Health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, when you decide whether you are healthy or not, you tend to focus on your physical health. On the other hand, as you see in the definition of health, mental health, and physical health are always linked together. Can you think of your body and mind separately? Most probably, the answer is no, because the reality is that an unhealthy mental life impacts you physically, and an unhealthy physical life increases the risk of problematic mental health.
Physical health is visible and observable to you and everyone. There’s lots of evidence when determining whether you are healthy physically or not, such as blood tests, coughing, shortness of breath, and so on. However, when you want to determine your mental health, you might have difficulty. Mental health issues do not always show physical symptoms. Therefore, most people think that the problem is temporary, other people do not recognize the problem, thinking there is no need to care.
There are clear signs that affect your physical and mental well-being,
Along with your quality of life, mental health disruptions, such as headaches, sleeping problems, fatigue, loss of appetite, overthinking, focusing problems, and so on. Do you want to continue with those symptoms? Most probably, your answer is “no”, because the symptoms affect your business life, financial status, relationships, physical health, and life quality in a negative way. How can we fix it? Put simply, to have a successful business life, quality social life, and strong physical health, you need sufficient energy, motivation, and desire. The definition of mental well-being includes the requirement of energy, motivation, and desire. Consequently, you have no chance to ignore your mental health all your life.
Let’s analyze why mental health is just as important as physical health.
1. Your mental health can affect your physical state.
People who experience any mental illness tend to have problematic immune systems. Therefore, those people can easily have physical illnesses such as colds, headaches, and so on.
Physical symptoms of mental illnesses also affect your physical state. For example, if you experience depression, your appetite may decrease, causing you to lose weight. In addition, if you experience post-traumatic stress disorder, you may have difficulty sleeping, so you may generally feel tired.
2. Your mental health can affect your financial stability.
Most of you do not think about whether mental status affects financial status or not. However, since mental status affects your productivity, concentration, and memorization, your business and work performance suffers. Therefore, you may have difficulty getting a promotion or finishing responsibilities on time. Your salary may not increase as much as you want.
3. Your mental health can influence your family life.
According to studies about the causes of mental illnesses, it is determined that children of people who suffer from mental illnesses tend to experience abuse, neglect, and some emotional and behavioral issues from childhood. Those results continue to show their effects in adulthood as mental problems in general. Think about a mother who experiences a general anxiety disorder. The mother may be sick to her stomach while helping her daughter with homework. Unfortunately, even if the mother may be sad at that time, she may not help her daughter because of the symptom. Because of the mother’s difficulty with anxiety, she may have difficulty assisting her child. Another example is an unemployed father who has four children whose stress levels are elevated. Because of that stress level, the family environment might be affected in a negative way.
4. Good mental health can give you a cheerful, productive, and qualified life.
Symptoms of poor mental health decrease the quality of your life, such as sleeping problems, loss of appetite, eating too much, tachycardia (fast heart rate), shortness of breath, and so on.
Care for yourself and value yourself. Exercise physically, do yoga and meditation, avoid too much alcohol and cigarettes, and do things that cheer you up, and allow you to spend quality time with yourself and your loved ones.
If you continue to have good mental health, you might feel more physically energetic. Therefore, when you continue to exercise, physical activity and productivity can help you feel cheerful.
5. Mental illnesses may lead to dangerous behaviors.
Mental illnesses, such as chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or anxiety, may cause loneliness. To forget these negative feelings, people might start to use drugs or alcohol. While using drugs or alcohol, physical symptoms might become worse, like sleeping problems, eating problems, focusing problems, violence to others, and so on. Because of that, a person loses his consciousness because of too much alcohol or drugs, the person may both hurt yourself and harm others physically with a knife or gun.
