Why Does Mental Wellness Matter?

What is mental wellness?

Let’s begin with defining what wellness is, it is both a state and a process of actively being aware of and taking steps towards becoming healthy. It encompasses both your mental and physical health. There are eight dimensions of wellness, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social and spiritual wellness. Mental wellness relates to the overall health of our mind, our emotional wellness, our social competency, our sense of self-fulfillment, and our ability to cope with stressors.

The state of our mental well being is constantly changing due to a variety of factors and the current circumstances of our life. Due to its fluid nature, mental wellness is hard to balance at times. At times life events can cause our mental well being to become unbalanced and sometimes those events are out of our control. So let’s discuss why mental wellness matters.

Why is Mental Wellness Important?

Our mental well being is arguably more important than even our physical wellness for several reasons. The first reason is that it has a greater impact on our physical well being than physical wellness has on our mental state. For example, stress can cause an array of damaging effects on our mental state and that can then lead to issues with our physical health. Conversely, if you get hurt you may feel down but it is not likely to cause a massive deterioration in your mental well being. This is not to say physical issues can negatively impact your mental state but rather the extent of the impact might not be as bad. We know that doctors have said for a long time that stress can cause many health issues. This is not new news, the point here is that the interaction between our mind-body wellness is strong. So let’s look at the different factors that affect our mental health.