No superlatives are adequate for Simone BilesAn American artistic gymnast born in 1997. . The greatest gymnast in history. The winner of the most World medals and the most World gold medals ever. As of this week, the only person ever to win eight US Gymnastics titles - at the age of 26, when most gymnasts have long since retired.

Her successes this week at the 2023 US Classic are all the more incredible because they follow a two-year hiatusA pause or temporary gap.. Biles withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 because she had developed "the twisties", a psychological problem where a gymnast loses air awarenessAn athlete's understanding of the body and its position in the air. while performing twists.

She had to withdraw, she said, because without full control of her body her safety was at risk. She needed to spend some time prioritising her mental health.

It should not have been such a strange idea, but it was. As many pointed out, we are used to treating athletes as if they were just bodies. If they fall ill or get injured, that might stop them from competing. But no-one had ever heard of an athlete being unable to participate because of mental illness.

Except for one. A few months earlier, Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka announced that she was pulling out of the French Open. She said the post-match media interviews had become too stressful and were worsening her depression, and since the tournament would not let her skip them, she had no choice but to withdraw.

Both athletes received strong criticism for their decisions. But between them, they managed to shift the dial and force viewers to understand that behind the bodies that were carrying out such extraordinary feats on their TVs were human beings, with human minds.

This week's success seems to have vindicatedProved right or cleared of blame. Biles's decision. That is why some are now asking if the mind really is the key to everything.

Many philosophers have suggested the same thing. In the ancient world, the StoicsStoicism is a philosophy that originated in the ancient world and still has many adherents today. Stoics seek to control their emotions and preserve their happiness in the face of adversity. argued that while we have limited control of the world around us, we can control our minds. We cannot stop the world from inflicting hardships on us. But we can decide how we react to them.

Some took this to extremes. Greek thinker EpictetusA Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery. suggested that each time a parent kisses their child, they should say: "Tomorrow you will die".¹ Thinking frequently about the death of the child would help to prepare them for the grief if it actually happened.

Rene DescartesA French philosopher, scientist and mathematician (1596 - 1650). argued that the mind was the only possible source of truth. Our perception of the real world, he claimed, is warped and full of illusions. But he thought the mind existed on a separate plane from the body, so it could not be taken in by these falsehoods.

But not all philosophers have separated the mind from the physical world. Baruch SpinozaA 17th-Century Dutch philosopher of Jewish origin. He was one of the great exponents of rationalism and is regarded as one of the founding figures of the Enlightenment. believed that mind and body are made of the same substance. That means thinking and acting are one and the same thing.

Immanuel KantA German Enlightenment philosopher who is regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the modern era. He fundamentally changed the way we think about a variety of subjects, from aesthetics to cognition to morality. gave the mind even more power. He believed that it contains a set of categories that it uses to make sense of the things around us. In effect, the mind makes things what they are.

Yes: A healthy mind is vital for a healthy body. Philosophers have long recognised the extraordinary power of the mind to make us stronger and to bend the world to our will.

No: The mind is a powerful thing, but just like a body, it has needs that we have to satisfy. The mind is something that we have to maintain and look after. We should not expect it to do too much.

Or... A healthy body is also essential for a healthy mind. We should avoid separating mind from body. Like Spinoza suggested, we should see them as the same thing and look after them both.