Exercise is recognised as a successful, common way to help treat depression, anxiety and a host of other mental health issues. Moderate exercise for twenty minutes, three times a week is the minimum you should be doing. Aside from the need for physical exercise, your brain needs stimulation. I’d suggest the obvious. Get a hobby.

Therapists shouldn’t use a word like ‘Hobby’.

Terrible word. Hobby. Sounds like whatever it is, it’s probably insignificant to life on earth. But the fact is that a hobby can be a fantastic way for escaping the hum-drum and pressures of everyday life, pressures that can result in depression, anxiety and a number of other mental illnesses. Carpentry to cards, a hobby stimulates the mind and offers the kind of purpose that is so often needed in getting over depression. It’s only a hobby for a lack of a better word. And it’s therapeutic.

Mental Health: Know Yourself and your ‘Triggers’.

The key when trying to pick up a new hobby is understanding what sets you off, i.e. the ‘triggers’ that make you feel depressed or anxious. Once you can identify the sources of your depression, they’re far easier to treat. For instance, if work pressures and deadlines are causing you anxiety, then look for a hobby that has no deadlines, like surfing or carpentry. You can surf until the waves dry up or you’ve had enough. If there aren’t any waves, take a walk on the beach or eat an ice-cream. The point is that you’re in the space that calms you down, away from the pressures that let the demons of your depression and anxiety out into the open. Mental health is about knowing yourself as best you can, so that you can treat yourself the best you can.

Carpentry, you can work on a project until it’s sanded away to a toothpick. Because, if it’s the sanding that chills you out, sand something. Go into restoring furniture. Do something that’s opposite to your stress source and you’ll negate the consequences.

Sometimes it’s the Simple Things that Solve.

The Yo-Yo thing? Just a thought. You can go around the world, walk the dog and rock the baby with two pieces of plastic hanging off a piece of string. Killing two birds with one stone? Try three. Laughs aside, whatever gets your mind off the stressor is the solution.

Exercise is obviously a must. Releasing endorphins the good endorphins of exercise combats the devastating effect that stress can have on the psyche.

By flooding your system with these positive endorphins, it releases stresses built up mentally and physically, and clears your system of toxins. Combined with a well-balanced diet, i.e. adequate fruit and vegetable servings, high in fibre, with a good mix of proteins and carbohydrates to build muscle and fuel your activity, exercise and mental stimulation from a hobby can do a lot for your mental health.

Exercise and a hobby are a great start to handling and treating your own depression and anxiety. Don’t get put off by the word hobby. See it as a little time for yourself.

Counselling Psychologist, Dr. Lynne Campbell-Gillies, takes a closer look at the term, ‘A Healthy Body makes for a Healthy Mind’, and how various cultures and experts interpret the relationship. This is not an article looking for definitive answers, but rather aims to provide a variety of perspectives on the term and insight on how to achieve balance and positivity in your life.

The History.

“Mens Sana in Corpore Sano”. ‘A sound mind in a sound body’, is a famous Latin quotation first derived from the Satire X, courtesy of the Roman poet Juvenal, and can be interpreted to mean that only a healthy body can sustain and produce a healthy mind, and in a holistic sense refers to attaining a healthy balance in one’s life. The link between mind and body has been examined since the time of the great civilizations. The respective histories of Rome, India, China, Greece and the Middle East present philosophies on the link between mental health and body and how the sum of their parts is greater than their individual values.

What Science Says.

What is the connection between mind and body? Does the body influence the mind or the other way around? It’s fair to say that one does not hold power over the other, but that mentality and physicality work in a complementary fashion, to create general health and well-being. You cannot achieve a healthy mindset without a healthy body. In fact, studies have proven exercise to be one of the best treatments of depression, and a lack of exercise has been associated with mood swings, depression and stress-related diseases.

The reason for this is that exercise releases endorphins into your blood, which influence your mood and are the body’s natural pain-killers. When you exercise, you feel good afterwards because of the healthy dose of endorphins released into your bloodstream. The increased core temperature of the body when doing exercise also assists in releasing muscle tension and the associated stress. Therefore, exercise has been proven to affect and help your mood and mindset because of the physical benefits. Therefore, there must be an intrinsic relationship between mind and body.

What Psychotherapy Says.

A healthy mindset can also have an influence on your physical well-being. A study in the Psychosomatic Journal reveals people who took part in an eight-week meditation course had healthier immune systems than those who didn’t partake. The study measured electrical activity in the front left portion of the brain, because there’s an increase in activity there when anxiety levels are low and positive emotions are high. It’s not fully understood why meditation helped their immune systems. The hypothesis is the deep, rhythmic breathing methods used in meditation stimulates the body’s lymphatic system, getting the lymph fluid going and helping to remove toxins from the body.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
- Marcus Aurelius

Cultural Perspectives on the link between physical and mental health.

So, mind can influence the health of your body, and the body can influence the well-being of the mind. Let’s take it a step further. Physicians have understood the connection between personality and disease for hundreds of years.

The famous Greek philosopher, Hippocrates, created the four personality types, or temperaments, namely sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic and choleric, and correlated them to disease.

Indian Ayurvedic physicians interpret the concept differently, saying that one’s constitution is made up of a combination of different doshas (bodily elements) consisting of vata(wind), pitta(bile) and kapha(phlegm). The hierarchy of these different doshas in one’s body i.e. the proportions they are split into that makes up your body, is known as your ‘prakruti’. Different prakruti are susceptible to different diseases. The connection between mind and body well-being has been well-documented throughout history and a number of religions, cultures and philosophies from around the world. And the Greek and Ayurvedic interpretations are two of many.

‘Of the earliest scientific studies on the role of personality and disease was that of Dr. Caroline Thomas and psychiatrist Dr. Barbara Betz, who, in 1948, studied a few hundred students at the John Hopkins School of Medicine and classified them as: Alpha: (cautious, steady self-reliant and non-adventurous); Beta: ( spontaneous, clever and flexible) and Gamma: ( brilliant, confused and complicated). Thirty years later, they found that the Gamma had the most medical problems with 77.3 percent having some serious illness as compared to 25 percent of Alpha and Beta. In another sample of 127 medical students, they found 13 deaths among those originally classified as Gamma compared to none in the other groups after 30 years.’

Extract from www.lifepositive.com Holistic Recipes – Healthy Mind, Healthy Body by Dayal Mirchandani, a psychiatrist based in Mumbai.

So, the evidence is categorically in favour of the mind body connection. Mental health has a profound effect on physical health, and physical health is essential to a positive, motivated mindset.

“The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.”
- Chinese proverb

‘A healthy body makes a healthy mind’ is essentially about balance. Balance is a tricky term to define. It means different things to different people. That is the key to understanding the relationship.

Understanding what balance means to you, in your life, is paramount. A healthy body for you may mean a run a week and some squash on Saturdays, and that makes you feel good mentally, confident and content. Others may need an intense regime to feel they’ve done enough. It’s about setting good goals for your self, ambitious without being unrealistic, and not putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. That way, you prevent mental and physical burnout, and stay on top of your own emotions. All of these elements together compromise balance. A healthy body keeps your head clear, fresh and relieves stress and pressure like no other. A healthy mind means less tension, less stress-related physical ailments and a healthier body functioning near its optimum.

There are methodologies and philosophies on the relationship between mind and body that have existed for thousands of years, and have been supported by some of the greatest philosophers ever. They have positive health benefits, promote spiritual stability and understanding and are found throughout history and culture in man’s lifelong attempt to achieve balance and happiness.

“The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
- Confucius