Although we often hear the question "What is mental health?", it is not always that easy to find an answer. Mental health can be defined as the coherence between our emotions and behaviors, having constructive relationships with ourselves and our environment, and having an adequate capacity to cope with negative emotions.
Mental health is the foundation of our emotions, thoughts, behaviors and psychological resilience. Mental health is an indispensable part of our well-being, just like our physical health. Moreover, our physical health and mental health affect each other. The well-being of one increases the well-being of the other.
Mental health, also known as psychological health, is the key to establishing and maintaining healthy relationships with our environment, adapting to change, and engaging in positive thoughts and behaviors. Our mental health is influenced by biological, psychological and environmental factors and affects how we think, feel and behave.
Although the simplest answer we can give to the question "What is mental health?" is the absence of a psychological disorder that negatively affects one's life, mental health is much more than that. It means not only the non-existence of a psychological disorder, but also having the resources to cope with uncertainty and challenging or uncomfortable situations.
Some think that mentally healthy people never feel sad or anxious and they are always happy but these people also experience negative emotions. So what matters is how people cope with negative emotions and what they do to find their inner balance.
Mental disorders occur due to incongruences between our emotions, thoughts or behaviors. Because of these disturbances, our social, family and professional lives can also be negatively affected. Anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, learning disabilities, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder are the most common examples of mental disorders.
Mental disorders can lead to psychological dysfunction. In this context, when our mental health is impaired, the way we cope with anxiety, uncertainty and other negative emotions becomes unhealthy. It gets harder for us to adapt to the environment we live in. For this reason, our reactions to the situations and the emotions we experience become dissonant.
A situation that didn't make us angry before might irritate us. If we believe that we have a problem with our mental health, asking ourselves the following questions can help us evaluate our mental health.
To answer the question "What is mental health?" we need to recognize the symptoms that indicate that our mental health is impaired. Each mental disorder has specific symptoms. However, some features of different mental disorders may be common in adults and adolescents. We can list these common symptoms as follows.
You can ask yourself the following questions to find out if you have these symptoms:
Answering yes to most of these questions is very important in recognizing that your mental health may be impaired. However, the healthiest way to find out what mental disorder we are experiencing, why it is happening and how it can be treated is to talk to a health professional.
By making lifestyle changes, building emotional resilience and working on our patterns of thinking, these symptoms can lose their negative impact on us. When this becomes overwhelming, we need to seek treatment by a specialist.
We all deserve to have healthier relationships with ourselves and our environment and to be free from negative thoughts that undermine our functioning. Just as it is normal to see a doctor when we have a broken ankle, feel dizzy or nauseous, it is also normal to see a specialist when we have mental health problems.
Another question that is as widely asked as the question "What is mental health?" is "What is mental fatigue?". We all go through stressful and difficult times from time to time. Responsibilities at work and in our personal lives, negative circumstances and confusion in our inner world can reduce our coping capacity. When we run out of resources to deal with negativities and demands that exceed us, we can enter a mental exhaustion process. We may feel that we have lost control over our lives, that we cannot find the physical and spiritual energy to fulfill our responsibilities, and that our minds have lost their clarity. This state of emotional and cognitive exhaustion is called mental fatigue. When we experience mental fatigue:
Mental fatigue can seem like an exhausting and unbreakable cycle, but there are some steps we can take to help us reduce our mental fatigue. When we feel mentally exhausted, self-compassion and self-care can be helpful in reducing this state of fatigue. Other steps we can take to overcome mental fatigue include relaxation exercises, healthy nutrition, exercises that are not tiring but can increase our physical activity, taking time to rest and getting support.
There is a lot of misinformation and unscientific beliefs that have been put forward in response to the question "What is mental health?". Listening to what science tells us, rather than this unfounded information, can help us develop a more constructive and healthy view of our own mental health and that of those around us.
After answering the questions "What is mental health?" and "What is mental disorder?", we can learn how to strengthen our mental health. There are steps we can take and healthy living routines we can adopt to improve our mental health and strengthen our psychological state by increasing our well-being. With these steps, we can not only cope with mental fatigue, but also prevent the development of risk factors that can cause mental disorders by increasing our psychological resilience. Here are some tips that can be good for our mental health.
We care about the physical health of our children from the moment they are born and we strive not to ignore even the slightest adverse outcome. In fact, children's mental health is as important as their physical health. The foundations of mental health are built very early on so supporting children's mental health needs starts early in childhood. This is why we need to ask the same question for children as we ask for adults: What is mental health for children?
Being mentally healthy in childhood means taking healthy developmental and emotional steps in a timely manner, learning social skills and how to deal with problems. It is important that we, as adults, observe these areas carefully and seek help from a specialist in case of any problems in order to protect the child's mental health both in early childhood and adulthood. Mental disorders in children point to problems in the way children learn, behave or handle their emotions, and problems in their daily activities. It is natural for children to feel fear and anxiety sometimes and to behave inappropriately in situations they cannot cope with. However, if these conditions are persistent and interfere with children's social and developmental activities at home and school, it may be important to consult a child mental health specialist.
