Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.
What are the most important values in mental health?
Other core values can include dependability, reliability, commitment, loyalty, consistency, open-mindedness, and spiritual belief of some kind. Examples of core values in mental health treatment may lead to thinking of the importance of family or the idea that honesty and integrity matter, even in the little things.
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of wellbeing in which the individual realises his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community’
https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1
The most common signs someone is having a mental breakdown are:
- Hopelessness.
- Thoughts of suicide.
- Sense of worthlessness.
- Unable to sleep.
- Lacking appetite.
- Inability to focus.
- Severe disappointment with their life.
Wellness is commonly viewed as having seven dimensions: mental, physical, social, financial, spiritual, environmental, and vocational. These dimensions are interdependent and influence each other. When one dimension of our well-being is out of balance, the other dimensions are affected.
Social Wellbeing is a sense of belonging to a community and making a contribution to society.
Emotional Wellbeing means feeling good. Being happy, experiencing positive emotions like love, joy or compassion, and feeling generally satisfied with life.Spiritual Wellbeing can include feeling connected to a higher power, a sense of meaning or purpose or feelings of peace or transcendence
Steps to mental wellbeing
- Good relationships are important for your mental wellbeing.
- Being active is not only great for your physical health and fitness.
- Learn new skills.
- Pay attention to the present moment (mindfulness)
- Eat healthy, regular meals and stay hydrated
- Make sleep a priority
- Set goals and priorities
- Be thankful for all that you have and acknowledge others
- Stop doubting yourself and feel that you are miss something
Have a positive outlook to life
Sarah Stewart-Brown, professor of public health at Warwick University (UK) and wellbeing expert explains that wellbeing can take many forms but a useful description is “feeling good and functioning well and feeling happy is a part of wellbeing but far from the whole”.
There is a deeper kind of wellbeing, which is about living in a way that is good for you and good for others around you. Further to this concept of wellbeing:
- Feelings of happiness, contentment, enjoyment, curiosity and engagement with their community, are characteristic of someone who has a positive experience of their life.
- Equally important to wellbeing, is our capacity to psychologically function well in the world. Maintaining positive relationships, having some control over one’s life and having a sense of purpose, self-esteem and self-confidence.
- Wellbeing does not mean that you never experience feelings or situations that you find difficult, but it does mean that you feel you can cope with tough times.
- Having high levels of wellbeing has been shown to increase our immunity to infection, lower our risk of some mental health problems, reduce mental decline as we get older, and increase our resilience.
- A high level of wellbeing is as good for heart health and provides as much protection from coronary heart disease as quitting smoking does.
