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Young people today tend to pay a lot of attention to their mental health.

And that's a good thing as emotional and mental well-being are cornerstones of good health.

However, there's a risk of over-self-diagnosis and finding symptoms of conditions you don't actually have.

There's so-called "medical student syndrome" - a phenomenon where medical students begin to believe they have the diseases they're studying.

In today's world of information overload, it's easy to self-diagnose with conditions like ADHD, depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues without proper professional evaluation.

This tendency is amplified by inactivity and low levels of physiological stress.

Just imagine that a hundred years ago people had to fight real-life challenges such as war, famine, epidemic diseases, hard physical labor, and so on.

Now we are mostly isolated from such problems.

Yet this hasn't brought relief to the brain.

In absence of real stressors, the brain increases its sensitivity and starts overreacting to a much lower stimulus. It produces a constant state of anxiety.

In the past, I remember having this persistent feeling of desperation inside of me.

Other people report other subjective states, such as hearing a constant buzzing sound, or feeling as though there's a high-tensioned rope inside of them.

These are all symptoms of an overreactive mind that can lead to anxiety, depression, and so on.

Certainly, some conditions require medical treatment.

However, most people are fully capable of addressing them on their own.

The key to unlocking your mind is your body.

We have this irrational belief that we live exclusively through our mind, whereas the body is just its biological extension.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The brain is fully contained within the body and is greatly influenced by its processes.

There's good evidence that the lack of physical activity contributes to poor mental health in the modern population.

Research suggests that 88% of moderately active adults became depressed within one week of becoming sedentary.

This points to what needs to be done in order to counteract mental health problems.

What you need is to put physiological stress on your body that will reduce the level of anxiety in the brain.

You can even do it in the moment before an important event that causes you stress.

For example, if you have an exam the next day, you can plunge in the ice-cold water for a few minutes.

If you are not a fan of such radical steps, a simple 30 minute jog will have a similar effect.

Physical activity creates moments of elevated tension followed by relaxation. This natural rhythm calms down your hyperactive mind by producing various chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, and endocannabinoids.

The higher level of anxiety the brain demonstrates, the higher the level of activity within reason you should engage in.

While it's easy to say that you need to be physically active, but how to actually do it?

There are a couple of options.

You can be:

• Motivated by an ambitious goal,
• Wanting to avoid negative outcomes in the future,
• Or be fed up with your inaction and wanting to turn your life around.

The trick is that the reason for doing this should be greater than the immediate comfort you have by not doing anything.

In other words, there should be something bigger than yourself in order for you to make a real change.

It should scare and inspire you at the same time.

It could be:

• Finishing a 5k run,
• Learning how to play tennis,
• Achieving 5 strict pull-ups.

Find something that challenges you according to your current fitness level and go for it.