Mental Illness: The Importance Of Mental Health
According to NAMI—nearly one in five adults in America experience mental illness. When an organ is damaged, you go to a doctor--so why wouldn’t you do the same for the brain? Mental health is just as important as you physical well-being and should not be ignored or stigmatized. According to the World Health Organization, “Every year about 800,000 people commit suicide every year with suicide being the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds”. Yet to this day, many of those individuals are never treated and all of these deaths are completely preventable with proper care, knowledge, and management. It is something we as a modern society can no longer ignore, that mental health is just as essential and important as your physical well-being.
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So just what is mental health?
Mental health encompasses our emotional, social and psychological welfare. Mental health is something that also dictates how we act, feel and think, also having the power to determine how we handle stress. It enables us to fully appreciate and enjoy people, our environment and our general day-to-day lives. When you are mentally healthy the benefits include: forming positive relationships, using given abilities to reach your fullest potential, and being able to manage with life’s day-to-day
challenges.
Mental health conditions are defined as “a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis.” It’s also important to know that while each human being is obviously distinct and may or may not having varying symptoms and experiences even though they can have similar diagnoses. From NAMI, “A mental health condition isn’t the result of one event. Research suggests multiple, interlinking causes. Genetics, environment and lifestyle combine to influence whether someone develops a mental health condition.” Complicated situations like a stressful workplace and turbulent home life can also make individuals more susceptible to mental health conditions. Those, alongside traumatic events like crime, terrorism, genetics, environment, lifestyle or even death can also make one vulnerable to mental illness.
The most basic of psychological conditions is stress--a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. Stress has multiple effects of the every part of the body on both males and females. When your muscles and bones deal with short-term stress, it causes muscles to tense and only release when the stressor has passed—leaving the body in a constant state of alertness. Most often this leads to chronic conditions such as migraines and contribute to stress related conditions. Stress also shares an effect on the respiratory system as well, causing you to breathe harder. While this may not necessarily be a bad thing by itself, combined with a respiratory disease like asthma or even an anxiety disorder this can cause hyperventilation and make breathing more difficult or almost impossible. In the cardiovascular system, short term stress causes the heart to constrict and raises blood-pressure. Chronic stress on the heart increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke along with long term issues with blood vessels. Experiencing stressors over a prolonged period of time, can result in a long-term drain on the body. As the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) continues to trigger physical reactions, it causes a wear-and-tear on the body. It's not so much what chronic stress does to the nervous system, but what continuous activation of the nervous system does to other bodily systems that become problematic. Stress, the most basic of psychological conditions has damaging effects on every part of the body that are nothing to certainly nothing to ignore or stigmatize.
Thinking that stress is the worst thing to worry about would be an incorrect assumption as mentalhealth.gov has pointed out—there are several types of possible disorders that exist is psychology today. These include anxiety disorders; where often those afflicted respond with fear and dread to everyday situations. Some of the more ‘famous’ anxiety disorders include: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and phobias. Delving a little deeper while individuals may think “A phobia cannot be that bad” and not realize that this is a myth. People with mild symptoms usually do not seek treatment because their phobia does not interfere with their ability to function in normal daily activities. Those who experience severe symptoms may become unable to function in their daily routine, such as being afraid to leave their home. Imagine not being able to go to school or work because you’re too terrified of just the idea about going into an elevator. This might seem hard to imagine but those with agoraphobia or claustrophobia this is reality.
Another type of psychological disorder set is mood disorders. Mood disorders can also be called affective disorders and can involve long time instances of sadness, fluctuations of the mood between extreme sadness and extreme joy, and losing interest in important parts of life. Some of the more famous of the mood disorders include: bipolar disorder, depression, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the National Institute for Mental Health—Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to the global burden of disease. About 16 million people in the US also live with the burden of major depression, having symptoms of energy loss, despair, feelings of worthlessness, and oversleeping or overeating. Depression is a very serious brain disorder that has a mix of causes between genetic, environmental, psychological and biochemical. Despite the large number of statistics and numbers involving mental illness it’s key to know that there are resources and help available for individuals with or without health insurance, for veterans, LGBTQ, along with teens and adults as well. If it is an emergency of course dial 911 or call the national suicide prevention hotline at 1800-273-8255. If it’s possible to wait a few days, NAMI recommends making an appointment with your primary healthcare provider or pediatrician if you think the condition is not an immediate emergency. For more severe cases it’s recommended that you make an appointment as soon as possible with a specialized doctor like a psychiatrist. For individuals at college, think about taking advantage of student resources and ask about support-based services. The Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Issues in Counseling offers a list of resources for LGBT individuals and works to educate counseling professionals on LGBT issues. For the young adults out there be sure to check out Ok2Talk to see what others are saying. And always remember that you are not alone—there are others out there going through the same things you are and that it does get better with time.
So just what is mental health?
Mental health encompasses our emotional, social and psychological welfare. Mental health is something that also dictates how we act, feel and think, also having the power to determine how we handle stress. It enables us to fully appreciate and enjoy people, our environment and our general day-to-day lives. When you are mentally healthy the benefits include: forming positive relationships, using given abilities to reach your fullest potential, and being able to manage with life’s day-to-day
challenges.
Mental health conditions are defined as “a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis.” It’s also important to know that while each human being is obviously distinct and may or may not having varying symptoms and experiences even though they can have similar diagnoses. From NAMI, “A mental health condition isn’t the result of one event. Research suggests multiple, interlinking causes. Genetics, environment and lifestyle combine to influence whether someone develops a mental health condition.” Complicated situations like a stressful workplace and turbulent home life can also make individuals more susceptible to mental health conditions. Those, alongside traumatic events like crime, terrorism, genetics, environment, lifestyle or even death can also make one vulnerable to mental illness.
The most basic of psychological conditions is stress--a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. Stress has multiple effects of the every part of the body on both males and females. When your muscles and bones deal with short-term stress, it causes muscles to tense and only release when the stressor has passed—leaving the body in a constant state of alertness. Most often this leads to chronic conditions such as migraines and contribute to stress related conditions. Stress also shares an effect on the respiratory system as well, causing you to breathe harder. While this may not necessarily be a bad thing by itself, combined with a respiratory disease like asthma or even an anxiety disorder this can cause hyperventilation and make breathing more difficult or almost impossible. In the cardiovascular system, short term stress causes the heart to constrict and raises blood-pressure. Chronic stress on the heart increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke along with long term issues with blood vessels. Experiencing stressors over a prolonged period of time, can result in a long-term drain on the body. As the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) continues to trigger physical reactions, it causes a wear-and-tear on the body. It's not so much what chronic stress does to the nervous system, but what continuous activation of the nervous system does to other bodily systems that become problematic. Stress, the most basic of psychological conditions has damaging effects on every part of the body that are nothing to certainly nothing to ignore or stigmatize.
Thinking that stress is the worst thing to worry about would be an incorrect assumption as mentalhealth.gov has pointed out—there are several types of possible disorders that exist is psychology today. These include anxiety disorders; where often those afflicted respond with fear and dread to everyday situations. Some of the more ‘famous’ anxiety disorders include: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and phobias. Delving a little deeper while individuals may think “A phobia cannot be that bad” and not realize that this is a myth. People with mild symptoms usually do not seek treatment because their phobia does not interfere with their ability to function in normal daily activities. Those who experience severe symptoms may become unable to function in their daily routine, such as being afraid to leave their home. Imagine not being able to go to school or work because you’re too terrified of just the idea about going into an elevator. This might seem hard to imagine but those with agoraphobia or claustrophobia this is reality.
Another type of psychological disorder set is mood disorders. Mood disorders can also be called affective disorders and can involve long time instances of sadness, fluctuations of the mood between extreme sadness and extreme joy, and losing interest in important parts of life. Some of the more famous of the mood disorders include: bipolar disorder, depression, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the National Institute for Mental Health—Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to the global burden of disease. About 16 million people in the US also live with the burden of major depression, having symptoms of energy loss, despair, feelings of worthlessness, and oversleeping or overeating. Depression is a very serious brain disorder that has a mix of causes between genetic, environmental, psychological and biochemical. Despite the large number of statistics and numbers involving mental illness it’s key to know that there are resources and help available for individuals with or without health insurance, for veterans, LGBTQ, along with teens and adults as well. If it is an emergency of course dial 911 or call the national suicide prevention hotline at 1800-273-8255. If it’s possible to wait a few days, NAMI recommends making an appointment with your primary healthcare provider or pediatrician if you think the condition is not an immediate emergency. For more severe cases it’s recommended that you make an appointment as soon as possible with a specialized doctor like a psychiatrist. For individuals at college, think about taking advantage of student resources and ask about support-based services. The Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Issues in Counseling offers a list of resources for LGBT individuals and works to educate counseling professionals on LGBT issues. For the young adults out there be sure to check out Ok2Talk to see what others are saying. And always remember that you are not alone—there are others out there going through the same things you are and that it does get better with time.