If we see that a constant work throughout our lives is to care for and be responsible for personal health, we must include mental health and fitness also. It would be wise to apply a positive attitude to this long term work project to care for our whole psyche, body, emotions and thoughts.

As we begin to better understand our body as we train in any physical health programme, we come to comprehend our own emotions and thoughts as we consciously embark on a mental fitness discipline. We will continue to find many correspondences between working for health on both levels, physical and psychological.

We must first deal with any of the common symptoms of mental irregularity or disturbance that we discover, such as depression, anxiety, frustration and hopelessness.  Although we may not ever find the causes, we can heal many of these and other symptoms by strengthening our innate positive tools. These include recreation of our self image; learning to dissolve the feelings and obstructions that make us feel bad, such as our fears, anger and antagonisms;  practising the arts of relaxation and meditation;  self affirmation to build self confidence and concentration to focus upon important goals.

Regarding mental health there is no magic pill that can change all our life factors for us. Drugs may have their place in easing pain but generally drugs alone offer no panacea for long term physical or mental illness. In seeking to build physical or mental health we should avoid medication with drugs, as well as ‘recreational drugs’, until all other avenues have been explored.

Our mind, being the stronger management part of our psyche has the power to alter our moods. But we must approach these efforts to change with some enthusiasm. To be half hearted will tend to sabotage our efforts.

After dealing with this difficult stage of work in preparation, we then work to recreate our personality. Then we will already begin to feel the benefits as we do after the action of doing our exercises or going for a walk. As we find we can actually enjoy our physical health programmes, so our work for mental fitness can become interesting and even more enjoyable as we advance to the task of increasing our positive qualities.