The Answer to Mental Fitness Lies in Physical Fitness
The Path to Mental Fitness – Part 4
Mental illness and mental health are not the same. Mental illness is something that comes out of not being mentally fit as it (the symptoms of an illness) progresses. There are some mental illnesses that are unavoidable. However, there are many that we are talking about in Next Level Mental Fitness that you can avoid in the same way that you can avoid physical illnesses if you perform the right exercises. Mental health means I’m going to address my mental health in the same manner one will address physical health. In order to do this subject of mental health justice, we must describe what it looks like to be in good physical health. In this way we can do a parallel explanation. To be in good physical health means you eat well, exercise regularly, and get plenty of rest.
Let’s describe what good physical health looks like. Keep in mind that the average person has average physical health. Therefore in order to understand good physical health we must explain what the average person is not good at and at the same time describe what it looks like to go to the next level in our physical health. In a group discussion on this topic, we concluded that in order to have good physical health we have to take into account four activities: exercise, good nutrition, relaxation, and sleep.
Exercise | What is Mental Exercise?
A lot of people I know focus on their physical health. In fact, Pamela and I did a workout regimen called “Insanity” to get us physically fit. When was the last time you did a mental regimen or mental exercise? When was the last time you did something to impact your mental health? The point is, if you are like most, you have not. You see the normal person has average physical health and a normal person has average mental health. More than likely you have not given your mental health any consideration. If you neglect your physical health, then you are going to end up with physical illnesses: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc. You are going to deal with all sorts of things that could be prevented if you paid attention to your physical health. So mentally, we have to do the same thing. If it requires exercise to be physically fit, then it also requires exercises to be mentally fit. What mental exercises do we need to have in our daily regimen to make sure that we are mentally fit?
Good Nutrition | What is Good Mental Nutrition?
What are you eating and consuming? What is in your mental diet? For the physical, there are all kinds of diets: 5:2 diet, Paleo diet, Alkaline diet, WW (Weight Watchers) etc. Good nutrition brings on good physical health. What good mental nutrition do we need in order to have good mental health? When was the last time you went on a mental diet? What is a good mental diet?
I wish I had time to create mental fitness gyms, like we have physical fitness gyms. A mental fitness gym would be where people could come in and learn how to do mental exercises starting at beginner level and working towards advance levels. Mental workouts would include exercises on how to get one’s thinking right, how to get one’s mindset right, so that we can do things a little better. I wish I had a mental fitness gym so that you can come in and we can show you what it is like to have a good mental diet. We would help you identify which books you can read, books you could easily digest, and ones appropriate for your current mental condition. We would train you on how to read books and consume other material that is designed to feed your mind. We would have it set up in such a way that you would leave hungry for the things that can help you produce good mental health. In other words, we would help you identify the right food and nutrition needed for your mind.
Relaxation | What is Mental Relaxation?
What does it look like to be mentally relaxed? Relaxation is something you do to be physically fit. How do you mentally relax? How can you do some mental relaxation exercises? What would it look like for your mind to be relaxed? While most people think sleep is how the mind relaxes, that’s not totally the case. Sleep is how the body sleeps. We will get to that in a moment. In the book, The Power of Full Engagement, it describes how athletes exercise. They know how to work hard and they know how to get the right amount of relaxation; they know how to recover. In fact, when you exercise, you must know the balance. You have to know when it is time to exercise and you must know when to recover. You have periods of intense exercise and you need periods of intense recovery. Your mind is at work all day every day, if you are the average person. When have you given your mind time to rest and relax? You need at least one 24-hour period in a week for your mind to relax, have a break.
Sleep | How Do We Sleep Mentally?
You must know when to lie down and go to sleep. When was the last time you put your mind through a workout and then took a designated period to relax your mind, sleep it off? When was your mind able to sleep? You know this, there are people who go to bed, but their minds never turn off. By the way, that is what it looks like when you are stressed out and have trouble sleeping. You find yourself waking up early. You have restless nights. You need some aid to help you sleep. When it is hard to go to sleep and when your mind is not relaxed, your mind never shuts off. Therefore, you are operating in poor mental health.
When you think about mental fitness and mental health, do a parallel to how a person obtains better physical health. There is a lot out there on physical fitness. So much so that it is difficult to determine what exercise, which diet, and what types of relaxation to choose from. Some people do yoga, lift weights, join fitness groups, join a gym, start a diet, and set recurring days to unwind. Our thinking regarding mental fitness should be the same. The goal of mental fitness is so that you can avoid mental illnesses and that you can improve your mental health.
Question: what physical health parallel have I missed that you think would be helpful in our lesson on mental fitness?
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