Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

As I wrote last week’s in­stal­ment about the num­ber of caus­es we sup­port in No­vem­ber, what stood out is that every is­sue re­quires fo­cused men­tal health­care. Or, prob­a­bly bet­ter stat­ed, it is to say that the mind gov­erns all of our well-be­ing.

The work and val­ue of the mind have been ei­ther ne­glect­ed or dis­count­ed for­ev­er. Peo­ple have been con­di­tioned to see the is­sues and ill­ness­es of the mind as taboo, while be­ing en­cour­aged in every way to take care of their body.

In times past, I con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty of open­ing a gym for the mind, but I al­ways wor­ried that there was no busi­ness mod­el that could suc­ceed in this Re­pub­lic, where, not on­ly are we mis­fo­cused, but we still re­main too prej­u­diced and, sad­ly, too ig­no­rant.

The les­son again is that the hu­man body and mind func­tion as an in­ter­con­nect­ed unit. They are not two sep­a­rate parts; rather, the phys­i­cal and men­tal as­pects of our be­ing are bidi­rec­tion­al. Our sys­tem works as a whole, and each part de­pends on the oth­er.

Our phys­i­cal health and our qual­i­ty of life de­pend ful­ly on mind-body syn­the­sis. Our thoughts, per­cep­tions and men­tal states are con­nec­tions that shape our phys­i­cal be­ing.

“The mind holds much pow­er when study­ing how deeply it is con­nect­ed to and can in­flu­ence one’s phys­i­o­log­i­cal health,” say Parsamanesh and Vysochyn (2024) in a work ti­tled “A Psy­cho­log­i­cal Ex­plo­ration of the Pow­er of Our Mind­set and its In­flu­ence on Phys­i­o­log­i­cal Health.”

The in­trigue and in­ter­est in such a study is not just to ex­am­ine the pow­er of the mind or to prove a point and pub­lish re­search about the mind’s im­pact on all as­pects of health, in­clud­ing its own health, but to help re­ori­ent us to ac­knowl­edg­ing the pow­er of the mind in all as­pects of health and life.

The mind can work to the bet­ter­ment of one’s phys­i­cal health, or con­verse­ly, it can be a ma­jor fac­tor in the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of one’s health, even as we con­tin­ue to be­have as though our body’s ail­ments are dis­con­nect­ed from the mind.

“The frus­trat­ing part? We know bet­ter.”

So says CEO of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Foun­da­tion, Dr Quist Ry­der, in a 2025 writ­ing for World Health Day (April 7) ti­tled “The Mind-body-health Con­nec­tion.”

“We’ve learned so much about how to care for our men­tal health, but we still treat it like a bonus fea­ture in­stead of a ba­sic need,” says Ry­der.

“If we’re se­ri­ous about cre­at­ing a health­i­er, hap­pi­er so­ci­ety, we have to start by treat­ing men­tal well-be­ing as a core part of health – not an op­tion­al add-on” (ampsy­chfdn.org/mind-body-health-con­nec­tion/).

Ry­der re­it­er­ates that stress, anx­i­ety, and de­pres­sion are not just feel­ings but “they kick off re­al phys­i­o­log­i­cal re­spons­es in the body, from dis­rupt­ed sleep to a weak­ened im­mune sys­tem.”

Re­search sup­ports this. Many of us know that “chron­ic neg­a­tive emo­tions” are linked to wors­en­ing health is­sues: hy­per­ten­sion (high blood pres­sure), car­dio­vas­cu­lar (heart) dis­or­ders, cere­brovas­cu­lar (brain) ill­ness­es, im­mune sys­tem de­fi­cien­cies—you name it.

So, when we mark our ad­vo­ca­cy days, we can­not just “run for breast can­cer” or “walk for di­a­betes” with­out un­der­stand­ing that dai­ly walk­ing and run­ning in sup­port of our health are as es­sen­tial as dai­ly med­i­ta­tions, stress man­age­ment and oth­er prac­tices to keep the mind healthy.

Dai­ly, we must re­fo­cus and read­just the mind be­cause of its ma­jor role both in heal­ing and in build­ing up the body’s men­tal de­fences to pro­tect against phys­i­cal ill­ness on­set and bod­i­ly de­te­ri­o­ra­tion.

We know that peo­ple with men­tal health prob­lems have a greater risk of phys­i­cal ill­ness­es. We must al­so re­mem­ber that “peo­ple with chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions, like di­a­betes, for ex­am­ple, are more like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence men­tal health prob­lems than peo­ple who are phys­i­cal­ly healthy.”

“When chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions and men­tal ill­ness­es oc­cur at the same time, care be­comes more com­pli­cat­ed for every­one” (brown­health.org/be-well/mind-body-con­nec­tion). The com­pli­ca­tion is worse when we do not ed­u­cate our­selves or even be­lieve in the whole-body im­pact of phys­i­cal ill­ness­es.

Im­prov­ing “whole” health

In my own body, I have ex­pe­ri­enced how the slight­est change in one as­pect of my health ei­ther im­proves or di­min­ish­es my well-be­ing. Here are some proven min­i­mums to pro­tect both our men­tal and phys­i­cal health.

• Pro­tect your mind: Bring the mind ful­ly in­to your health fo­cus. Use med­i­ta­tion, rhyth­mic breath­ing, prayer or any calm­ing ac­tiv­i­ty to stay cen­tred. Have peo­ple who can pro­vide emo­tion­al sup­port and stay con­nect­ed to them. Re­search shows that “peo­ple who stay con­nect­ed to friends and fam­i­ly gen­er­al­ly have few­er ill­ness­es, re­cov­er from them more quick­ly, and live longer than those who are iso­lat­ed or alone.”

• Eat wise­ly: Food can help or hurt your body, your brain, and your men­tal health. A small ad­just­ment to eat­ing few­er high­ly processed foods like re­fined sug­ars and flour and to eat­ing a di­et of fruits, veg­eta­bles, whole grains, lean meats, and fish makes a great dif­fer­ence.

• Ex­er­cise: In­creas­ing your phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, even a lit­tle, can im­prove mood, di­ges­tion, and sleep.

• Rest and qual­i­ty sleep: These help the body cleanse it­self and re­store en­er­gy. Since many men­tal dis­or­ders in­ter­fere with sleep, get­ting pro­fes­sion­al help to im­prove sleep may be an ef­fec­tive way of im­prov­ing your health. (Adapt­ed from brown­health.org/be-well/mind-body-con­nec­tion)