The human body was designed by a powerful and intelligent God. As the creation narrative is told, in the beginning, God created. God created light, space, and time. God created planets, bodies of water, and bodies of land. God filled the land and sea with living creatures with unique brilliance, beauty, and function. Yet the last of God's handiwork, as written in the creation narrative, is a being created in his image. The inauguration of the human mind that was created by God is described as a reflection of God himself:
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:27-28 NIV).
This being created by God on the sixth day was different from all the others. God handcrafted human beings, and the breath of God was breathed into man's body, a moment signifying the reception of the Spirit of God within. No other created being would have a brain created like humans. No other created being would carry a divinely given ability to empathize, love, problem solve, and create like humans. This was a brain created by God and given to a creation set apart to reflect the glory of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent God.
Yet, written into the creation story are two powerful brain-boosting habits. Habits that we now know through research promote mental wellness. God created everything in its original state as good and good for us. Within the creation story, God gives humans two tools that are critical for mental health: connection with another human and rest.
Now before you think I’m overplaying the power of rest and connection, let me clarify. In almost every discipline of health: brain health, heart health, immunology, and so on, rest, sleep, and social connection are major factors in well-being. When someone is hospitalized with an ailment, doctors and nurses administer life-saving medicines and therapies. But in many cases, doctors will encourage lots of rest and the encouraging presence of loved ones. Rest and connection are not healing agents by themselves, but they stimulate and aid the healing process.
The gift of the sixth day was a brain-boosting connection.
The gift of the seventh day was another brain booster: Rest.
The Gift of Rest:
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:1-3 NIV).
A recent study in 2020 showed that even in the “…presence of multimorbidity, engaging in a healthier lifestyle was associated with up to 6.3 years longer life for men and 7.6 years for women.”[1] One of the key factors in this research was examining leisure. Further studies reveal that sleep and other healthy habits can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that slowly disintegrates memory and thinking skills.[2] Sleep deprivation reduces our ability to cope with stress, creating a domino of negative results as one study notes the correlation between sleep and cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease:
“The consequences of sleep disruption manifest in a myriad of ways, including insulin resistance and disrupted nutrient metabolism, dysregulation of hunger and satiety, and potentially increased body weight and adiposity.”[3]
The Gift of Connection:
When it comes to the pursuit of mental wellness, modern research has emphasized time and time again the importance of connection for mental wellness. Connection influences the brain toward healing. It is widely known in neurobiology that social bonds, or lack of them, have consequences throughout one’s life. Healthy attachment is vital for survival and living a fulfilled life. Oxytocin and vasopressin are well-known hormones actively involved in helping humans form healthy attachments. However, these hormones are also known for helping to repair the brain and improve mental health challenges such as depression.[4]
The feeling of love is at the center of oxytocin’s powerful release into the brain. When we feel loved, listened to, and understood, oxytocin is released. The connection has a powerful healing effect. Returning to the earlier example of the two hemispheres of the brain, oxytocin reduces emotional detachment and feelings of anxiety and despair. As Dr. Chinwé Williams and I noted in Seen: Healing Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teens Through the Power of Connection,
“As we experience connection, love, empathy, and secure attachment, the two sides rejoin. As a result, despair lessens. The brain’s re-pairing can restore a wholeness that allows emotional processing to then flip over into logical processing. This happens in the context of healthy relationships. And it happens in the context of love.”[5]
It is no wonder that love would be so powerful in mental wellness since John describes the very essence of God as love. “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8 NIV).
When we seek to prioritize these two mental wellness practices, we benefit all around. They were God’s idea, and He loves to see us flourish.
[1] “Healthy Lifestyle and Life Expectancy in People with Multimorbidity in the ...: EBSCOhost,” accessed August 12, 2023, https://web-p-ebscohost-com.seu.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=6f8a854c-64c2-4cab-9e2a-d00db3b3d3c9%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=32960883&db=cmedm.
[2] Vijaya Laxmi Govindugari et al., “Thwarting Alzheimer’s Disease through Healthy Lifestyle Habits: Hope for the Future,” Neurology International 15, no. 1 (January 28, 2023): 162–187.
[3] “The Effects of Sleep Disruption on Metabolism, Hunger, and Satiety, and the...: EBSCOhost,” accessed August 12, 2023, https://web-p-ebscohost-com.seu.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=6&sid=6f8a854c-64c2-4cab-9e2a-d00db3b3d3c9%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=37269143&db=cmedm.
[4] Hossein Amini-Khoei et al., “Oxytocin Mitigated the Depressive-like Behaviors of Maternal Separation Stress through Modulating Mitochondrial Function and Neuroinflammation,” Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 76 (June 2, 2017): 169–178.
[5] Hutcherson and NCC Chinwé Williams, Seen, 18.