what is more important, physical health or mental health.

Question: what is more important, physical health or mental health.
- Keywords:
  health,
  mental health
Asked by anon-216537 to Robert, Olly, Nicola, Jasmin, Dennis, Caroline on 10 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-216549.
- Robert Dempsey answered on 10 Jun 2019: last edited 11 Jun 2019 9:00 am
  
  I don’t think either is more important – there is a saying that you can’t have good physical health without good mental health, and you can’t have good mental health without good physical health. Having both good physical and mental health is crucial for our overall wellbeing
- Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 10 Jun 2019:
  
  Physical health. If you look after your body the rest will follow.
  
  There’s a simple rule I stick to: Drink lots of water, eat more veggies, get enough sleep. If you feel good about your body, it will spread throughout the other aspects of your life.
- Oliver Clabburn answered on 10 Jun 2019:
  
  I think they’re both equally important! If you look after one, the other will be thankful!
- Caroline Brett answered on 10 Jun 2019:
  
  I’m a health psychologist and a lot of health psychology theories are based on the fact that the two are so closely linked that it’s difficult to affect one without the other. It’s important to look after your physical health, as things like not getting enough sleep or enough to eat can impact on your energy levels and therefore your mood. But equally it’s important to look after your mental health, as if your mood is low you’re less likely to look after your physical health
- Jasmin Moon answered on 11 Jun 2019:
  
  I agree with Caroline here, my training is also in Health Psychology and it is difficult to say which one is more important as they both affect one another. I notice in the people I support that physical and mental health are very closely linked, for example conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are affected by the person’s mental health and vice versa. It’s an interesting topic for discussion and something that scientists are still trying to making sense of!
- Nicola Johnstone answered on 12 Jun 2019:
  
  This is a smart question. Historically, the focus has been on preserving physical health, or visible illness and injury. More recently a spotlight has been shone on mental health. I believe that the two cannot be separated, and the reasons that we think that they are separate is because of the difficulty in finding the ‘physical’ cause of mental illness. So, neither is more important.

Question: what is more important, physical health or mental health.

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