Mind health is critical and a must-have. Don’t brush this off and skip to the biological health sections. This is where we all go wrong, including most medical doctors.
Not because mindset is fashionable, and not because positivity fixes everything (don’t get me started on fake toxic positivity which I know very well from old expired friendships). But because the mind is the primary interface between the environment and the body. Every signal the body receives about safety, danger, scarcity, hope or threat is filtered through the brain first. The body responds accordingly.
In western medicine, mind and body are treated as separate systems. One is “psychological” the other “physical”. Different clinics, different specialists, different language. Psychiatrists are often not treated as equal to other medical doctors. People with mental illnesses are treated as just crazy and they should just get it together. This division does not exist in biology. It never has. Not even in the ancient times.
If the body is inflamed, the mind becomes inflamed. If the mind is chronically distressed, the body will follow. There is no version of long-term health where one is broken and the other remains intact. If your mind is ill, your body will fall ill, and vice versa. When you catch a bad cold, after a couple of days, you will start feeling depressed. Just as your body is inflamed, your mind is also inflamed and wants to heal and recover, so puts you in bed by making you feel depressed. OK not quite a scientific explanation but this is the bottomline of it.
The brain’s primary job is prediction, not thought
The mind is often described as thoughts, emotions or personality. Biologically, the brain’s primary role is prediction. It constantly scans the environment and predicts what will happen next. Based on those predictions, it adjusts hormones, immune activity, metabolism and behaviour.
If the brain predicts safety, the body invests in repair, digestion, reproduction and long-term maintenance. If the brain predicts threat, the body shifts into survival mode.
This isn’t conscious. It happens below awareness. And once survival mode becomes chronic, healing becomes biologically expensive.
Stress is not psychological, it is metabolic
Stress is not an emotion. It is a physiological state.
When the brain perceives threat, it releases stress hormones that raise blood sugar, suppress immune repair, slow digestion and prioritise immediate energy. This response evolved to help us escape danger. It was never meant to be permanent. This is to stop your body doing unnecessary things like digestion or repair when it’s under a life threatening situation. The stress focuses all bodily energy into survival so everything else slows down. But when this stress mode is permanent, the hormone never goes away, the bodily functions are chronically impaired.
Modern stress is rarely short-lived. Financial pressure, work demands, relationship strain, chronic uncertainty, lack of control and constant information keep the nervous system activated for months or years. The body does not distinguish between physical danger and psychological threat. The response is the same.
This is why chronic stress leads to inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, hormonal disruption and immune weakness. The body is stuck preparing for a future that never arrives.
An inflamed body creates an inflamed mind
This relationship works both ways.
When the body is inflamed, blood sugar is unstable, gut bacteria are disrupted or sleep is poor, the brain receives distress signals. Neurotransmitter balance shifts. Mood changes. Anxiety increases. Mental fatigue sets in.
This is why telling someone with chronic illness to “just think positive” is not only unhelpful, it’s biologically ignorant. The mind cannot remain calm while the body is signalling danger internally.
Mental health does not exist in isolation. It is a reflection of internal conditions.
Calm is a biological state, not a personality trait
Some people appear naturally calm. Others appear anxious. This is often framed as personality. In reality, it is nervous system tone.
A regulated nervous system can return to calm after stress. A dysregulated one cannot. Practices like meditation, yoga, breathwork, EFT, massage and time in nature work not because they are spiritual or relaxing, but because they shift the nervous system out of survival mode.
However, none of these work if the mind is still running simulations in the background. You cannot calm the body while the brain is planning, worrying or rehearsing. You can’t be in a yoga class while you’re planning your grocery shopping list, that beats the point. The yoga and other practices are just tools to calm your mind. The primary goal is to calm your mind.
The goal is not the practice. The goal is state change.
The role of meaning and purpose
Lack of purpose is a form of chronic stress. When the brain cannot see a future worth investing in, it downregulates long-term maintenance. This is not philosophy. It is energy economics. Repair is costly. Survival is prioritised when resources feel scarce.
Purpose doesn’t have to be grand. It can be caring for children, building something slowly, contributing to others, or learning. What matters is that the brain believes effort today connects to a future outcome.
Without that belief, motivation drops, stress increases, and resilience declines.
Connection is not optional for human biology
Humans evolved as social beings. Isolation signals danger to the brain. Connection signals safety.
This is not emotional preference. It is hardwired physiology. Social connection reduces stress hormones, supports immune function and improves nervous system regulation. Chronic loneliness does the opposite.
Healthy relationships stabilise biology. Unstable, abusive or conflict-heavy relationships keep the system inflamed. The body responds to relational stress the same way it responds to physical threat.
Morning routines and mental architecture
How the day begins shapes how the nervous system behaves for hours.
A rushed, reactive morning triggers stress responses early. A calm, intentional morning creates a different baseline. This links directly to Ayurvedic concepts of daily rhythm. Mornings are not just time slots. They are physiological transitions.
When mornings are chaotic, the mind remains reactive. When mornings are grounded, the system becomes more resilient. This influences food choices, stress tolerance and sleep later that night.
Belief as a biological instruction
This is the most uncomfortable part for western thinking. Belief is biological.
If the brain believes there is no future, no hope, or no chance of improvement, the body responds by withdrawing investment in repair. This is not mystical. It is evolutionary logic. Why spend energy repairing a system that won’t be used?
There are clinical observations and controlled studies where patients with similar diagnoses had different outcomes based on prognosis communication. In plain English, when patients were told they were terminal, many declined rapidly. When similar patients were simply told the treatment would continue, they mostly survived much longer. Your mind believes what you tell it, simple as that. It’s the similar concept when you think about a delicious meal, your mouth starts watering because your brain thinks it’s real.
This does not mean belief can cure disease. It means belief determines whether the body stays engaged in repair or collapses into resignation. The same mechanism applies to finances, health and life direction. If you believe you will always be poor, the nervous system stays locked in scarcity. Decision-making narrows. Risk tolerance collapses. Outcomes follow belief. I’m not a religious person, quite the opposite in fact. But I find this to be a very logical explanation. I call it predictive biology.
Why telling someone they are terminal is dangerous
When someone is told they are terminal, the brain updates its prediction of the future to zero. That prediction alters hormone release, immune engagement and stress signalling. The body prepares for shutdown, not recovery.
This does not mean death is prevented by denial. It means language and belief materially affect biological behaviour. As the saying goes, if there is breath, there is hope. As long as there is breath, the body retains some capacity for repair. Removing hope removes that capacity prematurely. This why I strongly advocate that the terminal diagnosis is completely banned from the healthcare practice. Telling a patient that they are terminal is wrong. The truth in these situations is that, there is nothing else left for the medical practice to offer but that doesn’t necessarily mean death.
The mind cannot be treated as an add-on
You cannot eat your way out of chronic stress. You cannot supplement your way out of despair. You cannot meditate your way out of metabolic dysfunction. But you also cannot heal the body while the mind is in constant survival mode.
Mind health is not about optimism or happiness. It is about regulation, safety, meaning and prediction. When those are in place, the body can heal. When they are absent, every other intervention works harder for less result.
This is why this pillar sits alongside food and sleep. Not above them. Not below them. If your sleep is not right and your mind is unwell, no amount of green vegetables will make you healthy.
TLDR: Key Points
- Healing requires the mind to believe a future exists
- Mind and body are inseparable biological systems
- The brain’s primary function is prediction, not thought
- Chronic stress is a metabolic state, not an emotion
- An inflamed body creates an inflamed mind and vice versa
- Calm is a nervous system state, not a personality trait
- Practices only work when they shift the nervous system
- Purpose and meaning reduce biological stress
- Connection signals safety to the body
- Morning routines shape nervous system tone for the day
- Belief alters physiology through prediction and expectation
- Removing hope can biologically accelerate decline