Sunday, January 13, 2013

Why Is It Important To Be Physically And Mentally Healthy?

Why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy? Why should people bother with exercising, dieting and making sure that both their bodies and their minds are in their most ideal states? There are many benefits to being healthy, and there are many reasons why people choose to ignore them. However, some facts are just too true and too serious to ignore.
Why Should You Be Physically Healthy?
• Reduce risks of diseases. There's no way this could be denied. People who are healthy have better chances of fighting off cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and, as some researchers suggest, even cancers. Numerous studies have found the link between physical activity and lowered risks for diseases to be quite strong. This is probably the best benefit that good health can provide.
• Weight control. Being healthy means that you might have better control when it comes to how much you weigh. Healthy people are, most of the times, disciplined people who have learned to say no to heaping second servings and to say yes to exercises even if it takes them hours. All of these and more are why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy.
• Improves balance and widens range of activities. As you age, you may feel that you are being limited about the things that you can do. The things that you might have done for hours when you were young, you may not even bear to do for a minute. Daily activities might tire you right away. Exercises and many other physical activities can not only help strengthen your muscles and bones, but can also improve balance and prevent falls.
Why Should You Be Mentally Healthy?
• Reduces stress. Stress, in moderated amounts, can be beneficial to health. Stress can give you energy, and makes you productive and more alert. However, stress in excess can be severely damaging. It can increase the risks of certain cardiovascular diseases, and can get in the way of the body's natural rate of metabolism, thus leading to weight gain. Stress has also been linked to absenteeism and accidents in the workplace. If it can be effectively managed, your chance of getting promoted also increases.
• Improves mood and overall quality of life. Too much anger, confusion, fear, irritability and anxiety may be signs of mental unhealthiness. Happiness may be more easily attained if a person is mentally healthy. People who are mentally healthy will have healthier relationships, and have better physical health. They can also manage their problems better and can make better life choices.
Conclusion
Why is it important to be physically and mentally healthy? It is important because it can give you a longer and more fruitful life. If you get all these benefits from being physically active, how much more can it help if you are mentally active as well? Mental health and physical health are undeniably interlinked. Physical activities help manage stress and pressure better, while mental health improves the effectiveness of physical activities.
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Effects Of Nutrition On Mental Health

It has been an enduring belief that nutrition plays a significant role in the state of mental health of an individual. But is this true or not?
Recent as well as previous researches have proven that nutrition (or the lack of it) does have effects on how a person's brain functions, his moods and his behaviors.
Say for example, a person who has skipped a meal is observably weak, out of focus and irritable. This case worsens when extended to a certain period of time when the person becomes severely moody and indifferent to the demands of his environment thus showing decreased speed in reaction time.
These behaviors occur due to the lack of nutrition supply to the brain. The brain requires high energy and nutrient supply. It comprises, in fact, 20% to 30% of all the energy consumption of the body during rest periods. Thus, any change in diet or nutrition level of the body directly reflects in the mental functioning.
Chronic energy deprivation, such as the case of malnourished people, results to the eventual shutting down of the body by decreasing its activities and redirecting all its energy sources towards the systems that require higher energy supply. This results to altered levels of activities, changes in hormonal levels, lessened immune system efficiency and transport of nutrients and oxygen to certain body parts, all of which could directly or indirectly influence mental health. People with extremely low nutrition are more likely to become sad, depressed and emotional as compared with those who have adequate nutrition.
Newborn babies and fetuses are also susceptible to brain damage if they are subjected to lack of necessary nutrition. The type and degree of damage is dependent on the severity of malnutrition. Also, malnutrition among babies has proven to produce low level of intelligence, cognitive defects as well as functional abnormalities.
Protein, carbohydrates, lipids and vitamins all have individual effects on the brain. Lack of supply of these necessary nutrients result to alterations in the activities of the neurotransmitters, a chemical component in the brain that transmit one nerve impulse from one nerve cell to another. Malfunctioning of the transmitters could influence a person's mood, thinking and even sleep patterns. Additionally, deficient levels of nutrition may result to nerve cell damage that could disrupt cognitive and mental functions.
Neurotransmitters are partly made of amino acids, the building block of protein. Trytophan for example, makes up the neurotransmitter serotonin. If the required amino acid is lacking, the functions of the neurotransmitter could not be executed affecting the normal functioning of the brain. In case of deficient protein consumption and failure to supply the necessary amino acid to make serotonin, the body would experience low mood and perhaps, aggression. On the other hand, diseases that could cause the build up of certain amino acids could lead to brain damage thus affecting the mental health of an individual.
Mood regulation could also be associated with the sufficient intake of dietary fats. Some studies have yielded inconclusive results on the correlation between serotonin level and intake of omega-3 fatty acids, a certain type of fat found only in white fish to stress and symptoms of bipolar disorder (a mood disorder having the representations of both mania and depression).
Directly or indirectly, nutrition has an effect on mental health. Changes in the nutritional intake of a person could lead to alterations in the mental health and vice versa.
If you would like to read more articles about mental health, visit HealthyLifeMission.com [http://healthylifemission.com/mental-health]