When you go to the doctor for a check-up, they will often remind you about the importance of exercise, eating right, and maintaining a healthy weight. These factors are essential activities for maintaining physical health, but what about mental health? In my experience, most doctors don’t ask about this and certainly don’t offer advice on maintaining positive mental health.
So, how important is mental health? Though many healthcare professionals don’t put a lot of emphasis on mental health, it’s just as important as your physical health. In fact, it’s one of the most important aspects of your overall wellbeing. You can eat right, exercise, and look good, but if your mind is not in a positive place, you will still be left unhappy and unfulfilled.
Mental health affects our everyday lives: from how we feel, how we think, how we behave, and how we deal with stress or anxiety. If left untreated, mental illness can severely affect your personal relationships and professional life, not to mention your overall quality of life.
Unfortunately, mental illness is often seen as a weakness; something to be embarrassed about, and something that makes you feel like you’re not normal. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The prevalence of mental illness continues to rise each year. One in five adults experiences some form of mental illness at some point in their life.
Thankfully there are many ways to improve your mental well-being. Read on for more information about the importance of mental health, how mental and physical health are intertwined and different ways to improve your overall happiness.
Why Don’t We Focus More On Mental Health?
It’s not surprising that people don’t prioritize mental health to the degree that they should. There are many misconceptions about mental health, and many people believe that it’s not as important as physical health. To be fair, it’s common for physical health to be the focus of our overall wellbeing. After all, this is what most of us can see and feel. Physical symptoms can be immediate and treated by a doctor. Additionally, if you look at the leading causes of death in the world, the top 10 are diseases with physical symptoms. So, it’s only natural for medical doctors to focus on preventing physical problems.
Mental health often goes undetected. Many who suffer do so in silence. Socially, mental health is often dismissed. If you mention that you struggle, people may tell you to get over it, or that it’s not that bad. The truth is, at its worst, mental illness can be incapacitating making it incredibly challenging to do simple tasks like getting out of bed or eating. At its best, if you’re someone who struggles with mental health, you may have good days, but bad ones will always be around the corner.
Mental health problems may not be listed as a leading cause of death, but I would argue that they are certainly a leading cause of human suffering. If you’re physically healthy, but mentally struggling then life may not even feel worth living. For these reasons, mental health is very important, and it’s something everyone needs to focus on.
Can Mental Health Affect Your Physical Health?
The funny thing about society’s focus on physical health over mental health is that they are both greatly intertwined. There’s a strong correlation between your mental state and your physical health.
When you’re stressed, you’re more likely to suffer from a cold or the flu. When you’re depressed, you’re more likely to develop heart disease. Your mental health can also play a role in your physical appearance. According to a study in the National Library of Medicine, obesity was associated with significant increases in lifetime diagnosis of major depression. These are just a handful of the different ways mental health can negatively impact physical health.
On the flip side, an increased focus on physical health can improve your mental health. Exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety and depression. It also improves mood, self-esteem, and cognitive function.
So, if you want to improve your overall wellbeing, you should focus on both physical and mental health.
Why You Should Prioritize Your Mental Health
Wait, I just told you to focus on both physical and mental health, so why am I now saying to prioritize your mental health? Well, there are many reasons to prioritize mental health.
For one, exercise has amazing mental benefits, but it can be hard to force yourself to get up and get going if you’re depressed. When it comes to achieving any goal in life if you’re not mentally resilient you’re going to have a challenging time succeeding. Even if you do succeed, it may not be the thing that makes you happy.
Your mental health is crucial to your happiness and wellbeing. Mental health affects how you feel, think, behave, sleep, eat, deal with stress and manage your relationships.
- Want to go for a run? Hard to do if you’re tired, eating poorly, and you’re stressed.
- Want a better job? Lack of confidence can prevent you from even putting your hat in the ring.
- Want to find love, or maintain a successful relationship? Good luck if you’re always sad, upset, irritable, and unwilling to improve yourself.
To get anywhere in life, and be fulfilled, you have to prioritize your mental health.
How to Improve Your Mental Health And Wellbeing
Now that I’ve answered the question, “how important is mental health?” you may be wondering what’s the best way to get started. Here are some general guidelines you can follow to improve your mental health and wellbeing:
- Maintain a balanced diet — include carbs, protein, and fat on your plate. Additionally, you should add in as many fruits and vegetables as you can. For example, if you’re having pizza or a burger and fries, add a salad. If you’re having a bowl of cereal, add a banana. This will ensure you get much-needed nutrients.
- Exercise regularly — exercise is one of the best things you can do for your mental health. It helps your body release endorphins that reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. Additionally, exercise increases energy levels, and it’s much easier to be positive when you’re not tired.
- Go outside — Studies have shown that being in nature can restore and strengthen our mental capacities, increasing focus and attention.
- Practice mindfulness — activities like meditation, or mindfulness without meditation such as cooking can help you connect to the present. Focusing on the present can ground you and ease anxiety about the past or future.
- Get enough sleep — Getting too much, not enough, or a lack of restful sleep can affect the chemicals in the brain, causing symptoms of depression.
- Practice gratitude — When you’re struggling with mental health issues, it can be easy to focus on the negatives. Focusing on things you’re grateful for can help ease depression and anxiety.
If you’re interested in learning about more activities to improve your mental health and wellbeing, read my post, “20 Ways to Improve Your Mood and Motivation Today.”
How Important is Routine for Mental Health?
Knowing about several activities to improve mental health is great but learning how to incorporate them into your life can be a challenge. That’s why creating a daily routine for mental health is so important.
A huge aspect of my success in overcoming anxiety and depression was learning how to build mental health into my day. Start small by choosing one activity to do daily like meditating for 10 minutes before bed, or journaling. Then after a week or two add something new. This will help you get a feel for what you enjoy, and what helps your mood.
For a comprehensive guide on how to incorporate mental health into your routine, check out my post, “How to Create a Daily Routine for Mental Health.”
Why Psychological Flexibility Is Important for Mental Health
Perhaps you’ve been to therapy or tried other ways of improving your mental health, but you didn’t have much luck. When I went through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which is the most common form of therapy, I struggled with changing my negative thoughts. Instead, I found that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was much more effective because it helped me learn how to make room for my anxiety and depression without trying to change it.
ACT focuses on teaching people how to build psychological flexibility through six core processes:
- Acceptance — learning to make room for thoughts and feelings without trying to change them.
- Cognitive Diffusion — learning how to create distance from thoughts.
- Connecting to the present — Focusing on the here and now rather than the past or future.
- Self as context — Learning how to observe your thoughts and your mind.
- Values — Figuring out what values are most important to you.
- Committed Action— Tying values to action to live a more fulfilling life.
To learn more about ACT and psychological flexibility, read my post, “What Therapy is Best for Anxiety: CBT vs ACT.”
When to See a Therapist or Psychiatrist
While self-help is great, if you’re not happy with the progress you’re making, or if you feel like you’ve hit a wall, it might be time to consider therapy. If this is the case, don’t feel bad about yourself. Sometimes self-help can only take you so far. Depression is a disease and it’s often linked to a chemical imbalance in your brain.
Also, know that you’re not alone. After making significant progress in improving my mental health, I talked to my psychiatrist and decided to try and ease off of my medication. Unfortunately, when the dose was cut in half my anger and irritability noticeably increased. This was disappointing, but I learned that I truly need the medication, and that’s ok.
Therapy is a place where you can discuss your feelings and sort out your problems with someone who is trained to help you. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can prescribe medication for your symptoms. You can find a therapist or psychiatrist in your area with online directories like Yelp or Google.
Therapy and psychiatry can be extremely helpful in treating mental illnesses so don’t continue suffering in silence. Get the help you need.
How Important Is Mental Health in Improving Quality of Life?
As I’ve discussed, mental health is just as important as physical health. In my personal opinion, it’s more important. For most of my life, I was unhappy. Depression, anxiety, and anger were demons I had to battle every day. Negative self-talk destroyed my confidence, affecting my mood, career, and relationships. When my mental health wasn’t under control, I was not the best husband and father I could be. I was generally healthy, but my quality of life sucked because I was miserable.
What is your life like? Are you generally happy, or are you suffering mentally? A doctor may tell you that you’re perfectly healthy but if you’re struggling mentally then what does it matter?
How important is mental health? It’s incredibly important because it means the difference between a happy and fulfilling life and a wretched one.
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