For years now, there’s been a push to help people understand mental health, so we become a more understanding, tolerant, and empathetic society. Understanding mental health is just that important, but why? Why is it important? Keep reading to find out why.
What Does Understanding Mental Health Even Mean?
Let’s start with what mental health is before we delve into the understanding of mental health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is our state of mental wellbeing that enables us to cope with life. Just like we have our physical health, we also have our mental health, which accounts for how we’re feeling inside (Mental Health Foundation).
Our mental health is more than just the absence of a mental health condition (WHO), which is why positive psychology exists. This makes it an important part of our overall health, on a par with physical health (Mental Health Foundation).
Understanding Mental Health
Understanding mental health can make a world of difference for yourself and those around you. For example, a study by Price-Feeney, Green, and Dorison (2020) showed us that understanding mental health is important. They found that the mental health of transgender and nonbinary youth (aged 13-24) had an increased risk of experiencing depression, suicidal ideation, and attempting suicide when compared with cisgender straight people. But also cisgender lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning youth.
Another example comes from Miller, Hess, Bybee, and Goodkind (2018). They found that there was a strong negative association between family separation and the mental health of refugees. This made being separated from their families a substantial stressor for refugees.
In an ideal world, that would lead to refuges families being kept together. But I fear the opposite is often the policy governments follow as another way to deter people from seeking refuge in their countries.
What Makes Understanding Mental Health Beneficial
Identifying triggers
By understanding mental health, we can become more aware of our triggers and early warning signs of stress, anxiety, or low mood. This allows us to take proactive steps to manage our wellbeing through this self-awareness. And with a bit of luck and a lot of effort, can help us avoid burnout. So break out the journal and start identifying your triggers and early warning signs of poor mental health.
Normalising emotions
Recognising that everyone experiences a range of emotions, both positive and negative, can be incredibly helpful. It reduces self-blame and encourages you to seek support when needed.
Understanding others’ struggles
When you understand mental health challenges, you can develop more empathy and compassion for people who might be struggling with anxiety, depression, or other mental health conditions. Hopefully, that’ll lead to a kinder society overall, for all of us.
Being understood, and that being acknowledged, shows others that someone is actually listening to them, which for many, is always the case. My mum doesn’t understand and isn’t willing to try to understand my mental health problems, even though she’s always suffered from depression herself. As such, I hate talking to my mum because she’s a huge source of stress and depression.
Breaking stigma
By openly discussing mental health, we can help break down the stigma surrounding it. This can encourage others to seek help without fear of judgment because of such safe spaces. Hopefully, this will make it easier for men to stop “manning up” and instead seek the support they need too. This can also help people to understand what are the correct and incorrect ways to talk about mental health and avoid the use of harmful words and myths.
Developing coping mechanisms
Knowing about healthy coping mechanisms like exercise, relaxation techniques, or spending time in nature can equip you to deal with stress and challenges productively. This will also help build resilience as well.
Social support network
Understanding the importance of a strong social support network allows you to prioritise connections with friends, family, or therapists who can offer guidance and support during difficult times. Having such networks also helps with resilience, as simply knowing we have people we can turn to can help us
through times of need.
My lack of emotional support from friends and family growing up taught me that no one could be trusted or would be there for me. Something that was hard to overcome.
Creating a healthier environment
By promoting open communication, we can openly discuss mental health in our workplace, with family, or with our social circles and can create a safe space for people to share their struggles and seek help without fear of judgment.
Prioritising mental wellbeing
Recognising the importance of mental health alongside physical health can lead to creating a more balanced and supportive environment for everyone.
Improved relationships
Open communication and empathy fostered through us better understanding mental health can strengthen your relationships with loved ones and colleagues.
Increased productivity and creativity
By managing stress and prioritising our wellbeing, we can boost our focus, creativity, and overall productivity in work and personal spheres.
Greater life satisfaction
By understanding mental health, we can all take care of our mental health and support others with there’s. This makes us better equipped to navigate life’s challenges, build resilience, and experience a greater sense of wellbeing and life satisfaction.
Support
Understanding mental health isn’t just about identifying disorders; it’s about creating a society where everyone feels comfortable talking about their mental wellbeing and taking steps to maintain it. This empowers individuals and fosters a more supportive and healthy environment for everyone. Health and mental health are two parts that make up our overall wellbeing, whether it’s good health and mental wellbeing, poor health and mental health, or a mixture of the two.
The act of simply understanding someone or their issues can make a big difference. This also translates to health problems, disabilities, and even stuff like misogyny, racism, and all other forms of discrimination.
As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with understanding mental health and helping others to understand it in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
Lastly, if you’d like to support my blog, then there are PayPal and Ko-fi donation payment options below. Until next time, Unwanted Life readers.
References
Miller, A., Hess, J. M., Bybee, D., & Goodkind, J. R. (2018). Understanding the mental health consequences of family separation for refugees: Implications for policy and practice. American journal of orthopsychiatry, 88(1), 26. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5732089.
Price-Feeney, M., Green, A. E., & Dorison, S. (2020). Understanding the mental health of transgender and nonbinary youth. Journal of Adolescent Health, 66(6), 684-690. Retrieved from https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2819%2930922-X/fulltext.
Such an important topic. And yes. Education and awareness is what will in breaking the stigma
Indeed. Thanks for commenting
Excellent post. Support is totally key to overcoming mental health problems. For years I suffered in silence and it nearly destroyed me, it was only when I felt someone was actually listening that I started the long road to finding emotional balance. Keep up the good work with your articles and raising awareness.
I was much the same way, but things only got worse until I decided to seek support. Thanks for sharing
Very well done. I face mental wellbeing challenges myself, and am aware of and concerned about stigma. A key example, I think, is the symptom ‘psychosis’. When people hear ‘psychosis’, they tend to think of the movie Psycho and killers on the news. Actually, it’s defined clinically along the lines of a several-day break with what most people consider real: delusions and sort of magical thinking all the way to total confusion. It’s important to note, though, that people who suffer from this symptom, however severely challenged they are, are much more likely to *be hurt* and/or to hurt themselves than they are to hurt anyone else. Anyways, great post. Cheers.
Speaking as someone who’s experienced psychosis, not everyone has delusions, it can just be hallucinations. A common form is sleep deprivation causing hallucinations, which is a psychosis. I, however, had drug induced psychosis that lasted decades, although it never fully went away. Thanks for commenting
I can definitely agree that having an understanding of mental health and even empathy can help people in their communication and overall relationships. Most people have gone through something in which they needed some form of support and understanding. I think extending that to mental health is important and I do my best to lend that ear, the one I have needed, to others as well.
Exactly. Thanks for commenting
Such an important post, thank you for sharing. I feel as though I’ve heard a lot more about mental health in the past few years and that it’s talked about so much more, for example lots of the competitors in the Olympics have been very open about it. It feels like support and empathy are improving, but I know there’s so much more to learn, and your post covers lots of things I can do to help myself and others. Thank you.
It’s always good to see people in the public eye talking about it and normalising it, but for some reason, this has been dragged into the current culture war. People on the far right are trying to re-stigmatise mental health. Thanks for commenting
Great article. Understanding my own mental health has made a big difference to my life. I’m easier on myself about some things – but there’s still room for more understanding. I’ve also learned how to better support others in my life. Thank you for sharing 🙂
There are so many benefits to better understanding mental health. Thanks for sharing
These are good ways to understand the real meaning of mental health. Good knowledge sharing. Thank you.
Thanks for commenting