ESSENTIAL Naples
Health
The Importance of a Mental, Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual
Solution
10 SPRING 2021
By Jamie Kliewe
“Staying connected to others is very important and spending time around uplifting and positive people is extremely beneficial for a healthy mental state.” —Jamie Kliewe
W
e have learned a great deal about mental health over the years, and we continue to learn even more as time goes on. Our mental health affects many areas of our lives—it can have a positive or negative impact on our self-esteem; our ability to perform; our relationships; our professions; our sense of peace, contentment, and well-being; our purpose and direction in life; and so much more. Our mental health helps us navigate through times of emotional challenge, change, disappointments, even everyday stress. Science has begun to realize the brain’s ability to create what we call neural patterning, either negative or positive, by subconscious programming resulting from repetitive experiences or thought patterns. If, for example, we have continually experienced traumatic events, one after another, our mental fortitude to work through future traumatic events significantly diminishes, potentially leading to what may be called a mental break. Essentially, our brains become programmed for these repeated thought patterns and behaviors. While most of us are mentally equipped to handle typical day-today life stressors such as sadness, anxiety, and disappointments, there are breaking points for all of us. We must take care to implement strategies to mitigate the damage that may be caused by too many mental and emotional stressors.
How to Control Your Stressors
The best approach to controlling stressors involves mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual interventions. A majority of mental health stress is generated by fear and feeling out of control of our lives. I like to say that most of the time, fear is “false evidence appearing real.” Most of the time! While there are certainly events in life that may cause apprehension and fear, most of the time we fear things that do not ever come to fruition. 1. Mental: So, the first mental exercise is to establish truth. Is what I am “fearing” even likely to happen? 2. Physical: Physically, we may experience some challenges because we do not have proper diet and exercise habits. When our physical foundation of diet and exercise is not in alignment, the chemical components of our being cannot properly mitigate stress, which often causes our rational thinking to be off as well. Experiencing this physical imbalance can often lead to lack of sleep, which can change the way we are able to process things mentally. 3. Emotional: Reconciling our emotions can be tough, so finding productive ways to manage them most certainly gives way to more positive mental health. It is all connected! Mental health affects physical health, physical health
