5 Tips to Improve your Mental Health | Sadhguru

Sadhguru: These are 2 things which are going completely unused in today's world, this is the main reason for depression. If you had to do only physical jobs, you eat one way; mental things, another way. So, eating the right kind of food becomes very necessary.

That means you are in ill-health, or you’re heading there, quickly, both physical and psychological. If this is achieved, you have reasonably complete human beings, who will live their life fully. The word ‘health’ comes from the root word ‘whole’ – that means, feeling healthy means to be complete, a sense of wholeness within ourselves.

For this to happen, our body should be vibrant, our physical energies must be vibrant, our mind must be joyful, emotion must be exuberant – only then you feel a sense of wholeness. Essentially, within the human being, there is a certain allotment of energy for action, certain allotment of energy for intellect, certain allotment of energy for emotion. Like this, there are various allotments.

This differs from person to person, but generally, the amount of energy allotted particularly for physical action and emotional dimension, these are 2 things which are going completely unused in today's world. This is the main reason for depression, believe me. Any number of children that they bring to me with all kinds of mental ailments, I just tell them, first thing is, some sport that they like, swimming, tennis, something, and music.

These 2 things you bring into their life, within 3 months, most of the children, 80 to 85% of the children will recover quite wonderfully. Because without finding expression to their emotional dimension, and without finding enough exertion for the physical body, they are bound to become depressive. Today it's become like this: sunrise means they watch it on the phone screen, sunset means they watch it on the phone screen.

Yes! [Laughs] So, losing connection with all that supports and manages our life is going to be a serious challenge of the future. But this is one thing that you can do if you have children: vacation means, don't take them to Mumbai, Bangalore, Dubai, some other place, just take them, walk them in the jungle, or take them on a small boat out there, or whatever, some exposure to nature is needed.

You will see how excited children will get, and how involved they will become. You need to understand this, your physical… your physiological and psychological health can be very easily managed if you are in touch with the elements of nature, of water, soil, light, and things like that. The more exposed you are, the more balanced you are, both physiologically and psychologically, which must happen to every human being.

In this country, we made food like this: if you had to do only physical jobs, you eat one way; mental things, another way. But today none of us are in that condition, we have to be both physically sharp and mentally sharp, isn’t it? That exclusivity of just physical work and mental work is gone.

All of us need to be physically good and mentally good. So, eating the right kind of food becomes very necessary. Particularly some of the things which are very, very positive are the ash gourd.

If you consume a glass of ash gourd juice every day, you will see, clearly the sharpness of your intellect will enhance itself, you will be mentally much sharper than the way you are right now. Especially children must drink ash gourd juice. Daily consumption of ash gourd, you will see distinctly, your mind seems to be clearer and sharper.

This will be noticeable within a few weeks of consumption of ash gourd. If you drink coffee, it gives you energy with agitation. You drink a glass of ash gourd juice, it gives you enormous amount of energy; at the same time, it keeps you very, very calm.

Daily consumption of honey can do wonderful things to you, especially if you have children at home, make honey culture part of your thing. Psychological stability, physical well-being, vitality, all these things can be greatly enhanced simply consuming daily honey. Do you know, whatever cleansing process that happens in the body, whether emptying your bowels, or emptying your bladder, or exhalation, or sweat, these are all different ways the body is trying to clean itself; in all these things, different bodies have different levels of efficiency.

If you are in good health, if you are in very good health and if you’re eating the right kind of food, when you empty your bowels, nothing, not a speck should remain in your colon, everything should be gone. In yoga that’s very, very important, the colon being clean, otherwise it’ll get into your head. Really.

Your colon not clean and psychological disturbances are very directly connected. In the yogic understanding of life, after you wake up, within 20 minutes, naturally if the bowels don’t empty themselves completely, that means you're in ill-health, or you’re heading there quickly, both physical and psychological. It could be either – depending upon whichever is weakest in you, will break first.

First thing if you go to an ayurvedic doctor, whatever your problem, first thing is, he'll purge you, because keeping the colon clean is very important. There are only 4 things with you right now that you can make use of: your body, your mind, your emotion, and your energy. If you manage these 4 things well, they will produce a certain level of life for you.

If you have a healthy body, you will live in one way. If you have a very stable and sharp mind, you’ll live another way. If you have stable and exuberant emotions, you’ll live another way.

If you have a very effervescent sense of energy, which is also balanced at the same time, you live another way. Now, for most human beings, who are in different… various levels of activity in their life, they need all these 4 things to be in a reasonably good shape. So, Inner Engineering is trying to cater to that, as to how to bring a human being to physical health, mental peace and joy, emotional stability and exuberance, and highly effervescent energy and balance within themselves.

If this is achieved, you have reasonably complete human beings, who will live their life fully.