How a healthy mind leads to a healthy body

The link between the health of the mind and of the body is a fascinating one, and of course it is a relationship that goes both ways. The mental world we inhabit on a daily basis is essentially one that’s the product of billions of chemical and electrical processes – as neurons fire off in all directions and varying levels of important chemicals in our brain have a profound effect on everything from our mood to our energy levels.

And underpinning all of these myriad mental processes are the physical things that we take in – the food and drink we consume – as well as the way that we look after and maintain our physical bodies in terms of exercise. In this sense, we have a huge choice to make. We can create a vicious circle for ourselves, in which the food we eat and the exercise we do (or not) makes us feel down and low on energy – or we can eat well, exercise often and feel mentally alert enough to want to make these good habits regular ones.

So how do we go about creating a virtuous, rather than a vicious, circle of good mental and physical health, so that one maintains and sustains the other? We think there are many different ways to do it, and of course much of this is about trying to find the activities that work for you. This sense of personal engagement is absolutely essential – if you are forcing yourself to do things that ultimately have no personal meaning for you, then it unlikely that you will be able to do them for long enough to form them into regular good habits.

That said, we do think that there are actually at least a couple of general principles around maintaining both a healthy mind and body that most people will find beneficial.

Finding space and perspective in your life

We all lead busy lives – going to work, exercising, looking after family and friends and meeting daily commitments and demands of every kind. Because of this, it can be incredibly easy to get completely swamped and overwhelmed. We can feel as if life is something that happens to us, rather than something that we have an active role in managing. We might be doing all the right things – maybe even managing to squeeze some exercise in here and there – but what we lack is space and the perspective that room can offer.

There are lots of ways to do this – whether it is meditation or yoga or just sitting a reading a good book for half an hour – but whatever it is, it is essential that we find a way to build more space into our lives. When we step back for a moment, we can then see that there are plenty of ways that we can be more actively and positively engaged in our lives, rather than being thrown about by events like a boat in a storm. Having this sense of control and active engagement is great for our mental health – and also has a direct impact on our levels of physical wellbeing too. When we feel in control, we feel motivated and able to act in a positive way.

Develop an outlet for creativity and innovation in your life.

We firmly believe that one of the keys to staying mentally healthy – and so giving yourself that solid foundation of a positive, energised approach to life – is to try to find some opportunity for being creative in your life. It may be that you think that you get this in your job, but really the key here is that this is something that you do for yourself, and not necessarily for others.

In a very practical sense, creativity is the driving force behind humanity’s evolution – it is what has driven us to develop new tools and to solve problems over the millennia. And so because it is such a fundamental part of who we are, it is absolutely essential that it is a part of our lives that we don’t neglect. Building creativity into our lives in some way energises and excites us, and gives us the motivation to keep actively engaged in life.

Finding a way to build more space into our lives and introducing an outlet for our creativity are absolutely essential to not just our mental wellbeing, but our physical health too. When our minds feel fit and rested, our bodies do too – just as when our bodies feel well, we feel in a better place mentally as well. We, ultimately, have a lot control over what kind of relationship body and mind will have – so, make it a positive one.