Of Approaching The Natural A Health Manifesto By Garza-Hillman

In his book, Approaching the Natural: A Health Manifesto, Sid Garza-Hillman states, “Caring for the mind is as crucial as caring for the body. In fact, one cannot be healthy without the other.”. Today’s world tells people many things about physical health, about how being more physically active can improve mood, sleep, stress, etc. This is true, however physical health does much more for the human body than one would think. Studies have shown mental health conditions, such as depression, decrease when the person diagnosed with the condition is more physically active. People with depression also have a higher health costs than people without. Depression itself is a major problem and people who aren’t diagnosed may not know they or others are …show more content…
This is very true. Numerous studies have been conducted to prove this. Being more physically active help with more than just making sure your body runs properly, it can also increase mental health. The state of, “Look good, feel good” doesn’t always mean makeup and clothes. If an individual is more fit, they have a increased mental health state. “Previous findings have confirmed the inverse line between exercise, chronic diseases related to lifestyle and depression. Physical coping resources are related to physical well being and physical well being is related to psychological well being, therefore, increasing physical coping may be particularly useful in increasing health status. Physical activity can increase quality of life, improve mood, reduce anxiety and depression, increase resilience to stress and can improve sleep. Furthermore, physical well-being can decrease negative responses to stress and can enable faster recovery from stress.” (Patel et al, 769). This is astonishing. Being more physically active helps with so much more than what one would believe. This may be common knowledge that physical activity increases certain aspects of life, but now there are numerous studies proving it. As mentioned earlier, one of depression’s co-occurring health conditions was obesity. Obesity is solved by being more physically active and watching what you eat. More reason to be more physically active is that people suffering from insomnia, also a co-occurring condition because of depression, would find that their sleep patterns would return to normal and their depression would decrease. Physical activity is important to mental health. “Although no comparable studies were done in the objective measurement of physical activity, the results suggest that physical movement even at light intensity levels could improve people 's depressive moods.”