Physical Health, Stress, and Wellness
Playlist for the Week! Listen while you read!
This month we’ve been talking about how difficult it is to understand how we’re feeling due to guilt, pride, or fear, recognizing how capitalism affects mental health, and how we need to create a song of ourselves and that by doing important self-reflexive work we can work on how we are feeling. This week, however, LET’S GET PHYSICAL! PHYSICAL! .. Health!
Did you know that physical health is deeply correlated with mental health? It’s true! If you are having mental health issues, it can create physical ailments in your body. This is proven by Mayo Clinic’s article on stress:
This also works both ways. If you are in physical pain, you might end up having mental health issues such as a lack of motivation, fear, being overwhelmed, or anxiety.
So what is Stress? The definition of stress according to the World Health Organization is “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference to our overall well-being.”
How do we manage our physical health and our mental health? How do we manage stress?
Making sure we move our bodies! I do a 5 to 10 minute yoga each day, allowing myself to prepare for the day ahead.
Yoga is also an incredible form of mind-body connection, which many of us fail to have if we’re too focused or in our heads and don’t work out.
This can also lead to anxiety due to the disconnect between mind and body!
Walking or running at home on a treadmill, going to the gym, or walking through a mall!
If you regularly work out, allow yourself to work out as well!
As always, I recommend using music that pumps you up! What gets your blood flowing? For me it’s the CD “Fired Up!” From 2003!
DOING HOBBIES
This is so important. So many people only do their hobbies once and a while. You should be taking time for your hobbies NO MATTER HOW BUSY YOU ARE!
Taking a bath, going swimming, reading a book, watching videos and crocheting, playing an instrument, talking with a friend, cooking food, and more!
Just as mental health and its discussion was once much more stigmatized, physical health has its own unique journey that’s not yet completed the path to being destigmatized!
As artists, we may spend more time sitting down, physically playing instruments but not doing physically laborious jobs (and some of us might have HUGELY laborious jobs!). While it cannot be said that working all day in a factory lifting boxes is the same as doing music, nor should it, they BOTH have physical strains on us!
It’s important to not stigmatize someone who may have less physically demanding work than you. You are both struggling to stay alive within a system that does not care about you! I care about you though! :) So care about each other!
What’s most important to remember?
Shame is never necessary towards yourself or anyone else and their body
Respect your own journey through physical health as much as you respect those of others
Art seeks to make the personal, universal - ask yourself how this can be used for good in discussing physical health
I also want to touch on how Capitalism affects all of this. In neoliberal capitalist America, there is a culture about overworking. This is also true in Japan. There are companies who see it as week to take time off, or to not be working 80+ (!!!) hours per week. You NEED time for yourself. I personally think more than 20 hours of work a week is criminal, and I wish I could work less than that. Life is for enjoying. It is too short to be giving everything to a company that will probably not exist in 300 years, and will definitely not remember your contributions for it. Instead, what can do you with your life that IS meaningful for you. How can you interact with the world in a way that brings you joy, happiness, and wellness?
Remember to not let Capitalism get in the way of your wellness. You are more than a number, and worth more than one too.