✳ Mental Health and Wellness ✳
NEXT: Technology and Mental Health
The World Health Organization defines mental health as:
“A state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, to realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.[It] is a basic human right crucial to personal, community, and socio-economic development.”
Mental Health and well-being is a complex topic: it involves how you live now, what you have experienced, and the habits, methods and patterns you have developed in order to cope with these things.
How we live and cope is something that must change over time. When we are struggling with our mental health, it often means that we need to process or adjust parts of our lives in order to be well. Mental health care and practices can help us to do this.
Part of achieving mental health and a sense of well-being is learning how to experience and process emotion, allowing yourself to feel things deeply, and developing the resiliency to keep going and recover from challenging emotions and experiences.
◇ Managing your mental health means allowing yourself to feel things and to be affected, knowing that it is natural and okay to respond to things with feelings of anger, sadness, confusion, and discomfort.
◇ The thing is learn how to discharge emotion, to ground yourself and know that what you are feeling is acceptable and makes sense, but it will pass.
Our feelings and emotions often express themselves in unexpected ways, such as a change in the body and in our outlook and reactions.
◇ An example of this may be: You are waiting in line at the DMV to take your driving exam to get your license and find that you have tension and pain in your neck. This is most likely tension from your nerves and anticipation of your upcoming test showing itself in your body.
Identifying Your Emotions:
Identifying what you are feeling can help you to process your emotions and know the right way to express them.
◇ For example if you are feeling overwhelmed by a task, it can help to identify what you are feeling as ‘confused’ because you can use this as a starting point to make a plan, such as asking questions to clear up your confusion.
Stress and Anxiety in the Modern World:
Stress and anxiety are something that everyone experiences because we live in a very complex world which can wear us out, confuse us, and make us feel isolated and overwhelmed. Techniques for dealing with stress and anxiety need to be a part of our culture and our daily lives.
The mind and body are intimately connected, when one is ailing the other is affected, and when one improves the other improves. Working with the body can be one way of approaching mental health.
◇ This can mean anything from somatic therapy, to a yoga practice, to going for runs, to simply sitting quietly and sensing your body and the emotions it is holding.
◇ Going for a long walk or a run can be highly effective ways of dealing with emotions, depression, stress and worry, as can many other forms of physical activity.
Mental Health and Generational Differences:
Sometimes it can be difficult for teens and young adults to communicate with their parents and the adults in their lives about what they are feeling.
◇ One of the reasons for this may be a generational or cultural difference, in which older generations either did not address certain mental health concerns or used different language to talk about them.
◇ It can also be difficult to convey to other generations what exactly young adults and teens are experiencing, and the ways in which the world is different for them.