Doctors agree that the deterioration of mental health often indicates the presence of severe mental illnesses or disorders that may kill you inside if you do not take a serious approach towards treating them, and this is what prompted us to write this article to learn more about the signs that indicate that your mental health is in danger and how to deal with it.
First: What Does Mental Health Mean? What Are the Reasons for Its Deterioration?
Mental health, as the World Health Organization (WHO) stresses, is a major and essential part and can never be separated from health in general. Accordingly, the WHO Constitution states that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Mental health is a state in which the individuals are healthy and able to take advantage of their abilities and invest their potential in what benefits them and helps them to complete their work accurately and mastery. They should also be able to deal with difficult and harsh conditions, fatigue, and effort, and they should also be able to adapt to them without affecting their productivity significantly or harmfully.
The Importance of Mental Health:
The importance of mental health stems from its close connection with the rest of the other aspects of life, and its impact does not stop at the person individually, but extends to the whole social environment. Moreover, this health is essential for building more effective and more productive individuals in their society, and it is very important for living a less stressful and more stable life. So, the points in which the importance of mental health appears can be identified as follows:
- Mental health is essential to building strong and effective social relationships.
- Mental health is important for professional development and success at work.
- Mental health improves the individual's abilities to think, achieve, and produce, and it directs them to the right path when faced with different life situations.
Based on this, mental health has been an important topic of study and research. In order to start worrying about our mental and psychological health, we must pay attention to the extent to which our behaviors and actions affect the following matters:
- Our relationships with our family, friends, and our social environment in general.
- The way we act and deal with different social situations.
- Our daily achievements and our ability to achieve them.
- Our success in our work and the extent of our development and productivity.
- Our ability to participate in and interact with different activities.
If your mental health affects one of the above points, you should take a deep breath and start looking for solutions before your situation gets worse and worse.
In fact, many factors and circumstances overlap and affect the mental health of individuals, and here it is necessary to mention the role played by cultural norms in determining the extent to which our behaviors are unnatural and unacceptable. Acceptable behaviors in one society may be completely rejected in another, and the personal perception of situations also plays a large and influential role in mental health, as each person's awareness of the conditions they suffer from varies, and therefore their response varies.
For example, a person’s perception of being betrayed may be completely different from the perception of another person, while the first finds in their being betrayed a reason for self-flagellation and a sense of inferiority and shame, and this is what puts them in a very bad psychological state that may take them years to overcome. The other sees it as a motivation for them to choose their partner in the future. Although it is a bad experience for them, it does not mean the end of the world. The goal of this example is to emphasize that the conditions and factors affecting mental health are very flexible and their impact differs from one person to another. What you find normal may be found by another person harsh and painful.
Reasons for Mental Health Deterioration:
There are several agreed-upon determinants mentioned in the reports of the World Health Organization that play a role in the deterioration of mental health, and we will mention from them:
- Social pressures that impose on some individuals a quality of life that they don’t like and do not resemble them only to keep pace with the group and obtain social satisfaction. This is what eventually leads them to isolation and distance from those around them, and this in turn affects their mental health greatly.
- The reports of the World Health Organization also indicated the relationship between the deterioration of the mental health of individuals and their financial level, as mental health problems increase among people who suffer from difficult financial conditions and live in a state of poverty.
- There is also a relationship between mental health and education levels.
- Gender discrimination prevalent in many countries of the world affects mental health as well, especially among women.
- Doing stressful work also greatly affects the mental health of individuals, and in some cases leads to depression, especially when the effort is not equal to the financial reward.
- Psychological factors related to the personality of the individual itself and how they view things, as we mentioned above, have a direct relationship to the psychological health of individuals.
- The role of biological and genetic factors and chemical imbalances in the brain cannot be denied.
Second: What are the Signs That Your Mental Health Is in Danger?
There are several signs and indications that your mental health is not fine, and that what you are going through is not a difficult time that you will overcome after several days, it is not a temporary disturbance in your behavior and reactions and everything will return to normal with the passage of a little time, but rather, there is a real problem that must be treated and stopped. These signs include:
1. Significant Changes in Your Lifestyle and Behaviors:
Changes in your eating pattern are either a major binge or a complete loss of appetite.
2. Great Difficulty in Coping with the Circumstances of Daily Life:
Inability to handle the usual routine duties or deal with people as if the world were ending at the bedroom door, and any exit for you becomes a kind of risk.
3. Sadness That Dominates a Large Part of Your Life:
This causes you to have a dark view of the world and the feeling that nothing is worth living.
4. Indifference:
Not caring about everything that is going on around you.
5. A State of Insensitivity and Loss of Feelings:
And the inability to feel pleasure even if you go out or meet one of your companions.
6. Always Feeling Anxious and Afraid of Everything:
From the past, future, life, and death.
7. Desire to Commit Suicide:
The belief that comfort is only leaving this world.
8. Thinking of Hurting Others:
Doing some irresponsible behavior with significant changes in a person's mood.
9. Feeling Physical Pain:
Without a real organic reason.
10. Lack of Self-Esteem and Constantly Self-Flogging:
Feeling that you are inferior to others and that everyone is superior to you in every way.
Third: Methods of Promoting Mental Health:
Promoting mental health is a basic requirement and an urgent necessity of course. The need for it increases when an individual goes through difficult problems, and if signs of mental health deterioration appear on them.
In fact, the process of promoting mental health is not an easy process and not immediate, but rather a continuous process that must begin from early childhood, as it includes many procedures and actions because the factors and conditions affecting mental health are many and various and carry many of the changed aspects.
Therefore, solutions must start first of all from creating a healthy and safe environment for living, with full respect for human rights in all aspects. It is not possible to talk about a stable psychological state in conditions in which our fundamental rights as human beings are constantly violated.
After securing this basic requirement that constitutes a psychologically safe environment for any human being, we can talk about the following points:
1. Focusing in the First Place on Building a Psychologically Healthy and Immune Person as Much as Possible:
This is the responsibility of the social upbringing that the individual receives from their childhood.
2. Mental Health is Associated with Physical Health:
Therefore, in order to enjoy good mental health, you must give your body its right, and take an ample amount of rest, sleep, food, and drink.
3. Self-esteem and Self-Respect Are Among the Most Important Indicators of Your Great Mental Health:
Therefore, it is very necessary to work on improving the person's self-image and constantly raising their morale.
4. Looking at Life from Another Angle, Away from Pessimism and Melancholy:
We must always remember that difficult circumstances are not exclusive to a particular group and that everyone suffers in this life, but the difference lies in the methods of dealing with these crises.
5. Try to Relax as Much as Possible:
And not to complicate things, simply look at what is going on around us, and to believe that nothing stays the same and that what we may see today as difficult and harsh, we may see with the passage of time less important.
6. Refer to Family or a Close Friend and Share Our Thoughts with Them:
If the situation is very difficult, you should see a specialized doctor or psychiatrist.
7. Life Is Not a War You Have to Win:
Take this weight off your shoulders and try to enjoy simple things.
8. Always Take Notes:
You can keep a notebook of your own wherever you go. Many studies have confirmed that writing unloading helps improve the psychological state.
9. Sports:
It is also important for improving your mental health.
10. Pharmacological Intervention:
For difficult cases that are associated with severe mental illnesses, such as psychosis and depression, in addition to cognitive behavioral therapy.
In Conclusion:
Any person in this world can crouch in their room and look at life through the little hole in its door, play the role of the victim, spread out every night their sorrows on the table and watch them fall asleep, heavy with their tears and shackled by their pain. But always remember that this escape and isolation is not a solution, and that confrontation is the real solution to restore yourself and your health. Confrontation does not mean that you fight a war, but rather that you continue in spite of everything. Instead of staring at the ground, raise your eyes and look at the sky and believe that life is always waiting for you and that falling is an experience that teaches you how to survive the next step and that many around you are ready to help you, just believe in yourself.
Add comment