Home » Health & Wellness » Lupus » Optimising Your Mental Health

Optimising Your Mental Health

© Karyn Moran Holton

How much of your time do you spend taking care of your body? If you're like most people with a chronic illness, you spend a good chunk of each day taking your medicines, making sure that you eat and drink the right things, and generally doing whatever you can to keep all your parts in good working order. Maybe you even (gasp!) exercise every day! :-)

But are you missing a step in your complete health care regimen? What do you do every day to ensure your mental health? Do you do just as much as you do to optimize your physical health? Half as much? Ten percent?

Often, we neglect our mental health because taking care of our bodies sucks up so much of our time and energy, but our mental health is so closely tied in to our physical health that we may be doing ourselves a grave disservice (if not outright harm!) by ignoring the needs of our minds.

Common mental health issues for lupus patients (or anyone else with a chronic illness) are depression, low self-esteem, addictions, loss of concentration, anxiety/panic attacks, eating disorders and even suicidal thoughts. (For more information on depression, see the previous "Depression and Lupus" article.) Left untreated and ignored, these disorders can drastically affect our physical health and put us at risk.

So what can we do to take care of our minds? What can we do to actively participate in our own mental health? Here are some tips from the experts:

• Use It, Don't Lose It

If we don't use our brains, they will atrophy. Like the muscles in our bodies, our brains need to be stretched and exercised in order to function at peak efficiency. (I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get, function-wise!) Do the daily crossword, subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, work on puzzles or turn off the TV and read a classic that you've never gotten around to. Anything, so long as it utilizes the ol' grey matter. If you're really ambitious, why not audit an evening college class in a subject that interests you? There's no pressure on your grades, so you can simply enjoy the learning.

• Get Enough Sleep

Sleep deprivation takes a large toll on our ability to concentrate fully. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 40 million Americans suffer from some type of sleep disorder, and 60% of adults have trouble sleeping a few nights a week or more. They also report that fatigue plays a part in over 100,000 car crashes per year, so you can imagine how it affects the rest of our lives in smaller ways.

The copyright of the article Optimising Your Mental Health in Lupus is owned by . Permission to republish Optimising Your Mental Health in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.