Another placeholder to revisit and expand later.
We need to start talking about emotional health the way we talk about physical health and mental health. More accurately we need to separate emotional health from mental health. But all three are distinct and interconnected.
People have started using the term “emotional health” but we need to go a lot farther. Much of what is called mental health is really emotional health.
They are three different things because our physical, emotional, and mental selves are separate parts. Most importantly, they are nurtured and developed and healed in different ways.
Our emotional, mental, and physical health connect and influence each other.
There are plenty of stories about emotional health affecting physical health. We know the inverse is true.
The term “mental health” as commonly used applies more to emotions than the thinking mind. Yet thinking has a health and fitness of its own as well.
We need to say mental health much less often (it belongs more in math departments) and start talking about emotional health instead.
For starters, building emotional fitness is closer to how one builds physical fitness. And healing emotional disorders is closer to how we heal physical disorders.
Elephants and Economics 