Is Mental Health Illness Or WELLBEING

What does your mind conjure up when you start to see the words 'mental health'? Yes, the phrase does reek with a variety of connotations doesn't it!

When you think of the phrase Mental Health..... is it about

People who find themselves strange or not normal.

Mental illness is a stigma or label to be avoided or kept quiet about

Discussing issues of incapacity of the mind and behaviour

A term that is a label to spell it out insanity, madness, weird people

Pathologies like depression, schizophrenia.

And even the Mental Health department in your State's Health Department?

The World Health Organization defines mental health as "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his / her own abilities, can deal with the normal stresses of life, could work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to her or his community."

Not the vital thing that makes many people's minds with that phrase is it?

The main problem may be the actual term 'mental health' - it conjures up images of illness, yet the word health may be the opposite of illness - if we have health, we have wellness, not illness.

Formally, this can be a term used to describe either a degree of cognitive or emotional well-being or an lack of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health can include an individual's capability to enjoy life and procure a balance between lifestyle and efforts to accomplish psychological resilience.

The problem is based on the word itself - it isn't accurately descriptive of what it means

So perhaps mental wellbeing or wellness is moreover when encouraging or doing something positive about your personal inner health.

Mental good health can also be defined as an absence of a significant mental condition (for example, one of the diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, IV) though recent evidence stemming from positive psychology suggests mental health is more than the mere lack of a mental disorder or illness. Which means check here of social, cultural, physical and education can all affect someone's mental health.

We reside in a society that takes great care of physical health or well being/wellness - consider the tremendous technological, pharmaceutical and research advances occurring each day.

Consider all the resources for physical health we've put before us constantly - weight loss programs and diets, gyms and exercise programs, fitness activities, sports, obesity concerns, nutritional supplements and so on.

Yet where is the equivalent education and push for mental wellbeing? We readily take steps to make sure we avoid infections, injury and organic conditions (e.g. heart) - yet what do we do in order to avoid unwanted effects on our mental wellness?

So do you consider of your own inner health since it were? And look after it?

That is critically important considering that depression and anxiety affect so many, aside from much more serious mental illness diagnoses.

In families, do we put as much conscious concentrate on mental well being as we do on physical health. Many know lots about good physical wellbeing activities, but are we as informed about good mental health equivalents once we raise and teach our children.

And, what State doesn't have under-funded mental health department?

We have lost the idea of an holistic approach to our bodies, lives and society. We too readily compartmentalize - and put mental health in to the too hard basket or just neglect it.

We've 'abnormalized' mental health, rather than seeing it as vital that you our wellbeing and a normal part of life - even if someone is suffering from a mental illness.

People who suffer adverse mental wellbeing conditions remain 'normal' people - just as an injured person is 'normal, or just as a deaf person is normal.

For info on Mental Wellbeing Issues, see us at Good Health Advice [1]

Peter Damien Ryan