Reflection Time
A week has passed now since my last reflection, which was about the influence we can have on people, particularly those younger than us, who may look up to us. This week I am back with another reflection. This time I want to talk about mental health and the importance of maintaining good mental health.
Rest and Sleep
It shouldn't come as any surprise for you to hear that rest and sleep are vitally important for any human. However with that said there's many people out there who will willfully ignore this precious information. The surprising thing is that they are some of the most successful people in society, US presidents, various prime Ministers from around the world, our own Taoiseach here in Ireland, they all routinely do not get their eight hours sleep I suspect. You can include CEOs of large multinationals, highly qualified doctors, nurses, engineers, construction workers, farmers, bin men, street cleaners ,bankers, you name it, there will be some not getting their proper quota of sleep. In the long run that will catch up with people.
The recommendation is that you get a minimum of 7 hours as an adult. That amount of time is far increased for younger children, kids from about two to the age of five should be getting anywhere between 10 and 14 hours of sleep and kids from the age of 6 to 12 should be getting between 9 and 12 hours sleep per 24-Hour period. Teenagers then should be getting between about 9 and 10 hours per 24-Hour period. Many of us are not getting this amount of sleep and I feel it will eventually catch up with us.
A good analogy here is the car that many of us use to get to and from or various destinations every day. The recommendation for a car is that you put good quality petrol or diesel into it. Another recommendation is to get the car serviced on an ongoing basis every say 20,000 km or once per year. If you fail to do so you're not going to have a very good car after say 10 or 15 years, instead you'll have a car that gives lots and lots of problems. The problems won't appear after a day, a week or a month, but will compound over time. The same is true for our bodies, if we don't look after them and our sleep is similar to the service from a car, then over time your body too will give problems,it's as simple as that. Again this won't manifest itself over days, weeks or months, but rather over years. So my advise to you if you are a night owl, is do your upmost to get good quality sleep of 7 hours or more per night and that increases to 8 or 9 hours recommended once you reach your sixties.
Good Diet
Okay so we've got sleep covered. What else is important for good mental health? Well for me good physical health feeds into good mental health so I'm going to talk about diet here because I believe that it is also important for good mental health.
The old expression we are what we eat comes to mind here. Sure one meal isn't going to make much of a difference or a week of bad eating habits is not going to make a difference but believe me months or years of certain eating habits will certainly make a difference, and it will be an adverse effect of course.
When it comes to a healthy body and healthy minds I have an holistic view. I think everything that we put into our body ultimately has an impact on our mind and our mental health as well. Our gut flora is of huge importance to our overall health both physical and mental in my opinion. So it's very important that we put good food into our bodies so that the gut flora can contain good bacteria as well as bad bacteria which makes up our microbiome. The diversity in our food types is vital here, so where possible try not to stick to the same food in your meals too much, try instead to branch out and try new things. Your gut, your body and untimately your mind will thank you for it in the long run.
Exercise
Another key contributor to good mental health is exercise. Whether it's walking, running, swimming, hiking - it doesn't matter, just getting that cardiovascular exercise is what is most important. Most humans are great at making an excuses for nit doing things. I can't do it because I've got 3, 4, 5 children. I can't do it because I'm too busy with my job. I can't do it because I'm too busy looking after my elderly relatives. There's lots of excuses out there and we can all make them but I know lots of people who have lots and lots of responsibilities and busy lives who find ample time for exercise. They prioritise it, because they understand the importance of it.
The exercise could be an early morning swim at 6:00 a.m. It could be a walk with the dogs before you do the school run in the morning. It could be walking up the stairs at work and walking down the stairs at work everyday instead of using the lift. These small things can all add up but we've got to stop making excuses for why we can't do things and find a way to fit them into our schedule. Exercise is of vital importance and if we can sustain exercise throughout our lives it definitely leads to a healthier physical body which for me also leads to healthier mental well being.
Greenery
The countries and cities in which we live these days are becoming more and more urbanised. More and more concrete, steel, bricks and mortar and less trees, plants and green space. This is bad. This is not good for our mental health.
This rapid urbanisation means that humans are spending less and less time in green spaces in parks, seeing open water, trees, forests in their day-to-day lives. Sure they might see it during leisure activities at the weekend, but in their day-to-day it's all greys, blacks and whites they see and not enough of the green of nature.
Aside from the detrimental environmental effects of this, loss of these green spaces and time spent in them could have hugely negative effects on people’s mental health and well-being is something that I have read in relation to this subject matter. There are more and more studies appearing every day that's correlation good mental health with spending time in green spaces and forests and in nature. Studies have shown that:
"Green spaces can lower levels of stress and reduce rates of depression and anxiety, reduce cortisol levels and improve general well-being. Not only can a simple walk in nature boost your mood but also improve your cognitive function and memory"
(This study was found on https://www.froglife.org/2022/03/29/the-benefits-of-green-spaces-and-nature-on-mental-health)
That's huge folks. We should really pay attention to this kind of information. Get yourself out into nature. Get yourself out into the green fields. Get yourself out into the forests. Surround yourself with nature whenever the opportunity arises. Your body and your mind will thank you for it in the long run.
Something else we can do is bring greenery into our houses. Got some house plants get some small little trees and shrubs and stuff like that you can grow inside if possible. I have some in my house and I must say, they make me smile, there is definitely something to be said for it.
That's it for this week's reflection, hopefully you enjoyed it and got something from it.
Thanks a million for reading my post
Peace Out
Solid suggestions all 👍🏻
They call the gut "the small brain" these days. Because of how much gut health and decent nutrition affect mood and mental health. Directly linked.
Yeah. Only in the West do we separate the mind and body in medicine. Everywhere else the whole organism is treated holistically.
And nature. The nervous system physically syncs with our environment. Best medicine ever. That and a good night's sleep!
Well said, Daddio. Your kids are lucky to have a parent that's on it.
Very interesting, I had not heard that before, it's a great way of putting it.
Definitely, I have long had an issue with the way medicine treats ailments in isolation without looking at the whole body and understanding more about the patient.
Ahhh, thanks very nice of you say :)
True story!
Have a cool day :D
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Great piece my friend! Love the car analogy. I use it all the time. You cannot expect a car to treat you well if you put in bad petrol/fuel, have no maintenance, and overusing it. Same with out bodies. We cannot think that if we put bad fuel into it, treat it poorly, and not getting enough rest in, that it will treat us well. It is all about what you put in!
Hey man, long time no hear, I hope you are keeping well..
Ya I feel the car analogy is a pretty good one, you see some vintage cars that are over 50 years old and are pristine and I have seen cars that are 10 years old and battered and drivin into the ground. Similarly I have had some people tell me they are 70, and been shocked thinking they were much older or younger depending on how well they minded themselves..
Sorry for the long wait! Yes, so true. That is exactly what it is. People always wonder why you gym or exercise, until it is too late. When you have lots of, for example, muscle mass when you get older, your body will be stronger than those who never exercised. It is much harder to build muscle mass at 50 than at 30.
I'm a night person, I totally struggle with getting to bed early but I do feel the benefit when I do!
Don't worry that makes two of us
I think there are many of us in this boat!!
Ya, it's not always easy to go to bed early, especially when you have young kids, as that is often the only time you get to yourself..
Thats exactly it. You cherish those few hours!
As you mention sleeping hours but due to my busy schedule I only able to sleep 3 hours
That is something that you should work on if possible, as it may well come back to bite you later on, 3 hours is definitely not enough rest to sustain yourself. The body and mind uses this rest time to regenerate itself, and though you might get away with it for a while, in the long run it won't be good in my opinion.
Good points. But the sleep and the lack of it, that´s a complicated thing. I have been struggling with insomnia for years and if you don´t have this experience yourself, you have no idea how difficult it can be to squeeze at least a few hours of sleep out of the night. There were nights where I would just lie in the bed for like 10 or even more hours out of which I only managed to get 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Over and over again. It´s a nightmare man. And yes, I tried everything. Everything. Fortunately, it´s much better right now but you never know when it strikes again...
Good point and to be fair I'm lucky enough to not struggle with insomnia much, but when I do it is exhausting. Glad to hear it's not as bad for you anymore and for adding that valuable perspective.