No matter the age, your mental health can fluctuate. What you may not realize is that when your mental health has bad days, so does your physical health. Your body reacts to many things within and all of it will affect how you think and how your body ages.
Good mental health can have a great effect on your physical health, just as good physical health can have a great effect on your mental health. Both are very intertwined with each other, creating a cause and effect you may not even be aware of. Taking care of both your mind and body can help create a healthier future and possibly even help you live longer and happier.
Mental Health’s Effect
One of the go-to answers to this would be possible weight gain and a less active lifestyle. If you are in a poor state of mind, it is more likely you are not exercising regularly or eating well. Both of those things are able to have positive effects on your mental health, in the end, it is a circle of health. This can end up leading to possible heart diseases or chronic illnesses like asthma, arthritis, cancer, and diabetes.
Poor mental health can also lead to worse sleep. It could lead to either sleep apnea or insomnia. Sleep apnea can cause you to have trouble breathing while you are asleep and lead you to wake up a number of times through the night. Insomnia can make it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep.
Things like depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues can lead to sleep problems, however, sleep issues can make preexisting mental issues even worse.
Physical Health’s Effects
While mental health can help worsen any physical conditions already there, this work vice versa as well. If you have a physical health problem, it may cause your mental health to decrease as well. This can be shown with psoriasis, a cancer diagnosis, preexisting diabetes, and even a heart attack. These are all physical afflictions, however, they can all cause your mental health to lower if you don’t pay attention.
However, having low testosterone levels can affect both mental and physical behaviors. Having low T levels may cause a spike in depression and anxiety, while also causing weight gain or loss, and loss of muscle.
Solutions
Both mental and physical health can be helped in very similar ways as it can have a circle effect and help each other in the end. Adding a proper diet and regular exercise can be a great start. By cutting out unnecessary fats or sugars, adding red meat, vegetables, and fiber to your diet can make great improvements to your mental and physical health. On top of adding even a simple ten-minute walk, a day or biking to work instead of driving can be beneficial.
You could add relaxing activities into your day-to-day as well could help with your mental health. This could be adding a few yoga poses, meditation, or journaling.
While mental health and physical health could seem like a dog chasing its tail, that doesn’t mean you have to be stuck in a rut. There are easy and fun ways to improve both.
