower. On the contrary, those people who do not have the treasure of health, despite being rich, consider their life a burden. For them, delicious dishes made at home are like poison.  He wants to eat the delicious dish, but is unable to do so because of being unwell. Thus, if one wants to live happily, it is very important to keep the body healthy. To remain healthy, we must connect with natural things. Unnatural things must be abandoned. The easiest mantra to remain healthy is- following the rules of nature, good behavior, hard physical work and nutritious, simple and sattvik diet. Drinking alcohol, consuming other types of intoxicants, living in polluted environment, improper behavior, stress – all these things have a bad effect on our health. Therefore, we must protect our life and health by avoiding them. A healthy body is considered to be the first happiness of life.