Mental vs. Physical Health: Bridging the Gap

What you’ve heard one too many times holds true - health is indeed both mental and physical. However, the mind and body are often treated as two separate entities that have no impact on each other in the least, and that is what needs to change.

Usually, only one or the other is paid attention to. Physical health is usually the top priority for most, especially nowadays due to the Coronavirus pandemic that is currently sweeping the nation. However, it is important to remember that mental and physical health are two sides of the same coin, especially during times such as these - both are equally important.

Many of us are biding our time in quarantine to preserve our physical well-being, but we also need to remember that our mental health is also being impacted more greatly than we may realise. During the first three months I thought, ‘this isn’t so bad! More time to watch Netflix and catch up on my favourite books!’ While I relished whatever little free time I had (which I’m glad I did as I have none now), I did feel that something was amiss.

Little did I realise, quarantine was already taking its toll - and that only became evident after my online classes resumed.

Weeks of feeling extremely drained, lonely, and unmotivated passed before I finally knew what was wrong. Although I did try to keep myself occupied, it just wasn’t the same - I found myself missing human interaction and the outside world more than I thought I would. Our social health is one more thing that’s more important than we realise.

After all, the World Health Organisation defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity’. Many often forget that mental, physical, and even social health all matter.

They indeed go hand in hand - poor mental health affects one’s ability to remain physically well, while poor physical health can cause your mental and social health to deteriorate.

It was only after a talk with counselling psychologist Ms. Shreya Sethi that I realised many of us still need to change how we view the relationship between mental and physical health.

As a yoga teacher using yoga in integrated psychotherapy, she had observed that her clients’ psychological and psychosomatic symptoms improved drastically after just two weeks after undertaking a therapeutic yoga course.

Creative movement therapy is also something that plays an integral role in bridging the gap between the psychological and physiological aspects of overall well-being. It works with the mind-body connection to incorporate movement into therapy to benefit one’s mental, physical, social, and emotional health - now that’s something, isn’t it?

Overall, there is so much more to all this than we think - believe it or not, but we’re only scratching the surface here. There’s still a lot more to look into, and it’s ultimately up to us to delve deeper.