Nurturing Your Spiritual Body Keeps You Healthy

There is a definite link between balanced spirituality and good mental health. Spiritual people tend to have better mental health and in cases where mental health conditions are present, they have better control over their mental health. Spiritual people are more aware of the state of their mental health and will balance their spiritual practices with seeking professional help and therapy.

We, as human beings, all have layers to us as a being. First is our physical body, the physical form that we inhabit in this incarnation. This is where our skin, bones, and organs live. We do our best to maintain and take care of it because it is very important to us, without our body, we cannot be. Second is our mind, that is mainly housed in the darkness of our skull in an organ called the Brain. It controls the body and acts as a connection between the body and the spirit. It too is very important because without it we may have a body, but no way of interacting with our body, the world around us, or our spirit. Finally, we have our spirit. This is where the Divine Spark lives and our spirit is the Universal energy that gives us meaning and purpose. Without Spirit, our body and mind will feel lost and will lack empathy, purpose, or drive. We need to do our best to keep all these parts running with peak efficiency. When we fail to maintain one level, it will have an effect on all the levels. But there is good news, maintaining and improving one level, improves and maintains all the levels.

There is a lot of evidence that practicing a positive focus, balanced spirituality is good for both the mind and body. I am however focusing on benefits towards mental health. Mental health is still stigmatized in many parts of the world, but good mental health is so important to being a balanced, healthy person. By incorporating practices into your spirituality that bolster your mental health you are bolstering your overall health. A big part of being a healthy human being is being balanced and positive on all levels.

So, what are some practices that you can incorporate into your spirituality that may help your mental health. Let’s start with the easiest one, learn to ground and center. Grounding and centering are the practice of gathering your personal energy into your body and then connecting energetically to the Earth. It helps calm you, slows your heart rate, builds mental focus, and lowers your blood pressure. It is one of the basic skills to becoming aware of what you are feeling and in creating a calm mental place that you can start other activities from. Imagine the mental health benefits of being able to quiet your mind and take a deep breath. That is what grounding and centering do. Mental health-wise, grounding in centering can slow down an anxiety attack, help you focus on just one thing when ADHD wants to focus on 20 things, and if you are neurodivergent, it will sooth your mind with calm. This is a basic meditation practice that, with a little practice, is easy to learn. Check out our blog for articles on grounding and centering and our Facebook Lives for videos and meditations.

When you have a mental illness or two, days can become a chaotic blur. The next spiritual practice helps create a routine and an oasis of calm in that chaos. Since humans discovered writing, they have been keeping records of their day-to-day life. Journaling is a common practice many people find important to their mental health to this day. From writing down the events of your day to keeping a record of all that you are thankful for, journalling helps you find patterns and issues that you may need to work on. It can be a safe place to vent your thoughts and fears. Or just record creative ideas that come to you. Journals do not need to be “Dear Diary,” logs of your day. Journals can range from notes you scribble on napkins to help clear your mind to elaborate artistic projects that reflect your interest and moods of the moment. A journal is your personal confident and place to work through your issues. They can be secret notebooks or public blogs, but they have incredible health benefits. Spiritually, journaling allows all levels of the self to communicate with each other. All too often we don’t listen to ourselves in our rush to be accepted by others; writing a journal forces you to slow down and communicate with yourself. The only expectation while keeping a journal is that you be honest with yourself.

Meditation is a lot like journal keeping and grounding. When you learn to relax and focus your mind, you learn to listen to your Divine Spark and yourself. Take the time to learn a meditation technique that resonates with you and make it a part of your daily life. We have several blog posts on meditation and finding a technique that works on our blog. The benefits of meditation are well recorded and researched with science. Among its noted benefits are lowering stress, building focus, less anxiety, better mental recall, lowering blood pressure, and the list goes on. Some studies have also shown that meditation can lower the effects of aging. Mental health-wise, meditation builds your focus on your mind and body and can allow you to lessen the effects of a bad mental health period or even make you aware that you may need to speak to a doctor or therapist if need be. A very popular form of meditation is mindfulness. Through mindfulness you make yourself aware of your body and mind and its relationship with the world around you. There are studies that show that mindfulness encourages the practitioner to focus on the now and helps relieve symptoms of anxiety and overthinking in people with depression.

If you are having a mental health breakdown and other techniques don’t seem to be working, please seek help from a doctor or therapist. There is no shame in asking for a helping hand.

The simple rituals found in spirituality can also be beneficial for your mental health. Those daily, weekly, or even monthly routines can bring comfort and realign you with the cycles of time and reality. In a down period of depression, it is very easy to lose track of time and forget what day it is or in some cases, forget what month it is. Those little rituals are markers that remind you to connect back to reality. Rituals can also provide comfort that can boost your mood as well as giving you a sense of empowerment. By rituals I don’t mean fancy pagan ritual ceremonies that involve lighting candles and casting circle and all of that unless you want to. I mean little rituals like having a cup of hot beverage with your morning journal time, taking a walk after lunch, or even visualizing your daily shower washing away the darkness in your life.

Finally, remember that self-care is a part of your spirituality and can be a major boost to your health. Those little things you do to take care of yourself are very important and very healthy. Too often we are so busy doing for others that we forget to take care of ourselves. Taking care of ourselves boosts our moods, relaxes us, and relieves stress. Do yourself a favor, practice self-care.

A positive, balanced spiritual mindset is a booster for your health. There are countless studies done on cancer patients, their mindsets, and the rate at which they recovered and whether they went into remission or not. Those who kept a positive mindset that included elements of spirituality recovered faster and had higher rates of remission. Living a life filled with positive spirituality doesn’t guarantee you a life free from bad bouts of mental illness, but that positive mindset will help you recover from those bouts and help improve your quality of life.