Editorial > Why Mental Health Awareness is So Important
Why Mental Health Awareness is So Important
Dais Editorial | 20/05/2020 09:45 PM
"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves" - Henry David Thoreau
In the times of Covid19, mental health specialists are fighting another challenge –NO, this one’s not the virus of the respiratory system, it is the metaphorical virus of the human mind – depression, anxiety, stress!
Why pay special attention to mental health ?
Many have heard the phrase "All diseases are from the nerves."
However, just as proactive we are to seek medical help for bodily ailments, one often tends to ignore what’s ailing the mind- the root cause of all illnesses.
It is a taboo topic especially in our country, where anyone seeking medical help for mental sickness is declared “Crazy”, the eyeballs roll.
It is known that when people receive appropriate care for mental health problems, they do not often seek medical care in general. There is evidence that people with unresolved mental health problems visit general practitioners twice as often as those who receive specialized, psychiatric, and psychological care.
Hence, they say – it’s all in the mind! And either you control your mind, OR it controls you.
Excessive anxiety and stress can contribute to the development of heart diseases, weaken the strength of the immune system, increases the likelihood of improper behavioural choices, which is manifested in addiction to smoking and drugs & alcohol abuse.
Thought leaders, business owners, politicians – successful people who care about mental health and work on methods to keep it well achieve great success, both in the professional and personal spheres. Mental health is important in terms of communication, especially in the family. It allows you to maintain a healthy atmosphere in the circle of loved ones, properly educate children, giving them the necessary care and psychological model to follow.
Mentally healthy people are more resistant to the influence of negative social factors, less prone to the formation of addictions.
Mental health can only be fully clinically assessed by a specialist.
However, for the assessment of one’s own self or of a friend or loved one, the decision to visit a practitioner is often the most difficult to make.
We give you certain criteria you can use as a checklist to understand whether a person may need a check-up by a mental health practitioner.
1. The state of sleep. Difficulty falling asleep, restlessness, unusually early awakenings, and, conversely, increased drowsiness, lack of feeling of rest when waking up - all these are sleep disturbances, which can indicate a dysfunction of the nervous system, leads to its overstrain, which means increase the risk of mental disorders.
2. The level of performance. Mental performance is characterized by the activity of mental processes: attention, memory, thinking. A decrease in mental performance, manifested in the form of insufficient functioning of the memory, problems with concentration, difficulty in making decisions, can be a sign to seek help.
3. The emotional state. The emotional sphere is extremely sensitive to various manifestations of trouble. The prevalence of negative emotional reactions (bad mood, tearfulness, irritability, anger), their unusual and high intensity, especially in situations of inconsistency in the situation in which they occur, difficulties in managing their own emotional state – red flag for a check
4. Behavioural changes. For any person, there are the usual ways of reacting in different life situations, due to character traits and life experience. A sharp departure from habitual forms of behaviour, an unexpected change in stable attitudes, and the absence of an obvious connection between such changes and life events can be manifestations of emotional and mental distress.
A popular quote from Roy T. Bennett in the Light of the Heart sums the importance up for this awareness- “The biggest wall you have to climb is the one you build in your mind: Never let your mind talk you out of your dreams, trick you into giving up. Never let your mind become the greatest obstacle to success. To get your mind on the right track, the rest will follow.”
Tips to Maintain Good Mental Health
Tip 1 - Helping Others Is Normal
Accept Help from loved ones. Put yourself in their place, because if you want to help them in their bad times, they want to reciprocate too. There is nothing demeaning about it.
Tip 2 - Take Time Out For Fun
There is nothing better than laughter. Watch positive clips, communicate with those who give you a sea of positive emotions. See someone smiling and it reflexively brings a smile on to you.
Tip 3 - Look For Happy People
Surround yourself only with the ones you like. Be selfish, be more with someone who makes you happy. Stay in constant search of people who can teach you something. Happy people beget happy people.
Tip 4 - Keep Your Diet, Eat Right
Your sleep is important, because a person should sleep as much as the body requires. Eat natural foods, eat less sugar. In a word, watch your health, because in a healthy body there is always a healthy mind.
Tip 5 - Do Not Recycle
Take adequate time out for yourself. Workaholics do not live fully, nor do the lazy ones. Everything needs balance.We need money but also the time to enjoy our earnings. Learn to relax on time. Have at least one day a week when you are not doing anything.
Tip 6 - Learn to Live in Real Time
Regrets can frustrate, expectations can cause anxiety. The best thing to do perhaps is to live in the “today”
By dwelling in the past or stressing over what’s gonna happen, you’re missing the life that’s passing you by today.
Be realistic and live the present. Rest now, work now, love now. Life is the current moment. Enjoy it.
Tip 7 - Avoid Stressful Situations
Stress destroys our health, killing self-confidence, leading us to general collapse of everything. Evaluate the “what” or “who” is the source of trouble and stress – try getting out of that space permanently.
Tip 8 - Avoid Assumptions
Life is too short to assume possible scenarios and bother ourselves about something unverified. The thousand permutations and combinations we think of and the resultant stress it brings to us and our environment is absolutely avoidable. It is simpler for you to gather the courage and just ask - you will find that a lot of times asking, dispels notions and clears the air.
Tip 9 - Learn To Say NO
This is a very important skill in the modern world, because many are afraid to say this word so as not to offend anyone. You don’t live at ease when you are doing something that you don’t like just because you didn’t say “no” at the right time. Learn to do this diplomatically. It will create momentary displeasure when you decline someone’s call, but it will save you a whole lot of heartburn if it is not one of the items on your to-do that ain’t checked.
We, at Dais, love our readers and wish them a healthy and happy life full of gratitude and affection for each other. May we get out of this Coronavirus situation soon, without a scratch.
Stay healthy, stay stress-free!
“Your mind will serve you better than any trinket under the suns...It is a weapon...and like any weapon, you need practice to be any good at wielding it.” ― Jay Kristoff, Nevernight
Editor-In-Chief - Abhishek Deb
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