Achieving Good Mental Health

People who are emotionally healthy are in control of their emotions and their behavior. They are able to handle life’s inevitable challenges, build strong relationships, and lead productive, fulfilling lives. When bad things happen, they are able to bounce back and move on.

Unfortunately, too many people take their mental and emotional health for granted  focusing on it only when they develop problems. But just as it requires effort to build or maintain physical health, so it is with mental and emotional health. The more time and energy you invest in your emotional health, the stronger it will be. The good news is that there are many things you can do to boost your mood, build resilience, and get more enjoyment out of life.

What is mental health or emotional health?

Mental or emotional health refers to your overall psychological well-being. It includes the way you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships, and your ability to manage your feelings and deal with difficulties.

Good mental health is not just the being free of mental health problems. Being mentally and emotionally healthy is to have positive characteristics.  Some people may not have negative feelings, they still need to do things that make them feel positive in order to achieve mental and emotional health.

People who are mentally and emotionally healthy have: a sense of contentment; the ability to laugh and have fun; the ability to deal with stress and bounce back from adversity; a sense of meaning and purpose, in both their activities and their relationships. the ability to learn new things and adapt to change; a healthy balance between work and play, rest and activity; the ability to build and maintain fulfilling relationships; self-confidence and high self-esteem.

These positive characteristics allow you to participate in life to the fullest; through productive, meaningful activities and strong relationships. These positive characteristics also help you cope when faced with life's challenges and stresses.

Resilience in mental and emotional health means that even through bad times or experiencing emotional problems; which wee all go through disappointments, loss, and change. This is a normal part of life; they can still cause sadness, anxiety, and stress.

The difference is that people with good emotional health have an ability to come back and learn from adversity, trauma, and stress.  People who are emotionally and mentally healthy have the coping skills for dealing with difficult situations and maintaining a positive outlook. They are focused, flexible, and creative in bad times as well as good.

One factor with resilience is the ability to balance your emotions. The capacity to recognize your emotions and express them appropriately helps you  to avoid depression, anxiety, and the various negative mood states. Also having a strong support network; people you can turn to for encouragement and support will boost your resilience in tough times.

Resilience entails maintaining flexibility and balance in your life as stressful circumstances and traumatic events occur in your life. You can build resilience in many ways: allowing yourself to experience strong emotions, and also realizing when you may need to avoid experiencing them in order to continue functioning; taking action to deal with your problems and meet the demands of daily living, and also giving time to rest and reenergize yourself; spending time with family and friends to gain support and encouragement;  relying on yourself.

Physical health is related to the body’s overall health; taking care of your body is a powerful first step towards mental and emotional health. The mind and the body are connected. When your physical health is enhanced, you experience better mental and emotional well-being. Exercise strengthens our heart and lungs, but also releases endorphins, chemicals that lift our mood.

 To have good mental and emotional health, it is important to take care of your body. That includes getting enough sleep. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep each night in order to function optimally. Learn good nutrition and practice it. The more you learn about what you eat and how it affects your energy and mood, the better you can feel.

Exercise to relieve stress and lift your mood. Exercise is a powerful antidote to stress, anxiety, and depression.

Get a more sunlight. Sunlight lifts your mood, so try to get some sun per day.

Limit alcohol and avoid cigarettes and other drugs. These are stimulants that may make you feel good in the short term, but have long-term negative consequences for mood and emotional health and physical health.

Monitoring and maintaining your health both physically and mentally will lead to positive thoughts and emotions; this leads to emotional and mental wellbeing

Depression What Is It

WHAT IS DEPRESSION?

Depression, or unipolar depression, is an illness characterized by an extremely sad mood that lasts for a long period of time and a lack of interest or pleasure in doing things that a person usually enjoys.

Someone with depression also has problems sleeping , either sleeping too much or too little; trouble thinking and concentrating; low levels of energy; unexpected changes in weight; either gaining or losing weight; and feelings of nervousness or agitation. With severe depression, there can also be recurrent thoughts about dying or suicide attempts.

If people experience these symptoms for at least two weeks, they might be diagnosed as having a major depressive episode. Untreated, some major depressive episodes last for months.  After a depressive episode ends, the person might return to feeling normal. However, after experiencing the first major depressive episode, the person is at more risk for experiencing a second one, and with each new episode the odds only get worse that and the depressive episodes will keep coming.  Getting treatment for depression is important even if the person’s most recent depressive episode has ended.

Depression is not a sign of weakness or an inability to cope with normal problems. Most people with depression cannot treat the problem by themselves; they have a very pessimistic view about themselves, the world, and life in general. People with depression think of themselves as incapable of handling their problems, which is both a result of the disorder or its cause. Depression is a very serious problem that can affect anyone.

When people are suffering with depression, there are probably many days when they don’t feel like getting out of bed. Either they feel too tired or maybe they think thar since life in general feels hopeless or pointless so it is not worth trying.  Depressed people feel sad, blue, sluggish, unmotivated, and empty inside, like there’s a part of themselves that’s missing. They might even experience headaches or body aches for which there are no apparent causes, feel restless and agitated, and find it difficult to concentrate.

In most cases of depression, the person no longer has an interest in pleasurable activities, like hobbies, exercising, socializing, or even sex. The person may be preoccupied with thoughts about death and dying. Often  people with depression think about ways to kill themselves. A number of them actually try to commit suicide. Others who are no longer concerned if they live or die might frequently take dangerous risks..

Depression can also cause many problems in people’s relationships, especially marriages.  Often, people who are depressed have problematic beliefs about their relationships. They may believe that they shouldn’t disagree with their partner, which puts added stress on both people. Some people who are depressed seek constant reassurance from their friends and loved ones, which strains those relationships. People with depression may do this to determine  to find out if they’re still loved. But no amount of reassurance from the partner or friend ever seems to be enough.

Another type of depression is dysthymia;  a type of depression that’s longer-lasting and seems to stay with the person for his or her entire life. In some ways, dysthymia might not be as severe or debilitating as a major depressive episode, because often the person can still function in everyday life. People with dysthymia also might not have as many problems with sleeping, thinking, or weight changes.

But because dysthymia is so constant and long lasting, it becomes a part of a person’s personality. A person with dysthymia might look generally unhappy or sad all of the time, and his or her mood might never return to a healthy state. A person with dysthymia might also experience depressive episodes at times. Depression and dysthymia, along with the bipolar disorders, are collectively referred to as mood disorders.

There are very effective treatments for depression that could help people avoid the long-term disability associated with the disorder. In general, more than 80 percent of the people who get appropriate treatment for their depression experience an improvement in their lives.

The majority of people who seek help for depression are given antidepressant medications. For some causes of depression, such as heredity, biology, illnesses, medications, and other substances, antidepressant medications might be the best initial treatment. In other cases, a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants might be necessary, especially to treat chronic depression.

Whatever the treatment may be it is crucial that there is some sort of treatment plan.  The risks of living depressed are to great and to live a life of misery and sadness is too much of a strain on a person physically and mentally.  It is essential that the person receives treatment for themselves and for the people in their environment.  Depression is a treatable disease and can be controlled so that the person can live their life with peace free from the chains of depression.

Anger Control Problems

 People with anger problems often quickly react in aggressive ways when they feel insulted, or offended, especially when they think they are being ill-treated. People struggling with this problem often blow up or hit the roof at others. They also tend to blame other people for their problems, without considering the role they might be playing in the situation.

Everyone gets angry sometimes. This is normal, and sometimes it is even necessary and healthy. If a person is being hurt, it might be beneficial to their health and survival to get angry and tell the other person to stop. In other, less threatening situations, some people try to communicate and find compromises, some try to think of nonthreatening responses, and others try to distance themselves from the situation before reacting.

However, people with an anger problem react in a way that is more intense and aggressive than the situation calls for. Some of them physically hurt others or themselves. Some take their frustrations out on objects by punching walls or kicking doors. Others argue aggressively. They call others insulting names, make threatening gestures, or even hold all their anger inside and let the hostility simmer, perhaps while plotting how to take revenge.

People with this problem frequently have disruptive relationships and family life. A person’s anger might even lead to physical fights with his or her spouse or partner, the person’s children, or maybe even strangers. In these situations, It can be exceptionally violent and dangerous to the individual and others.

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When angry, the person probably notices excessive physical sensations related to stress. Their heart races, their face and ears get hot and flushed, muscles become very tense, breathing gets faster and deeper, the palms get sweaty, and the person feels edgy or nervous. The person may feel a sick in the stomach, much like. Then, when the episode of intense anger has ended, the person with may feel guilty when they see that others who witnessed the situation feel uneasy and upset.

Having high levels of anger can lead to problems sleeping at night; increased daytime fatigue as a result of not sleeping. It’s also has been shown that men who commit domestic violence against their spouses and partners consistently have higher levels of anger and hostility when compared with men who don’t commit these acts of violence. Excessive anger is often associated with other disorders, such as depression, bipolar disorder, antisocial personality problems, self focused personality problems, and borderline personality disorder.

The exact causes of anger problems are unknown, but studies find that there are biological and social factors that contribute to its development. One supposition is that the emotion of anger activates the behavioral activation system within the larger human nervous system. When a person is confronted with an anger inducing situation, the behavioral activation system causes that person either to confront the situation and express the anger, or to escape the situation and suppress the anger. The choice someone makes in that situation is influenced by a combination of social factors and inheritable genetic tendencies

Anger is a fundamental emotion that is expressed and seen in every culture around the world; but the way in which a person expresses anger is largely determined by what is considered acceptable by that person’s culture. Some cultural groups are more likely to suppress their anger, while other groups are more likely to express their anger. Children imitate aggressive behaviors they observe in other people, especially when that type of behavior is rewarded. So if a person grows up in a family or culture where excessive anger is frequently displayed or accepted as normal, that person has a greater chance of developing an anger control problem

There are some very successful treatments to help people with anger problems reduce their anger.  Many of these treatment, often referred to as anger management, help people identify the triggers for their anger and then learn how to create distance between the triggers and their angry responses.

Many people feel as though their anger quickly overwhelms them and leaves them little choice but to get angry. Anger management treatment aims to create time between the moment a person feels angry and the moment when he or she responds, providing the person with time to choose a different more constructive response.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been proven to be beneficial. This treatment often uses relaxation skills to help manage angry feelings, thought processing to help recognize triggering situations, and skills training to learn new types of responses to these situations.

Other forms of successful treatment include anger management group therapy, and mindfulness therapy. Acceptance and commitment therapy is a form of behavioral therapy that uses mindfulness techniques, and it can be effective for anger control

Coping With a Mental Illness

Help someone close to you find and continue to take the medication needed for a balanced life. 

It is essential that a person with a mental health problem takes proper medication in order to manage the symptoms of their illness. Family and friends of this person need to know what the medication is, the effects it has, and the doctor who prescribes it. If for some reason the medication is no longer effective, the person quits taking the medication, or the side effects become unmanageable, it is the family and friends who often need to intervene and help the person to continue with their treatment plan.

Along with medication, some form of therapy is critical for someone with mental health problems. Family and friends can be invaluable in supporting this need for counseling and in assisting the person find the right therapist; who can help the person cope with the mental illness. It is also valuable for the family and friends to seek some form of therapy themselves in order to support the patient.

Learn as much as we can about their mental health problems. The more we know about the mental illness, the more you can understand their behavior, thoughts, and feelings.  You can assist in developing a healthy self-esteem. Many people with a mental health problem suffer from problems with their self-esteem. Their self-esteem is often either too low or too high. People who are close to the person are in a position to observe the level of self-esteem and to respond appropriately.

Accept the mental health problem they may be having even if this mental health problem does not cover all of life.

A mental disorder can become the focus of the life of a person with mental health problems There are two steps to you can take in order to be supportive: to accept the fact of the mental health problem; once this fact is acknowledged, it is crucial to accept that the disorders not the only problems in their life, that there are also other parts of life that deserve attention and focus.

Take an active effort to have:  proper exercise, sleep, diet, relationships, and by monitoring our feelings.

Often a person with mental illness requires special attention from family and friends. Become a supportive network who knows about the mental health problem and to act in their best interest as far as we are possible. A network of support can make it easier to deal with a person’s mental illness; a shared knowledge of the illness and a shared responsibility offers the best opportunity for everyone. This network will therefore require commitment to the loved one and to each other, including a commitment to resolving conflicts when they arise.

Identify the early warning signs that precede an onset of a problem and try to assist the person when these signs emerge.

You may have to monitor and identify early warning signs of a change in the thinking or behavior. Often a change in medication or the effectiveness of a medication, a stressful situation in life, a change in a relationship will trigger a more difficult stage of the mental illness. When those close to the person can identify this change, they can intervene and help the person to regain control over the mental illness.

Most people in our society acknowledge a belief in a Supreme Being whom many identify as God fostering that belief can be encouraging and supportive. In coping mental illness, many family and friends know that their efforts, support, and effectiveness are limited. Incorporating our belief in God or a Supreme Being we can understand that belief, makes coping with the mental illness easier and it more possible for the person stay in control.