Shaurya

Jul 19, 2022

What is mental health?

What is mental health?

According to Wikipedia, “Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological and social well-being. It influences cognition, perception and behavior.” It might seem like a complicated term with a fancy definition using big words. But it’s not. Mental health is a simple concept which talks about how we feel and how our minds react and respond to situations. Just like physical health, proper care of our mental health is a necessity in order to keep ourselves healthy overall. It describes how an individual would handle stress, cope with difficult situations, maintain personal and professional relationships, analyze a problem and make a rational decision over it.

Mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders. There are countless factors which affect it in an individual. Individual psychological and biological factors such as emotional skills, substance use and genetics can make people more vulnerable to mental health problems. Exposure to unfavourable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental circumstances – including poverty, violence, inequality and environmental deprivation – also increases people’s risk of experiencing mental health conditions. Each single risk and protective factor has only limited predictive strength. Most people do not develop a mental health condition despite exposure to a risk factor and many people with no known risk factor still develop a mental health condition. Nonetheless, the interacting determinants of mental health serve to enhance or undermine mental health.

What are mental health disorders?

Mental disorders are serious conditions which can affect your thinking, mood, and behaviour. They may be occasional or long-lasting. They can affect your ability to relate to others and function each day. It is important to note that having poor mental health doesn’t always mean you have a behavioural health disorder. You can also have a behavioural health disorder and still go through long periods of good mental health.

Anyone of any age, sex, background or ethnicity can get a behavioural health disorder. People designated female at birth more commonly experience depression, anxiety and eating disorders. While people designated male at birth are more likely to experience substance abuse and antisocial personality disorders. Behavioural problems and ADHD are more common in adolescents.

Behavioural health disorders can have many causes. They might be the result of abnormal genes. You may inherit those genes from a parent, or genes can change during your life. Chemical imbalances in your brain can also lead to mental illness.

Your risk of mental illness increases if you:

Some of the most common health disorders found in people are anxiety disorders, mood disorders, psychotic disorders, dementia and eating disorders.

Mental health disorders can lead to a broad range of symptoms, including: