Connection between mental, emotional and physical health

Mental and emotional health play a larger part in your physical health than you might realize.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as a: state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. They say that there is no health without mental health.
Googling the words "mental health physical health" returned about 197,000 results in under one second.  There have been thousands if not millions of studies surrounding the connection.  I can vouch for the connection in my own life.  

Between July of 2012 and March of 2013, I lost 40 pounds walking, dancing with my kids and the Xbox, and riding my bike.  I felt pretty good, even though I still wanted to lose about 20 more pounds. I plateaued, like most people do.  I continued to work hard and had even progressed to riding my bike for miles and miles on an almost daily basis.  I changed up my workouts and diet a bit.  I paid for and saw a dietitian who said I wasn't eating enough calories for my activity level and measured metabolism level, so I changed that too.  I made a lot of changes to break the plateau and I worked hard.  My weight stayed relatively stable (within 10 lbs) but never went down, and at the end of 2014, my hard work stopped working.  My plateau turned into an upswing and I gained it all back, no matter what I tried.  Eventually I pretty much gave up and the pain came back and no one could/would find any reason.

In 2014 and 2015 my emotional state has been difficult to explain.  I've see-sawed up and down, in and out of depression and frustration with the whole getting old process.  My body is breaking more often than it used to and it makes me sad.  I developed arthritis in 2010 and am in what some would call chronic pain with arthritis and back pain based on muscle memory from a very old back surgery.  It sucks and it does nothing good for my state of mind.  As I'd get more depressed, I started taking medication and would feel less and less like myself and, feeling less like myself, would do less "myself-like" things.  I used to ride my bike all the time.  Over the last year I've cringed just looking at it.  I got discouraged and stopped being active, feeling that it wouldn't do me any good anyway, so why even try?


Sounds pretty crappy, right?  It has been.  Its a round robin.  My health would take a downturn (pain and listlessness) and my emotional and mental health would turn down as well (I can do nothing about this because no one listens).  The cycle has been hard to break.  I have to say.

Throughout this time, I've seen an acupuncturist at least once a month.  Dave Kaplan with Colorado Acupuncture Studio has been wonderful.  Being a therapist for my mind as well as my body and listening more than any traditional health professional has ever done.  He and I are working together to bring me back from the emotional and physical abyss.  I'm working on starting 2016 with a new outlook and on being kind to myself during the transition.

Do you have stories concerning the connection between mental, emotional and physical health that you could share?  What have you decided to let go of in the New Year to make way for better overall health?

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