What is mental health anyway?
What do people really mean when they talk about mental health? Ask 4 different people and you’re likely to get 5 different answers. It’s probably fair to say that “mental health” has become a buzzword as much as the term “self-love”. This is a term so nebulous it means various things to different people and can mean different things to one person at different phases of their lives.
It’s not hard to see why. The concept of mental health is at the intersection of biology, philosophy, religion, economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology and a host of other ‘ogies’. It is a fundamental conundrum because it underpins the basic question of what makes us who we are and what is our purpose for being on this earth.
To start to get an understanding of the true concept of mental health, I’ll start by stripping away the assumptions and illusions. The things many of us would label mental health (for good reason anyway) but on close scrutiny, aren’t quite it.
What mental health is NOT
· It is not an absence of psychiatric illness
· It does not mean being happy or joyful
· It does not mean being socially adept and everybody likes you
· It does not mean being ‘normal’
· It does not mean being part of a wholesome group or identity such as family
· It does not mean that you’ve achieved all your goals and you’re exactly where you want to be in life
· It does not mean spending considerable time/money on a psychiatrist/psychologist
Are these pointers to good mental health? Absolutely. However, you may know of one or more social butterfly types who secretly hate themselves and everyone around them. Happiness is not a prerequisite to being sane; some severely ill people are having the time of their lives. Have you seen people who come from loving, healthy families who turn out to be wrecks emotionally? There are people living their best lives in dirt poor situations while there are children of billionaires committing suicide.
And as for normal? Good luck trying to find a satisfactory definition of normal.
Definitions
The WHO has mulled over this conundrum and come up with a pretty neat definition of mental health: a state of well-being where a person is able to cope with the normal stresses of life. This state permits productive work output and allows for meaningful contributions to society. It exists on a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
Mental health is a state of confidence in one’s ability to interact adequately with oneself and their environment, and reasonably cope with stress. Mental health touches many parts of our lives, from our relationships with others to what makes us feel fulfilled and how we deal with life’s challenges.
We talked about stress in an earlier story. Stress can take many forms (and there is good and bad stress). But it’s just like the science experiment you did in primary school with an egg and a slice of meat: heat both and one gets softer while the heat hardens the other. A healthy person thrives under moderate amounts of stress (think, procrastinators!) while the unhealthy person wilts under similar stress.
How do you know you’re mentally healthy?
Sounds like a trick question, doesn’t it? Like when Jesus asked the person without sin to cast the first stone. In many ways, mental health is an aspirational state that everyone has the potential to reach for.
We’re constantly trying to attain the best mental health we can. Or at least we should. The struggle never really ends. We are faced with constant threats to our mental health and all we can do is try to stay afloat. However, some people are clearly handling this thing called life better than others. We say they are mentally stable.
Towards the end of my psych rotations in medical school, I wondered aloud to my professor: am I missing something? Why are some people happy in the midst of enormous trials and some cool under incredible pressure? He smiled knowingly and said, here’s the formula: it is not necessarily the stress, it’s your perceived control over it.
Our lives are different, and so are the problems and stresses (as well as joys and hopes) we face. Being mentally healthy means being effective at managing your own stresses with the resources at your disposal.
You know you’re healthy when you have a reasonable sense of control over your internal and external environment.
And you might ask: how much is reasonable? Aspirational state eh?
Internal environment
· Your mood
· Your sense of reality
· Your impulses
· Your thoughts
· Your actions
External environment
· Your reaction to events
· Your impact on those closest to you
· Your ability to remove yourself from people and situations that may be toxic
· Your work and productivity
· Your contribution to society
Why are we interested in mental health anyway?
Mental health influences all parts of our lives including physical health. Mental health is a key part of overall health. Your body needs your soul just as much as your soul needs your body. Most every problem in your body is made worse by your anxiety and despair. Sometimes, these problems are directly as a result of a disturbed psychology. It’s that simple. Very well minds make for very well bodies.
Hurt people hurt people. This cringe-worthy quip from that annoying friend who has just attended one session of therapy, eh? Surprisingly, it absolutely holds true. In relationships, we project the content of our minds unto the people we love. What you give is what you have. When you’re in a bad place emotionally, it tells on your partner, your children, your friends and sometimes, even the random guy behind the counter at the grocery store.
Productivity: you know the old adage about taking a horse to the stream but can’t force it to drink? Every workplace is a sum total of the output of its people. CEOs, managers and HR personnel all over the world are always trying to get the most out of their people. With a critical mass of browbeaten, demoralized or overstressed people running on unmanageable levels of caffeine, we get a scenario where productivity eventually grinds to a halt. Good luck getting that horse to drink.
Our world is changing. It seems that nowadays, anytime you turn on your TV, it’s all disaster on the news. There’s war in Ukraine and there’s carnage in Gaza. Climate change is coming for us all with the speed of a comet. There’s a chance an actual comet is headed in our direction at any given moment. Forest fires are getting out of control and politicians are using the misery of the common folk for political gains. Plus, there are children dying in Africa. Someone somewhere is being sexually harassed in the Metaverse. We’re increasingly barraged with an endless supply of anxiety-provoking stimuli, getting worked up over the trivial and the existential. Some of us deal with the stress by turning to drugs and alcohol, but that’s a whole other sermon.
We just want a better world. In the end, all we want is a world where we can live with ourselves and each other in peace and some semblance of happiness, or at least the pursuit of it. A kinder, saner world. And that’s why we need to talk about mental health. On individual and community levels.
When to seek help
· If you’ve been feeling low and alone, and no one seems to understand what you’re going through
· If you’re experiencing unexplained confusion, anger, guilt, or worry and people are starting to avoid you because of your severe mood swings
· If you’re thinking of causing harm to yourself or others
· If you find that there’s a switch in your eating habits, whether over or undereating
· If you find that you can’t keep up with daily tasks or that your job (which you’ve always hated but managed somehow) is actively trying to squeeze the life out of you
· If all you do nowadays is pick fights with family and friends
· When your friends and colleagues compliment you about being the life of the party but add an aside that these days, you’re only fun when you’re high on alcohol, weed or other substances
How to promote mental health
Easy! Follow this page closely. Every week, I discuss a mental health topic that is relevant and relatable, breaking everything down in the most down-to-earth way that some freelance blogger on psych-something-dot-com couldn’t quite manage. No BS, just (mostly) real life insights from real life people like you and me.
