Skip to main content

Health & Wellbeing

Taking care of your body is a powerful first step towards mental and emotional health. The mind and the body are linked.

When you improve your physical health, you’ll automatically experience greater mental and emotional well-being.

For example, exercise not only strengthens our heart and lungs, but also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals that energize us and lift our mood.

The activities you engage in and the daily choices you make affect the way you feel physically and emotionally.

Physical Wellbeing

The benefits of being active for physical and mental health are huge. Being active helps release chemicals in your brain (endorphins), which have a positive effect on your mood, not to mention the benefits to your heart, lungs, muscles and bones. Getting out and being active is also a great way to manage stress.

Regular physical activity can help you reduce the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. For children and young people being active helps reduce their risk of developing these diseases in later life too. Increased levels of physical activity will help reduce body fat and maintain a healthy weight.

Being active is fun for all the family. Research shows that children whose parents are active are more than 5 times as likely to be active than those whose parents are not. Getting active does not have to be expensive and most of the ideas on this site are low cost or completely free. You can find out more about physical activity on the getirelandactive website.

Mental Health

Mental health is something we all have. It can be good and at times it can be poor. We should try to look after it in the same way we look after our physical health.

For further information on our mental health and minding your mental health please check out www.yourmentalhealth.ie

Spiritual Wellbeing

Spiritual health means having direction and meaning in life. It involves the development of positive morals, values and ethics. When people become healthy spiritually, they demonstrate love and a sense of caring for self and others.

Just as the physical, mental, and social dimensions of our lives interrelate, we can also assume that there will be interactions between our spiritual health, and the other dimensions of health. Some aspects of spirituality can offer real benefits for mental health.

Spiritual practices can help us to develop the better parts of ourselves. They can help us to become more creative, patient, persistent, honest, kind, compassionate, wise, calm, hopeful and joyful.

Spiritual skills include:

  • being honest – and able to see yourself as others see you
  • developing a deeper sense of empathy for others
  • learning how to give without feeling drained
  • being able to stay focused in the present, to be alert, unhurried and attentive
  • being able to be with someone who is suffering, while still being hopeful
  • being able to grieve and let go
  • being able to rest, relax and create a still, peaceful state of mind
  • learning better judgement, for example about when to speak or act, and when to remain silent or do nothing
Share this: