More people have reported an increase in mental health struggles do to the trials of this past year, COVID-19, and social isolation. There are many factors that play a role in mental health and your physical health is one of them. Being conscious about your physical well being can have a direct correlation to how your body functions.
Life can be emotionally and physically taxing with all of the stimuli coming at us each and every day, it is common to start feeling the mental as well as the physical strain from enduring this busyness.
So what do we do?
From a physical standpoint, the answers to these questions lie in how we maintain and protect our mental health.
Mental health is defined as “the condition of being sound mentally and emotionally that is characterized by the absence of mental illness…as reflected in feeling comfortable about oneself, positive feelings about others, and the ability to meet the demands of daily life.” Our mental health affects how we think, feel, act, make decisions, handle stress, and relate with others. Mental health is vital to our overall well-being, which makes it a crucial component in making up our physical health.
Since our physical health can be impacted by our mental health, the reverse is also the same! The physical choices that we make each and every day can have either a positive or negative impact on our mental well-being. By taking care of ourselves on a physical level, we can make major improvements on a mental level due to the release of particular hormones.
Here are 5 things you can do to improve your mental well-being:
- Be active for a least 30 minutes 3-5 days each week by going on a brisk walk, jog, bike ride, or hike
- Engage in full-body strength training at least 2 days per week
- Prioritize getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night
- Fill most of your plate at each meal with fruits and vegetables to give the body the nutrients needed
- Drink half of your body weight in ounces of water each day to ensure nutrients are getting circulated and utilized throughout your body
So there we have it! We have the ability to impact our overall mental health just by taking care of our bodies. Just as 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God,”
Let’s focus on taking care of our temples (our bodies) in the physical sense as that will both improve overall mental health and bring glory to the Lord. He is our hope in the times we need it most.
In light of the trying year that we've had, more and more health providers, whether traditional health insurance or health care sharing alternatives like Medi-Share, now offer telemental counseling with the benefit of never having to leave your home!
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