Nurturing mental health

It’s believed, Lankans while bidding adieu to people exclaim as “Ayubowan”, which in Sinhalese mean “May you live long and healthy”.

Truly, what could be a better way of wishing someone other than wishing for the person’s eternal good health? Going by the clichéd phrase ‘health is wealth’, indeed being gifted with good health is tantamount to being bestowed with the greatest wealth. In fact, the best gift that one can offer to one’s most loved ones is by keeping oneself in ‘fine fettle’ such that one always bubbles with unstinted healthy energy.  

Interestingly, there is a strange nexus between one’s physical and mental health. For instance, when we are indisposed with some illness, we can feel that discomfort manifesting itself on our mental state, making us drown in dreadful downbeat mood. And, when we are bombarded by bouts of mental stress, we can see it taking a toll on our physical well-being. Hence keeping the body and mind fit-as-a-fiddle is of paramount importance to one’s over-all well-being.

Well, here is the tricky glitch. One can keep the body uber strong by adhering to healthy food diet, good sleep patterns, great fitness regimen, etc. But keeping the mind perpetually relaxed, by being ever composed and collected, isn’t all that of a doddle, especially in these tension-fraught competitive times. Yes, listening to lilting music, launching on meditations, indulging in fave pastimes, etc, can relax the mind for fleeting moments. But, in no time, we find the mind again in turbulent state, with torrents of thoughts blitzing from all directions.     

Now, what are those possible culprits behind the spawning of surplus mental stress, which are sabotaging the mental calm and disrupting the mental equipoise? Well, one among them is the fear of failure, maybe an offshoot of feisty ambitions. Yes, a jot of healthy ambition is good, as it proffers zing to the working gusto, be it in any arena.

But an obsession with success can engender surfeit stress, thus thwarting mind relaxation. There are also imaginary fears, the potent bugbears, causing mental tumults, like, the foreboding feelings of some unsavoury things occurring in future, etc. If not these, the mind dredges up some disturbing past memories, which it is unable to exorcize out.

The other thing that impede mental relaxation is the over attachment towards temporal things. Till the time the desired things are procured the mental faculties would be over-toiling, thus triggering turmoil in mind. So, how to deal with these cocktail of copious thoughts, simmering in the cauldron called mind, which harry and hound you, especially during night sleep hours?

Well, the best way to ward off these hounding thoughts is to view everything in life with jot of detachment. By cudgeling brains, as we can’t alter anything in life, the best bet is to keep executing our various duties, and then fully surrender to God to take care of our life, which is actually the right way of relaxing the mind!