Letting go of negative thoughts about body image, health and everyday events that test our mental strength isn’t always easy. That's why it's important to take a mind body approach to optimising your health.

We know that our minds have the power to send us up high, and bring us down low. But when it comes to our health and wellness, this mental game of ping pong can create forward and backward movement. Something that can prevent us from feeling enough and content with ourselves or life, and as a consequence hinder our ability to make and maintain positive health changes - emotionally, physically, mentally and physiologically.

7 Mind Body Health Strategies

Here are 7 mind body health strategies to help you stay on track with your health changes and rituals.

1. Prepare your food with love

Take pleasure in creating visually appetising meals that taste delicious. Food lacking in appeal and flavour won’t mentally build or satisfy an appetite. No matter how much you try to convince yourself that it really is good for you.

2. Stop eating when your body says so

As a child you may have felt pressurised to eat everything on your plate. While our parents and “good old” school dinner ladies (mine was a shocker for this...) had our best interests at heart, this discipline bestowed upon us during our younger years is totally the opposite of what we now know we should be doing.

Remember it can take 20-30 minutes for your brain to register that "full" feeling. Stop eating when you start to feel a gentle pressure in your stomach. You should still feel light and energetic. If the fullness is uncomfortable, you’ve overeaten.

3. Treat your body with respect

Over-eating and drinking doesn’t just stem from childhood. Many of us indulge in food (usually the sweet kind) and drink, for pleasure and comfort. An unhealthy love of food can eat at self-worth though.

Labelled “emotional eating” it’s a tricky area to tackle and something I help clients with on The Optimal Health Partnership, if this is an area they want to overcome.

Doing more of what you love and are passionate about (non-food related), is one comforting and uplifting solution you can try to help crowd out the emotional eating and drinking.

4. Tune into food discomfort

Pay attention to how you feel after you’ve eaten. If something doesn’t agree with you, then your body will let you know.

Common inflammatory responses to look out for, are bloating, headaches and a slump in energy. You can experiment by removing the suspect food from your diet. If you want to re-introduce it, do so after a 3 month period and see if there's any improvement.

Food intolerances can be a complex area and proper testing is one of the fastest ways to get accurate results. But in the absence of testing, your intuition is a useful measure.

5. Make time for mental health breaks

This is key for good mind body health and will help you stay balanced, strong and in a positive frame of mind.

Self-beliefs, thoughts and feelings will always surface externally. Mind body health work is just as important as physical exercise to your overall well-being. Some of my favourite ways to support my mental health are yoga, mindfulness for stress reduction and relaxing with the beautiful smell of burning incense floating around me.

6. Create healthy boundaries

If certain people, projects or tasks and places can feel too consuming and overwhelming at times, create some healthy boundaries. It's vital to do this to protect your own energy and wellbeing. Also as the saying goes "You can't pour from an empty cup".

With some healthy boundaries in place you'll be sure to get a break from people, projects or tasks and places that drain you of too much resource and impact your mind body health. Work out how you can limit your time, involvement and exposure, and when is the best time for you to engage in this higher demanding life stuff.

7. Journal for self-discovery

Keep a journal and learn more about yourself. Because self-reflection is one of the best ways to make progress with whatever it is that you're trying to realise of achieve.

Jot down your thoughts, feelings, challenges, discoveries and accomplishments.

This doesn’t have to be lengthy. A quick mind dump on what's come up for you in the last 24 hours or 7 days and how it makes you feel mind body health wise. When practiced regularly it will do wonders for your health and happiness.

Stuck for ideas on what to journal about, here are some suggestions:

• What am I grateful for today?
• What did I enjoy most?
• What didn't really serve me?

Expressive writing is a great way to vent frustration, heal or let go. It also helps you track your mind body health progress in relation to your habits, behaviour and goals.

Anything that helps you join up the dots associated with mind body health is always beneficial. In doing so though, seek to come from a place of self-love.