Maulana Tariq Jameel Sahab, an Islamic scholar once said, “the example of good and evil in man is like weeds and fruits in a field, a farmer works in his field and tries hard to cultivate useful fruit and vegetables and remove weeds. He never wants to have weeds in his land and consistently removes it as they don’t stop growing”. This is true to our mind too. Our mind has positive (good) and negative (evil) states. To our mind negative is sadness, depression, envy, jealousy, anger, disappoint, dissatisfaction and many other wrong mental states, and positive means the right mental state or mental health like love, hope, joy, happiness etc. Negative or evil state, like weeds, grows by itself or with little effort but to inculcate good or positive needs lot of effort and consistency.
Although the positive state is brought about slowly but we know at the same time how important and valuable right mental state is and needs attention and care. Just like to maintain physical health we take food every day with balanced nutrients, we take shower every day or every second day or every third day, we do exercise, we remove unwanted material from body and we also consult doctor when things go wrong. So do with our mental health we have to nourish our mind with good thoughts, good knowledge and practice many steps to remove toxic thoughts from mind; and we have to do it regularly.
Our body and mind are different and need different types of care but to some extent work with a similar pattern. When our body is fit & fine and if any environmental change happens our body struggles with it and uses its immune system to maintain equilibrium. So does our mind need to be healthy and if any disequilibrium in terms of stress, any challenge in terms of failure or success which bring emotional disturbances, in such state our mind will fight and maintain its health.
In psychology a number of studies revealed that the environmental content or information as well as how we process that information have a great impact on our mental health in terms of bringing sadness, disappointment, loss of hope, depression in the long run and many other related psychological disturbances. The environment we are exposed to, or by our daily routine all have immeasurable impacts on our lives especially on our mind, like spending time on social media scrolling over its contents, watching videos, reading posts, news, the type of company you enjoy, your family, friends all affect our mental state. We are unconsciously feeding our minds with food whose effect eventually reflects in the time of stressful situations when we easily become victims of depression, we easily lose temper, we lose hope and we doubt everything around us. Have you ever wondered while listening to a sad song your mood automatically goes with it; you start feeling sad when in fact their is nothing that happened to worry about or when you feel low watching a funny video makes you feel good. This is because your actions effect your mind. You are providing your mind a food without noticing its value.
The main components of mind are thoughts and ideas which are just replacement of content from environment. So in order to have healthy mind constantly feed your mind with good content which can be made available through different sources like reading books, autobiographies, stories; watch motivational video whenever you feel low, keep your self surrounded by a company of knowledgeable, take time to practice mental health sessions, meditation, gratitude practice, anger management practice, avoid listening to sad songs so on and so forth. This will program your mind with fresh content which will not only boost your mental health but will act like natural immune system of mind in the time of stressful situations. Keep good thoughts available at an ease because they will act as first aid kit whenever you feel blow, and will eventually help in maintaining equilibrium. Our mind is as important as our body, keep it healthy and updated.
Urfath Nabi Research Scholar at Kashmir University Department of psychology