Keep your head: I wish people knew physical and mental health are the same thing
Unpopular opinion:
You're not what you eat.
You're also what you think, how you manage stress, how you move. Wellness is as much about mental and emotional health as it is physical.
You’ve only one job. How good is that?! And that job is to stay healthy. Cos if you’re not nothing else matters. I sound like my mum, or yours, right? Eyes rolling yet? But we’ve got a balance sheet responsibility (or I prefer opportunity!) in each of us: it’s all about our inputs and outputs.
OUTPUTS
Outputs are things like what you wear, how you present yourself, the way you talk, how you walk, how you ‘go’ thru life (& your whys!) and of course how you move (cos I’m biased here but who doesn’t want to feel good with a drop and give me ten?!).
INPUTS
What we listen to, read and watch, the friends we surround ourselves with, the food of course, and how we choose to move (I’m talking not once and done but a zest for just moving!).
So when we look through these outputs and inputs, there’s really no clear delineation between physical and mental. They’re the same thing: we eat food to feel good, we listen to music to feel good, we move to feel good. Or at least that’s the goal cos you can also listen to things that upset you, watch a horror film and scary the bejesus out of yourself and move to just get it over with!
But as your daily environment has a profound impact on your physical and mental health, your daily choices determine the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of those outputs and inputs and the balance sheet’s results!
That physical health affects your mental health is scientifically proven and called ‘hope molecules’. When you contract your muscles, they release proteins into your bloodstream. These proteins, called myokines, play a key role in reducing inflammation, boosting metabolism, and supporting brain health. Exercise doesn't just build strength-it turns your muscles into active organs benefiting your entire body. Every rep you do is improving your health at a cellular level. Move more, live better!
When we start talking how the mental affects the physical we start to enter the whoo woo but they exist. In his studies, Masaro Emoto found that water exposed to positive words and intentions formed symmetrical crystalline structures in frozen water, while water exposed to negative words and intentions formed disorganized, asymmetrical structures! Believe what you want but if seeing is believing, this is fairly hard evidence!
Whatever you believe, there’s so much linking inflammation to depression and anxiety and likewise un-healing body parts to stored trauma. Ever heard your gut called your second brain? Inflammation in the brain starts in the gut, physical health begins with belief!
I wish people knew that:
Rest is restorative
Healing isn’t linear
Boundaries aren’t clear cut or rude
Crying isn’t weakness
Moving your body is a privilege
Eating foods that love you back isn’t dieting
How we want to feel, and we all want to feel good and accomplished, is our greatest input/output! When you have health you have hope, and when you have hope you have everything!
