We mostly talk about diet, physical fitness or workouts. But there are larger and broader aspects of health. Apart from physique, there are other aspects too which have to be taken care of. Other than the body, which is benefited from diet and sports, there are three things that most people neglect. They are the health of the mind, of the heart and the soul. Many of us do not even pay attention to these three and do focus only on one type of health, the physical one.

• As for developing a healthy mind, it can only be acquired through reading, learning and understanding.
• As for having a healthy heart, it is achieved through expressing feelings honestly and properly. The presence of love in life, be it the love for parents, family or children, love for friends and loved ones, or even love for plants and animals, always proves successful.
• As for a healthy soul, strengthening your relationship with the God Almighty, maintaining the five daily prayers and seeking God’s help in times of crises and hardships, persistent remembrance of God, reading the Qur’an and performing righteous deeds, will help.

A person living in good health implies that he is satisfied with his life. He engages his time in the commitments and responsibilities to which he has dedicated his mind, heart, soul and body.

Once a wise poet realized that people focused only on their physique and ignored their soul, falsely believing that the soul would be pleased by satisfying the physical needs and not the spiritual needs.

He said, “O servant of the body, how much you suffer to serve it, I seek to profit from what it loses, accept the soul and complete its virtues, for you are in the soul and not in the body of a human being.” I recollect from one of the great stories – A man spotting a poor child, went near him. He put his hands in his pocket and pulled out a sum of money, offered it to him and told, “Go ahead.” The child answered, eyeing him with his needy eyes, “I need a caressing touch on my head more than the money”. These words struck me like a thunderbolt. Charity can also be done by sharing mercy and kindness, spreading love and tenderness.

Many scientific studies show that for a person living in an environment where there is love, tenderness and intimacy, the probability of his susceptibility to an early disease is less and the rate of his vulnerability to early death is much less than that of a person who lives in an environment where there is a sense of feeling isolated, angry, absurd and aggressive. This is because psychological stability and the presence of love contribute to a great extent for excellent health and joyful life. If a person can achieve progress in these four levels (mind, body, heart and soul) and fulfil their demands, he would have good health and would lead a happy life even when exposed to problems or catastrophes. Remember that you are responsible for your happiness as you are accountable for your health.

Those who follow advertisements and promotions to maintain their health, mostly focus on diet, physical fitness and workouts. You can find many athletes, despite being successful in achieving perfect physical health, feel low and sad. Many of those who maintained a diet or did plastic surgery to lose weight, achieved their dream goal, but coming to the degree of happiness they had, they failed. They suffer from anxiety, depression or lack of happiness.

If you look into their situation, you can observe that without even a slight decrease in anything, be it wealth, beauty, or life matters like their house or job or car or their summer travels etc, they still suffer from unhappiness. This is because they did not realise that happiness and health were combined by four entities and not one. They focused on physical health and ignored the health of the mind, heart and soul.

There are many instances where people complain of misery despite the luxury and richness they possess. They may be the richest in the world yet are unhappy because they let go of the four components of health, and instead focused only on one. At the same time, there are many poor people who have strong health and feel entirely happy even though they have no money. They have a sensible mind, a loving heart, a soul connected to God Almighty at all times, and an active body that takes care of its cleanliness, activities and energy.