Have you ever thought about how our mental and spiritual health affects the health of our physical bodies? Do you know that the stress and worry we carry around with us every single day affects every organ and cell in our body? The Bible tells us that we are mind, body, and spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:23) We are all in one, and therefore, every aspect of ourselves affects all others. Let’s explore the toll that poor spiritual and mental health plays on our body, and how we can take care of them to be healthy, mind, body, spirit.
How Does Poor Mental And Spiritual Health Affect Our Physical Health?
Our mental and spiritual health determines our stress levels – including depression, anxiety, headaches, digestion, and high blood pressure. Stress impacts your thoughts, behavior, and feelings and can lead to some pretty severe health conditions if not managed properly, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity. Anxiety can cause rapid heart rate, upset stomach, and dizziness. Depression has been found to cause headaches, fatigue, digestive issues, and weight gain, and can also lead to more severe conditions, including stroke and heart disease.
Our mental and spiritual health also greatly influences our lifestyle choices. Our lifestyle choices, including food, alcohol, drugs, and exercise, affect our overall immune health. As you can see, our mental and spiritual health play a huge part in our physical health by dramatically altering our biochemistry. Many Americans come home from a stressful day and pour a drink, have a sweet, eat something they know they shouldn’t, take a medication or even a drug, all because it temporarily makes them feel better.
6 Practical Steps To Care Of Your Spiritual And Mental Health
1. Speak Life
Proverbs 18:21 tells us “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Our mouth is very powerful. It brings life and death, literally. This verse encourages us to use our words to speak hope, truth, and strength, which is life-giving, unto ourselves and those around us. When we speak words of negativity and defeat, that’s exactly what we’re giving ourselves. Let’s make a shift in how we are thinking and speaking to ourselves and other people in our lives. Let’s speak to ourselves with God’s truth and love and not the lies of the enemy.
“Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” - Proverbs 16:24
“The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” - Proverbs 12:18
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” - Ephesians 4:29
2. Gratitude
Often, we get caught up in our day to day and forget to be grateful for all that we have. Part of caring for our mental and spiritual health is being thankful for the blessings we live in and receive daily. It’s easy to remember to be thankful on Thanksgiving, special big breaks, major achievements, and anniversaries. But how about those down days, traumas, and losses? Let us be grateful in the everyday, because everything God brings us through, even if it’s not as we expect it, is a good thing.
We can be grateful we slept well, woke up to a great cup of coffee. We can find gratitude in our clean hot shower and a great new podcast to listen to on the way to work. We can be grateful for our spouse and great friends we get to go to dinner with. We can find gratitude in the work we do and the people we get to help every day. Let’s make extra special effort to find at least 10 things each day to be grateful for. And I encourage you to find ten new things each day, don’t just recycle the same ones. You can use your notes app on your phone or a special notebook to log all of your blessings.
“ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”- Colossians 3:15
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” - Philippians 4:4-9
3. Prayer
We are called to pray. This isn’t a new concept for most. There are a lot of different ways that we can pray. Scripture calls us to pray in private and also in groups. We are called to pray continually and Jesus even gives instruction on how. We are so blessed to be able to pray to our Heavenly Father. We get to bring everything to Him—all of our stress and worry. We get to bring the hard, painful things that make us angry and sad. We get to share with Him our prayers of praise, joy, and excitement. God wants us to talk with Him always. We can pray privately in a prayer closet or room with closed doors. And I often pray while driving for additional private time with God.
Praying with our spouse and children is also very important. This is a great time to reflect on what we’ve been grateful for all day. Sometimes we humans are selfish and only come to God when we need something, or life isn’t going how we want it to. Absolutely God wants to hear from us then. But He wants to be in relationship with Him. This means we are sharing the mundane and the amazing with Him.
But what if we don’t know what to pray for? We are comforted in this very situation in Romans 8:26 where we are promised that if we are stuck and don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit will intercede on our behalf. We can sit alone with God and listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and we will be led. I often notice this when the Holy Spirit places someone in my mind to pray for. We notice this in stories of people awakened in the night and prompted to pray for a specific situation or person.
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” - Matthew 6:6
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” - Philippians 4:6
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” - Colossians 4:2
4. Meditation
Years ago in our clinic, I was conversing with a patient, and I suggested that she spend some time in meditation, which I felt would help her in her healing journey. She then told me that Christians were not allowed to meditate. This is not true thinking. Friends, the Bible is very clear about meditation. A Christian approach may be slightly different from the worldly approach to meditation. But it is very much a Biblical principle, and I encourage you to add time each week and even daily to meditate for your mental and spiritual health. You’ll feel your connection to God grow. Psalm 1:2-3 tells us,
“… who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”
And we can camp out in the Psalms and find more beautiful, blessed meditation promises in Psalms 63, 77, 119 and 143.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” - Romans 12:2
This renewing of the mind is done through prayer and meditation. When we spend time praying and meditating, we strengthen ourselves to live in God's will. We will be able to hear Him and receive the discernment that we can only receive from Him through the Holy Spirit. Meditation is the practice of clearing your mind and may sometimes include bringing your focus to a specific verse or principle. I like to think of meditation as the listening part. In prayer, we often talk, and in meditation, we listen more.
If you bring a verse or principle to meditate on, the focus should be reflecting on God’s word, aligning your mind with the things above and not earthly things. Being in close relationship with God and Jesus, not necessarily a focus on being still. However, I find that I’m often more focused on God and my attention to Him when I am still.
Get into nature – I love to be in nature for prayer and meditation. The most important part is to use this time to grow the relationship with the Father. Set time aside in a quiet place. Take some deep breaths and center yourself with the Holy Spirit.
5. Journaling
Even though there aren’t any specific verses about this in the Bible, journaling is a form of meditation and prayer mixed with movement. Journaling, whether you keep your writing or discard it, helps process and heal the mind and spirit by moving through our bodies, our anger, frustrations, emotions, suffering, and all of the other things we experience in this life. Preventing all of the yuck from settling and getting buried deep inside of us, where it’s sure to come up at another time.
6. Service to others
A great way to care for your mind and spirit is to serve and love on others. There are many ways to serve others with the gifts, talents, and interests that God has given you. You can serve at church or in a charitable organization. You can serve at a homeless or animal shelter. When we share ourselves through service, you’ll notice that it boosts your self-esteem, improves your mood, and may even reduce stress, which is always good for our mental and spiritual health.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” - 1 Peter 4:10
“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people.” -Ephesians 6:7
Life bombards us with many things that can overwhelm us, leading to unwanted stress. Stresses aren’t just things that only affect our mental and spiritual health. If left unmanaged, it will likely become a physical illness or disease. I encourage you to implement these steps today to help you achieve or maintain a healthy mind, body, and spirit.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/sam thomas
