Just like the body your mind also needs to be healthy. How do you say you are mentally healthy. Try to answer the following.

• Are you quite a happy and contented person who can cope with the usual ups and downs.
• Good things happen to you and you’re hopeful for the future
• Are you sociable, confident and have lots of good friends.
• You cry only if something happens to make you really sad.
• You have good sleep in the night and awaken relatively refreshed.
• You try to keep a balance between doing things for yourself like seeing friends and doing other activities that you enjoy.

If your answer is yes to the above questions then you cope well with troubles when life throws challenges at you. Any upsets for you are likely to be normal reactions to difficult situations and you adjust well. You mental health is fine.

You mental health needs improvement if your answer to the following questions is 'Yes".

• Your friendships and social activities suffer.
• You hide yourself away from others.
• You are always disturbed because either: You just don’t sleep well enough for long enough; or you sleep all of the time. You don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. You just want to pull the covers over my head and stay there.
• You very easily feel sad even for petty things, and often cry without knowing why
• You don’t have many friends who are really close to you and sometimes don’t know where to turn for support or share your feelings.
• You feel that you have few choices in how you live and that things are more likely to get worse than better.
• You are agitated or miserable most of the time.

Physical health affects Mental Health

Mental Health Problems arise when a problem, life event or situation, disrupts the way we think and feel. This can either be temporary – for example, following a bereavement – or be more enduring. Mental health problems can include suffering stress, constant worrying.

Increasing our knowledge of mental health issues and how problems can arise makes us more likely to spot problems early when they're easier to tackle. There are plenty of things we can do to make things better if we're feeling down, stressed, anxious or unwell. Daily life has many stresses and strains. We can work to minimise or cut out some sources of pressure but others are unavoidable. One thing we can do to help maintain positive mental health and well being is to improve the way we cope with life's challenges.

As you age your brain also ages. But it is possible to keep your brain alert and active by following these activities.

Reducing stress: Make efforts to take things in their stride and have a control over your emotions. Don't take things very personally.Meditation has been found to be useful to reduce stress. For some people even a break from their daily routine will help in reducing the stress.
Increase your self esteem. Self Esteem is the feeling of pride in yourself. It is the personal feelings or opinions about oneself. How you feel about yourself – how you feel about who you are, the way you act, and how you look.
Exercise your mind. Solve a lot of puzzles. Play scrabble and other word games. Discuss subjects or topics of interest with your friends. It has been found that the mind slowly deteriorates and slows down if it is not kept active.
Read motivating books and motivating articles. Your level of happiness and success is related to how you feel about "YOU". Motivating articles and books help you in achieving this.
Maintain a balanced diet. Physical health and mental health are dependent on each other. Have a balanced healthy diet for a healthy body.
Keep physically fit. Get atleast 30 min of exercise everyday.

How to keep your mind active, alert and healthy.