🌿what's the difference between mental fitness and mental health?

+ surprise resources!

May 09, 2026

Hi, friends🤍! Today I’m so excited to go over a technique that changed my whole way of thinking about my brain and body!

First off, do you know the difference between mental fitness and mental health? What about physical fitness and physical health?

We all have physical health and mental health. Sometimes our physical health and mental health are poor. Sometimes we’re lucky enough that they’re not.

Or if we’re really lucky, sometimes we’re not only feeling physically healthy, but we’re feeling physically fit. This means we feel physically well enough to go to the gym, do sports, weight-lift, walk, do physiotherapy, etc. But what about being mentally healthy, or even mentally fit?

When we’re mentally unhealthy, we could be experiencing anything from depression, to burnout, to high anxiety, to repeatedly putting ourselves down.

When we don’t do any physical exercise, our bodies becomes unfit. To exercise our body to become physically fit, our specific goals range from person to person, but in general it’s to be able to move easier, build stronger muscles, and have better stamina.

When we don’t do any mental exercise, our minds becomes unfit. To exercise our mind to become mentally fit, our specific goals also range from person to person; some people use mental fitness to get their minds strong enough to perform in high-pressure situations like the Navy Seals or the Olympics. For other people, it’s to overcome daily burnout or become a more confident version of themselves. However, the common foundation is the same…

When you are mentally fit:

-your nervous system is calm

-you are in the driver’s seat of your mind

-you can navigate what are actual emergencies worthy of your stress, and what are emotions you have been subconsciously conditioned to feel

For example, if you have a fear of public speaking, this is not a real life-or-death emergency, yet your brain thinks it is. When you are mentally fit, your nervous system is calm enough to get better at catching old mental habits and rewiring them. You’ll be able to work on getting over the fear of public speaking, and preserve your brain’s fight and flight responses for actual emergencies.

So how do we become mentally fit? Maya Raichoora, the author of “Visualize”, breaks it down into five simple key areas that I love:

Consistency. Just like you wouldn’t expect to get abs overnight, one mental fitness session won’t change your life. It means steady, consistent mental exercise. It means getting back on the horse when you skip a day. It means after an “injury” (maybe an emotionally triggering event), you take the time to rehabilitate your mind.
Cardio. The longer you do mental exercises, the better your mental cardio will get! Eventually, it won’t feel like you’re starting from 0 every day. However, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.
Diet. What you eat actually affects your brain! And guess what? What your mind “eats” also affects it! What does that mean? To be mentally fit, you need to take control over what content you consume. This means everything from who you follow on social media, how you learn about current events, what movies you watch, the people you surround yourself with, what songs you listen to, and what books you read. Is what you’re currently reading, watching, and listening to nourishing your mind, or draining it?
Rest. Rest is not a reward, it’s part of exercise! Everyone needs recovery days! When you exercise physically, you know that sleep and days off from the gym are essential to prevent burnout and actually help build muscle. Whether you take a mental rest through a walk in the woods, sleep, or a digital detox, we all need mental rest to give our minds the recovery it needs to come back stronger. When was the last time your brain felt rested?
Weightlifting. This is the actual exercise of mental fitness. Raichoora writes: “This is about building flexibility, strength, and resilience in the brain. How can you upgrade your mindset to handle life better and achieve your goals? That’s where visualization comes in.” I believe that it’s where visualization and meditation comes in. Some people think meditation is a “resting” practice but it’s actually quite active.

So, to repeat in simpler terms, the “weightlifting” of mental fitness comes in two parts:

Meditation to first calm your mind and nervous system.
Visualization to then focus your mind and nervous system in the direction you want it to go.

Visualization is the act of creating imagery or experiences in your brain. Everybody visualizes. Think of a lemon. Think of how a lemon tastes. Think of your childhood home. Think of a scent from your childhood. There, you just visualized multiple times!

Amazingly, there are free guided meditations available everywhere! However, guided visualizations are a little harder to find. This is where I’m coming in! Depending on what your goals with becoming mentally fit are, you can use guided visualizations for increasing your confidence, getting over a fear, becoming a better athlete (Michael Phelps and many other athletes use visualization!), or just waking up excited to start your day✨.

The possibilities of what you could use visualizations for are endless! This is why I’m so excited to combine my background in writing, with all the knowledge I’ve picked up studying cognitive neuroscience, into my own library of free visualizations for you!!

Just to let you know, the mental fitness practice might feel overwhelming at first, depending where your mental state is currently. When I first started practicing mental exercises, I was in a phase of my life where I was so burnt out and stressed that everything felt like a threat. I was extremely mentally unfit. Like someone who is extremely physically unfit might have physical difficulty getting out of bed, I had difficulty just thinking straight and organizing my thoughts. Any time I managed to feel calm, it was not normal for my body, so my body was translating the unfamiliarity as a threat! My mind would then start scanning made-up situations frantically, looking for reasons to be anxious, stressed, and worried.

What I described above is quite normal. Over time, our bodies get hardwired to detect threats (real or imaginary) to protect us. This is why we have to actively train and rewire our brains to behave the way we want through this mental exercise. Again, if we don’t exercise our minds, they naturally become unfit.

It wasn’t until I started practicing meditation and visualization for an hour every single day, that my body began to feel comfortable with feeling calm. This is the first step! Once a calm nervous system is normal for you, you’re building the muscles of becoming mentally fit. Then, it gets really fun!

Just like when you’re physically fit and realize your body can do things like run that extra mile, or do a cartwheel, or pick up a new sport easily- once you’re mentally fit, you’ll realize a whole new life is waiting for you! Life is a lot more fun and opens up a lot more opportunities when you don’t spend every minute of the day stressed out.

For an example of a short, basic mood-boosting visualization you can start using today, please keep reading…☺️☺️☺️

Here are my surprises!!!

I redid my YouTube channel because I had it attached to my regular email address, which I heard was a huge security no-no😅. So if you’re subscribed to the old one, I would sooo appreciate you subscribing again to my new one here: https://www.youtube.com/@kajajean
As you can see, I have two different playlists so far. The first one is ✨the weekly review✨ where every Monday I’m casually documenting my YouTube progress and highly ambitious plan (maybe too ambitious??😵‍💫) of posting 500 videos by September 2027. If you believe in the famous parable about “100 Pots” by David Bayles and Ted Orland, it says that when you compare one group of students that spends the whole term trying to make 1 perfect pot, versus a group of students who spent the term making 100 pots, the students who produced more pots ended up making better ones. I’m using this parable to motivate myself to get over my perfectionism and just make a bunch of “terrible” YouTube videos. I’m hoping by the time I get to 500 I can look back at my first videos and see a major improvement! You can view this playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGwZBYf29pVZVA-GKyIq4sTvbMYCNgpfR
Which brings me to…my first videos where I had to learn the basics of editing, colour grading, and recording audio✨!!! Let me tell you, this took me WAY longer than I thought it would. I didn’t have the right equipment, I had to change editing software, and learned that my apartment only had one place where it’s quiet enough to record sound! So! I made two free (imperfect!!!!!!) visualizations for you where I am so embarrassed by my own voice😄. Once I write and record more, I’m hoping they will get even better, so please stay tuned🙏🏻! They are both meant to be listened to in the morning to start your brain’s day in a loving state, which will keep your nervous system calm with repeated practice😌🌿. The only different in these two visualizations are that one is matched to uplifting music (my favourite), and one is matched to calmer music. Here’s the playlist to give them a listen!! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGwZBYf29pVZSQ0EzH375SLlyBMo5b8Xd
One last surprise for my paid subscribers!!! I’ve made a 🤍private listening library🤍 which is your own private podcast made my me! This is so you don’t have to go to YouTube to listen to the visualizations (plus more goodies to come😘) - instead you can listen to it straight from the Substack app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts! This can mean easy, offline listening! I’m still working out a few technical glitches with Substack, so if you have any trouble accessing them, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Where do you find them? They’ll all be under 🤍the private listening library🤍 at the bottom of my homepage via this link: https://www.thelittlethingslife.com/t/the-private-listening-library. I recommend bookmarking it so that you can listen to your favourites often!