Health: The Number One Priority
What is health? Is it well-defined muscles? An athlete? How about a vegetarian or vegan? The idea of healthy living goes beyond the notion of eating right and exercising regularly. It’s not only about the physical self, it also includes mental and spiritual well-being.
Being healthy is a lot of work. It requires daily practice and mindful thinking. Additionally, achieving a healthy lifestyle means discovering what works best through trial and error. It is a continuous journey throughout our lives. Thankfully, the effort is worthwhile and a future version of yourself will thank you (Thank you 24 year old me). Health is more than being physically fit. Hence, to truly be healthy one must care for the mind, body, and soul.
Physical Health
Physical fitness is what typically comes to mind when we think about a healthy person. Although physical characteristics are largely influenced by genetics, almost everyone is capable of being physically fit.
What does physically fit mean? It isn’t a tone body, big muscles, or athletic ability. There are unhealthy people with chisel chests and tone butts. Skinny and beauty are not the definition of healthy. However, Physical changes are a nice side effect of being physically fit. Looking good should never be the primary goal to exercise. Instead, the goal is to improve one’s level of fitness by finding enjoyable activities that engage the body and raise the heart rate. Overtime, the physical changes simply happen.
Physical health give ourselves the best chance to fight sickness and lower risk to certain diseases. Just as important, staying physically fit helps us keep up with the physical demands put upon the body. It’s critical to maintain fitness as we age. That way, we can continue doing those enjoyable activities.
Mental Health
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Not only does it affect our thinking, feelings, and actions, it determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make decisions. There are forces out of our control such as genetics and brain chemistry that affect our mental health. Additionally, there are other factors that influence us such as life experiences.
Maintaining positive mental health is just as important as maintaining physical health. Some ways to help maintain a positive mental state are staying positive, connecting with other people, developing coping skills, and getting enough sleep. With a positive mental state, people realize their full potential, cope with daily stresses, and stay productive in their life’s work.
Like physical health, mental well-being requires daily work by challenging our thinking and core beliefs. Core beliefs are how we perceive ourselves, others, the world around us, and the future. We develop our own internal compass that guides us through our lives.
However, conflicting with our core beliefs can erode our mental health. If we don’t act to change the situation, it can spiral out of control and effect our overall health and our relationships with other people. We change our thinking over time and refine our beliefs based on personal experiences. Challenging our beliefs and acting within them help keep us mentally healthy.
There may be times when the situation is out of our control. Therefore, it’s important to know the early warning signs of trouble and to seek help.
Conclusion
We are all different with our own unique qualities and challenges. However, anyone can achieve healthy living by finding what is best for us.
Everyday we must work to keep our physical, mental, and emotional health in balance. If we’re not healthy in any of the these areas, we suffer. This suffering takes away from our full potential. It’s critical to work on our health daily, and take the necessary steps for short term and long term care. Only when we are healthy can we be our very best and live life to its fullest.