All The Ways Mental And Physical Health Are Related

The National Alliance on Mental Illness states that in 2020 alone, 1 in 5 U.S. adults experienced a mental illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than half of the population will be diagnosed with a mental condition during their lifetime.

Unfortunately, many people may not be aware of how their mental health translates to their physical health. Our bodies are incredibly complex machines, with every part working together in harmony. However, it can't work in harmony if your brain is struggling to stay at its healthiest. The brain controls everything we do and how our bodies operate. When it's not feeling its best, there's a good chance your body isn't feeling its best, either. The opposite can also be true: When your body feels good, your brain usually feels good. However, according to the World Health Organization, 1 in 4 adults worldwide don't get enough physical activity, and it could be the cause of more than five million global deaths each year.

Your brain and body want — and need — to work together. Read on to learn the many ways they influence each other, and why it's crucial to get them both on a path toward good health.

You may have heard that one of the biggest benefits of exercise is that it makes you feel good. It's not just talk; there is plenty of scientific evidence to prove that getting physical can improve your mood, even if you're depressed.

A 2019 study published in JAMA Psychiatry (via Harvard Health Publishing) found that people who exercised more per a tracking device's measurements were less likely to be at risk for major depressive disorder. Study author Karmel Choi notes that any activity — even taking stairs instead of an elevator — contributes to mood-boosting activity, and that "[the results] didn't say you have to run a marathon, do hours of aerobics, or be a CrossFit master just to see benefits on depression."

Another study published in a 2018 edition of Frontiers in Psychology required participants, who were inpatients with mental disorders, to fill out a questionnaire before or after exercising. The questions targeted their attention, mood, social interactions, and more. Interestingly, results showed that after exercising, tiredness decreased while mood, social interactions, and attention increased.

We've discovered that our mental state can affect our sleep and, therefore, our physical health as well. But not getting enough sleep can also hurt our mental health, resulting in a cycle of negative side effects for the brain and body.

During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, your brain processes all of your memories and thoughts from the day and categorizes them in a way that should benefit you. You become able to think about everything more clearly, which is why you might feel less stressed in the morning than you were at bedtime. But if you can't sleep long enough to get into REM sleep, your brain can't process your emotions the same way. When that happens, you could become more prone to depressive or anxious symptoms (per Sleep Foundation).

A 2021 study published in Preventing Chronic Disease found that participants who slept six or fewer hours during the night were at more than double the risk of frequent mental distress compared with those who had more hours of sleep each night.

When you're feeling anxious, hitting the gym might not be the first thing you think about doing — but maybe it should be. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, physical activity actually releases natural chemicals called endorphins, which can boost your mood rather quickly. Plus, you could get your mind off your current stressors and focus on something more fun and enjoyable. There are also long-term benefits of exercise on anxiety, such as building your confidence and training yourself to manage your anxiety in a healthy way.

The best part is that just about any physical activity can produce these results. One research article from BMC Health Services Research found that high-intensity aerobic exercise was highly beneficial in reducing anxiety symptoms in participants. However, another review in the Journal of Clinical Medicine looked solely at the effects of exercising with virtual reality on individuals with anxiety and depression. Four out of the five reviewed studies reported notable improvements in tension, energy, tiredness, and other symptoms.

Experts still don't have all the answers as to why some people get cancer and others don't. However, some believe that your mental health has ties to cancer.

The National Cancer Institute explains that psychological stress happens when you feel intense distress that stems from anything going on in your personal or professional life. While we all experience stress from time to time, chronic psychological stress makes our bodies release stress hormones that have several physical side effects, like rapid heart rate and high blood pressure. Many of these physical effects are also tied to certain types of cancer. Even more importantly, severe stress can cause people to pick up cancer-causing habits, such as binge eating or smoking. 

Some research goes a step further to suggest that depression could be a key part of the progression of cancer. "Many people don't realize cancer itself can lead to the release of molecules that enter the brain and cause depressive symptoms even before the cancer is discovered," says Dr. Andrew H. Miller, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences (via CURE). As Miller explains, when cancer is detected by the immune system, it causes inflammation that can consequently trigger symptoms of depression (including mood changes and a lack of concentration).

Ask almost any doctor, and they'd probably agree that when you fuel your body, you fuel your mind. One study conducted by Edith Cowan University researchers in 2022 explored this by asking participants to complete a seven-week cooking course that taught them how to prepare healthy meals and improve their diets. Overall, those who completed the course felt better prepared to transform their diets long-term. Even more importantly, the participants' mental health "significantly improved" after completing the cooking course.

Why did this happen? According to Harvard Health Publishing, your brain seeks high-quality foods for its nourishment to stay focused, alert, and on top of your bodily processes. Compared to a Western diet (which is often high in sugar and processed foods), a traditional unprocessed, whole-food diet can lower the risk of depression by as much as 35%. "We tend to separate our brain from the rest of our body, but good health means good health from a holistic perspective — from head to toe," Dr. Gabriela Cora, a board-certified psychiatrist, tells Aetna.

A 2014 NCHS data brief found that 43% of adults living with depression were also obese, and that obesity rises as the severity of depressive symptoms increases. However, the specific link between the two has been unclear, despite years of research connecting them. For instance, a 2020 review published in Psychiatry Investigation pulled data from 18 articles covering multiple studies. Ultimately, the authors found that obesity and depression are both risk factors for each other.

Although depression can cause weight loss as a result of mood and appetite changes (per Healthline), it could also have the opposite effect. The complexities of depression can cause significant weight changes in some, and psychiatry and pharmacology professor Roger McIntyre tells WebMD that it involves much more than just not being motivated to eat healthily or work out when you're depressed. McIntyre explains that depression can affect impulse control and make a person feel less satisfied after eating, causing binging or even food addiction. Plus, the higher production of the stress hormone cortisol can affect food cravings and increase insulin resistance, making it difficult to lose weight.

Many studies have focused on the benefits of physical activity for people experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A 2019 review in Frontiers in Psychology pulled data and results from several of these studies and found that the benefits were clear. Participants in multiple studies who engaged in aerobic activity had reduced inflammation, improved hypothalamus regulatory activities, and increased their overall cognitive function. The authors noted that these positive side effects are crucial enough for the well-being of people with PTSD that they suggest exercise as a form of mental health treatment.

Some exercise even targets trauma and works to release it from the body. Bioenergetics is a type of science that studies how energy moves in living organisms. Some bioenergetics enthusiasts believe that by practicing certain types of physical activity, bad energy can move out of the body so that good energy can enter, which can be an effective way of dealing with trauma (via The Guardian). Somatic therapy, which focuses on how you feel physically through body-focused exercise, can also help release trauma.