What is mental health?
What is mental health?
Although professionals define mental health in different ways, most concur that it’s a simple matter of feeling well. But you might feel well and still have some scrupulous doctor diagnose you with something you’ve never even heard of. Because the medical world recognizes God-knows-what as mental illnesses, it is often impossible to know whether there is something “wrong” or not. To make matters worse, doctors and health organizations around the world disagree on what constitutes a disorder and thereby whether a person’s mental health is sound or not. Some laypeople even consent that drug and alcohol abuse counts as mental illnesses.[1]
What is mental health: When am I healthy?
Well-being is the most important theme in mental health. If you don’t feel well over long periods of time for whatever reason, e.g. if your mood is constantly down, if you feel like you have to eat without being hungry, or if you are too scared to leave the house, fearing some sort of pervert assault, then your mental health might be suffering. However, we all have bad days every now and then, and mental health is about generally feeling well. The aforementioned feelings have to be constant and prevalent in order to characterize a condition – being annoyed with your husband because he didn’t fix the light in the basement doesn’t count.
What is mental health: More than feeling well
But mental health is actually more than just feeling well. It is also about being able to comfortably cope with life’s ordinary demands and routines, according to Mental Health America.[2] For example, it’s a warning sign if you cannot do what other moms seem to be doing with ease. Furthermore, many large urban schools in America have well over 50% of their students manifest significant learning, behavior, and emotional problems, indicating an unhealthy mental state.[3] And it is not just the students who face issues, as half of all American households have someone seeking mental health treatment, a survey from American Psychological Association shows.[4]
If you, or your household, do not want to be part of that half, download our e-book and ensure sound mental health for all family members. We also have a mental health test that you can take.
[1] http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.89.9.1328
[2] http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/recognizing-warning-signs