Connection Between Mental and Physical Health: How Does One Affect the Other
Several mental illnesses – such as anxiety and depression – are manifested through physical symptoms. Stress doesn’t just make one nervous/restless but also weak while increasing heart rate. Similarly, depression can affect a person’s physical existence by causing fatigue, nausea, or headaches.
On the other hand, almost every physical illness causes the patient mental distress because of its emotional toll and financial ramifications. Our physical actions influence us mentally. So, we must promote a healthy lifestyle while giving equal importance to our mental health and physical well-being. Now, let’s dig deeper into the mysterious relation between these aspects of our existence.
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Exploring the mind-body connection
How do we define mental health? It refers to a person’s welfare on social, emotional, and psychological levels. Mental well-being keeps you productive, makes you self-reliant, and helps you maintain healthy relationships. When a person’s mental health begins to decline, they suffer from insomnia, sudden mood shifts, and withdrawal from friends/family. Physical fitness, on the other hand, relates to nutrition and activity. It ensures that your entire body functions properly and doesn’t disrupt your productivity.
Recent studies have shown that a person’s mind and body often work in unison to ensure the person’s health and well-being. How exactly do these two interact? The answer seems complicated and requires the study of human behavior. Several psychology students and researchers combine research work with bachelors in psychology online to understand how mind and body collaborate. eLearning allows them to gain theoretical knowledge alongside conducting further research and answering the many intricacies of the human mind and body.
Some of the following examples
Let’s further understand this with some of the following examples:
Depression and your immune system
Statistics show that around 9.5% of Americans aged 18+ suffer from a depressive disease each year, making depression the most common mental disorder in the USA. But depression also weakens a victim’s T cells, thereby causing a decline in their immune response.
Some studies have even suggested that probably a weakened immune system leads to depression. Anyway, there’s a well-established connection between several depressive disorders and a person’s immune system.
Dementia patients have some hope
Dementia is common in people aged 65 or more but attacks youngsters as well. Some studies show, however, that one can prevent dementia by adopting a healthier lifestyle. You need to bring some lifestyle changes such as eating nutritious meals, exercising, and cutting back on drinking/smoking.
