Mental Heath! A combination of two powerful words, yet partially understood by most people in the society today. When the word mental is mentioned, most peoples’ mind simple jump to a mad person or a psychiatric patient and when the word heath is mentioned, their minds jump to the presence of sickness in the physical body parts e.g. head ache, breast cancer, stomach pain e.t.c.
Now, both conceptions are not wrong, neither are they totally right because they don’t completely describe the words they define. It would be silly to tag a person with amnesia as a mad person, just because it is a mental condition neither would it be fair to tag someone that is depressed as a healthy person, just because there is no physical body pain. That being said, what is mental health?
Mental health is the well-being of a person’s emotionally, psychologically and socially. It is important to note that the definition above does not include any physical challenge, that’s because mental health has to do with the mind. The mind is the seat of our emotions; even though one cannot physically pin-point where the mind is located in the body, we will all agree that it exists and when it is affected or sick, it spreads to every part of the body, affecting the way the individual will think, feel and behave even determining how the individual handle stress, relate to others and make healthy choice.
There are lots of mental health challenges today; we have anxiety disorders, personality disorder, psychotic disorder, eating disorders e.t.c but perhaps the one plaguing our society today is depression. Depression is one serious mental health challenge that affects young and old, educated or non-educated, basically people from all walks of life. It is associated with the extreme and uncontrolled lowering of a person’s mood and a loss of interest in activities. This could be caused by a range of reasons which includes emotional stress, abuse of substances, debt, major life event e.t.c. It is extremely important to keep a healthy mind as it takes a healthy mind to make healthy choices.
The same way we tell a person that’s over-working himself/herself to rest so that they won’t fall sick, it is fair to tell a person that’s over-working his/her mind to rest. The moment one allows the pressure of the society to overwhelm them, they start comparing themselves with their contemporaries who appear to be doing well more than them, start judging themselves with unnecessarily lofty yardstick that have been set by an unreasonable society, they may start finding themselves getting depressed which if not properly handled may lead to a much deeper problem.
If you find yourself getting depressed or having issues with your mental health, the solutions below should help; when the stress becomes too much, take a chill pill- rest.
Never compare yourself with people, instead compare yourself with the previous version of yourself.
Instead of judging yourself, make better and reasonable plans.
Always make out time to have fun, hang out with friends, and do the things you love.
Look for ways to refresh your mind, because a healthy mind makes healthy choices.
Read entertaining books or watch movies as this can help relax the mind.
Increase your sleeping time as this helps to refresh the mind.
