Mental Health is as Important as Physical Health
“Hey! How are you?” someone asked me one day.
“I am perfectly healthy.” I replied.
“Both, physical and mentally?” they asked again.
On that day I realized, I never worried about my mental health as much as I was concerned about my physical health. I often ask myself if this food is healthy for my body or does this exercise strengthens my body? But I rarely ask myself about the stuff that might risk my mental peace. This got me worried, and I searched about the number of people that do not give significance to their mental health. Result was, one out of every four people suffer from mental illness.
We all have this default setting in our brain that health means physical health only. Which is why we never ask people how they are doing mentally. Are they happy, sad, motivated, upset, stressed, no what we see is what we ask about.
When I realized that I need to start looking after my mental health the way I do for my physical health. I started following these steps:
1. Ask questions
I often ask myself about the reaction I might have if I were to perform a certain activity. Like for example,
Question: If I’ll watch a horror show, how would I be spending the next few days?
Answer: I’ll certainly be on edge and paranoid. Scared of every little sound or movement. I might be scared of entering into a dark room too. So, in order to avoid these situations, I won’t do such activities that would make me feel this way.
Avoid activities that would might have a bad impact on your mind.
2. Find your symbol of peace
Whenever I feel grey emotions, I try to calm myself by doing the activities that helps me feel calm. Like listening to my favorite songs, reading books, going to a place where I find peace of mind.
In other words, I have made a list of activities that keeps my mind in check. I started noticing my reaction towards various things and made note of the one that makes me feel happy and enthusiastic.
3. Create a healthy mental environment
Just as my mental health is important to me, it is important for others too. And it is necessary that I am mentally comfortable around my family, friends and colleagues and vice-versa.
And in order to do so, I made sure how my various actions and words affected the people around me, and I tried to keep them as healthy and kind as possible. I also made sure the people around me took care of these factors too. As I won’t feel good if I’d be surrounded by people who would keep criticizing me.
These were some steps I took to keep my mental health in check. You guys can also follow similar step or the one that might suit you. Or do whatever that might keep your mind in a healthy state as our mind is part of our body too, let’s not forget that. So do keep your mind in mind.
©Mitashi Gandhi, Mental Health
