What is Mental Health?
Mental health is one of the most important determinants of our health and wellbeing. It influences the way we think, feel and behave. According to the World Health Organisation mental health is not just the absence of any mental illness. Rather it is a state of mind in which we are able to recognise our abilities, strengths and weaknesses and use them wisely to deal with various life stressors and lead a productive and functional life contributing to self as well as the community.
The World Health Organisation states that there is no health without mental health and gives mental health great importance in promoting our health and wellbeing. Mental health means our ability to create self-awareness, positive thinking, our ability to recognise stress and strain in our daily lives, and our ability to manage it well. In everyday life, many people talk about coping with stress and tension. Good mental health is about effective and good management of our positive and negative thoughts, emotions and our actions or behaviour.
Why is mental health important?
Good mental health helps us to overcome and manage our stress, tension, anxiety, anger and aggression, our sadness and feelings of depression as well as negative thinking and emotions that affect our everyday life. Good mental health helps us to create that inner strength and capacity in ourselves to support self-awareness, understanding and development of our abilities to withstand the stress and tension and all the negativity that affects us, not just in our personal lives, but in our family, work and social life as well.
Mental health and mental illness are frequently used in our everyday conversations and life as if they mean the same thing. It is important to emphasise that everyone has mental health the same way as everyone has health. In the course of our lifetime, not all of us will experience mental illness, but all of us struggle at some point or at many times in our lives with stress and tension, sadness and anxiety and other events happening around us which challenge our mental wellbeing. This is just like the challenges on our physical health and wellbeing. So, when we talk about our mental health, we are talking about our mental wellbeing: our emotions, our thoughts and our feelings, our ability to solve problems in our everyday life. Mental wellbeing also means how we overcome difficulties, how we deal with our social connections and our understanding of the family, friends and the world around us. People from all sections of the society including people from rural and urban communities, and people from minority communities have the ability to create this mental well-being.
All of us go through different phases of mental health during our lifespan. There might be situations in which we cry uncontrollably, have anger outbursts and throw tantrums, react childishly and illogically, become nervous and shiver, and at times where we can’t accept reality. These are just normal reactions to stressful situations of a wide range of intensity and severity. For example, normal life stressors like examinations, work pressure, financial issues, family issues etc can disturb our state of mind and temporarily affect our mental health. We surpass the situation and with time, and we usually regain our mental health. But at times extreme stressful or sensitive situations create a long term impact on our mental health and makes our mind vulnerable to mental distress and mental illnesses. Any emotional or psychological instability that prolongs beyond a definite time and impairs the functioning of the individual can be called a mental illness.
What is Mental Health Literacy?
Mental Health Literacy (MHL) is defined as our ability to recognise specific disorders or different types of psychological distress but is equally relevant to all communities. It is learning not only about the knowledge about risk factors and causes of various psychiatric disorders but also self-help, knowledge of professional services and how to seek help and remain well.
Mental Health Literacy consists of:
-
Our ability to recognise specific disorders and different types of mental distress.
-
Our knowledge about risk factors and causes for mental distress / mental illness.
-
Our knowledge about self-help interventions for overcoming mental distress/ Mental illness.
-
Our knowledge about professional help available for overcoming mental distress/mental illness.
-
Our attitudes to mental distress/ mental illness (Overcoming Stigma)
-
Our knowledge about how to seek information on mental health /mental distress.
-
Our knowledge and understanding of how our cultural heritage, cultural norms and belief systems help to overcome mental distress.