Mental and Emotional Problems
Intro: If the mind is troubled and tense, you cannot be described as mentally healthy. If your emotions are dry, then also you are not emotionally healthy. To attain a holistic health, you have to be calm, steady and gentle emotionally.
Today any number of beds are available for patients in hospitals and this has become the scale for measuring urban and economic growth, when it should be on the contrary. The prime aim of health care should be to create a situation when no hospitals would be required.
It is seen that people devote half their health in earning wealth and then their wealth in keeping their body healthy. We call this a sign of progress. In the olden days, when no CT scan or MRI facilities were available, mankind was better off than what he is today. They led a long and healthy life and more significantly, they were happier too.
We should maintain a holistic view towards health care in cities. Simply by providing primary health care, a healthy society cannot be established. Today depression and tension have become widespread due to hatred, greed and fear.
The prime reason for urban health problems is tension. It is frightful to even imagine that in the coming decades, depression will be the world’s number one disease. You may want to know then who is considered to be healthy?
In case you feel depressed within, then you cannot be considered healthy. If your mind is tense and worried, then you are not mentally healthy. If you are devoid of emotions, you are not emotionally healthy. To attain holistic health, you have to be calm, balanced and gentle emotionally, but in today’s rat race, it’s not possible to be so.
We pay attention to our teeth and bodily ailments, but conveniently forget the importance of observing mental purity, which is absolutely essential today. Mental health signifies good grasping power, good description power and good expression power. Our mind is like a box which we have filled up with all kinds of rubbish without paying attention to its cleanliness. As a result we have accumulated tension and depression which are destroying our health.
There are two ways to control our tension levels: firstly, either reduce our mental and physical workload, but this seems impossible as it is not practical in today’s life; or else increase our energy levels. Psychosomatic exercises like pranayam, dhyan and yoga can play a significant role in increasing our energy and breathing capacity.
We can rid ourselves of tension and depression through the practice of yoga. Practice of yoga is a simple method to keep our body mechanisms tension-free. Dhyan is like food for our atma (soul). It erases persistent negative thoughts and prejudices from our mind besides easing tensions from everyday life. Its practice imparts hundred times more agility rather than sleep as it helps us to live in the present, while freeing us from anger at our past and worries about the future. Practice of yoga, pranayam and dhyan improves not only our physical, but also mental and emotional health which in the long run constitutes our true wealth.
-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
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