Things that hurt your physical and mental health

Your feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life consists of two components — physical and mental health. If one of them at least partially fails you and needs your attention, you start to get nervous, experience stress, lose the ability to achieve your goals, and realize your inner potential. Physical and mental health problems affect your habits, activity level, behaviour, and emotions.

At the same time, it is extremely important to monitor the two components of your health because they are of mutual influence. Problems with your mental state can lead to a deterioration of your physical indicators and vice versa; your injuries and illnesses can affect your mental comfort and cause the development of depression, anxiety, and other disorders.

We have collected a few things that hurt your physical and mental health. Once you get your life back on track and get rid of the risk factors listed below, you can become more resilient, learn to cope with stress, improve your well-being and establish interaction with people around you.

10 things that hurt your physical and mental health

1. Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem is the cause of many mental health problems. The way you treat yourself, how you experience your failures and accept criticism from others largely determine your mental well-being. Suppose you pay a lot of attention to what other people say or think about you. In that case, you will adjust to their expectations, experience extreme stress when making decisions and react painfully to how they evaluate you.

Start working on your self-esteem: put yourself and your interests first, come to terms with your shortcomings and stop trying to impress anyone else. If a person wants to hate you, he will definitely find a reason for it or come up with it in his head. It’s not going to do any good anyway.

2. Excessive sports activity

Moderation is important in everything: if you decide to start playing sports, then approach it with all seriousness. Do not immediately expose your body to excessive physical exertion, especially if you have never been to the gym before. You can harm your health by getting the opposite effect from training with your thoughtless actions. Injuries and overwork are the biggest dangers you can face.

Start with light exercises and gradually increase your activity. And even better — hire yourself a coach so that you don’t overdo it, study under his strict guidance and achieve the result you need faster without the risk of injuring yourself.

3. Overworking

Overworking is extremely harmful to both the physical and mental state. Of course, nothing terrible will happen if you stay in the office a couple of times after closing to finish an important project or prepare for a presentation. If you ignore the body’s need for rest for a long time, expect it to respond. You risk getting overwork, apathy, anxiety, and in the most advanced cases — depression.

4. Inability to accept help

Some people believe that they can cope with all their problems without someone else’s participation. They are sure that such a position is a sign of self-sufficiency, self-confidence and strength. But here is food for thought: we are all growing and developing in society, and it is unlikely that we would have advanced so far and achieved everything we have at the moment without mutual assistance.

Stop convincing yourself that you should refuse offers of help. This desire to appear as independent as possible from other people indicates low self-esteem and fear of appearing vulnerable. Strong people do not hesitate to ask for help, as they do not depend on the opinions of others. Everyone has situations in their life where someone else’s participation is necessary. Learn to accept help, and you will begin to cope with your problems much faster, without sacrificing physical or mental health.

5. Toxic relationships

Toxic relationships with someone and, in general, the presence of such people in your life strongly affects your mental health. You experience constant stress, abandon your interests due to pressure and manipulation, and waste many resources.

As a result, you first get constant fatigue and apathy, dissatisfaction with what is happening around you, and frustration communicating with certain people. Gradually, this can lead to the development of anxiety or depressive disorder.

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6. Unrealistic expectations

Unrealistic expectations from yourself can also cause your well-being to deteriorate when you demand too much from yourself, without thinking about whether you can achieve it, and if so, at what cost, you drive yourself into a corner.

You have to put all your resources into work that most likely will not meet your expectations. As a result, you will be disappointed in yourself and your abilities, self-esteem, and self-flagellation problems.

7. Inability to delegate

In order to maintain mental and physical health, it is important to calculate your strength correctly and be able to delegate those tasks that someone else can handle. Of course, it’s great that you want to do everything yourself, but remember that the craving for excessive control will not lead you to anything good.

Learn to rely on someone else – you have relatives, friends, girlfriends, and colleagues you periodically help. There’s nothing wrong with asking them for a favour or saying that you won’t be able to take on all the planned tasks this time. This way, you can free up some free time and reduce your stress level.

8. No sleep mode

It is extremely important for your body to sleep exactly as much as it needs for a full rest. You have to stick to the regime — fall asleep and wake up at about the same time. Your attempts to reduce the length of sleep on weekdays and sleep these hours on weekends will not lead to anything good. At best, you will feel tired; at worst, you can get health problems if you ignore the regime.

9. Poor nutrition

Your inattention to what you eat daily can deteriorate both physical and mental health. First of all, you should reduce the amount of fatty food, stop snacking on the run, order deliveries from fast-food restaurants, and eat semi-finished products.

Give preference to healthy food — buy and cook cereals, fresh meat, and fish, and include vegetables and fruits in your diet. Make sure that you get all the necessary vitamins and minerals, drink more water, and pay attention to the quality of your products in stores.

10. Fear of the future

If you think about your future, you feel anxious; you need to understand where this reaction came from. Your fear may indicate that you do not know what you strive for or doubt your abilities. The more you worry about it, the worse your emotional state becomes, and the more difficult it is for you to make decisions and act.