Mental Health Awareness: Its Significance

We are sharing personal experiences and stories of people who have struggled with mental health issues and now lead happy, healthy lives without them. Mental health is a huge issue in today’s society. We believe that by sharing our personal experiences, we may work to break down the stigma associated with mental illness and other mental health disorders.

Each year, 13% of children, 46% of teenagers, and 19% of adults experience mental illness. People who are battling with their mental health may be members of your family, neighbors, teachers, coworkers, or sit in the same church pew as you.

Mental health is still a serious issue in the workplace. According to the World Health Organization, only half of people living with mental disorders receive treatment, frequently because they lack the accessibility or affordability of healthcare. People who do seek treatment are at risk of medical costs and poor academic performance, all of which can lead to job loss and a higher risk of suicide.

Signs You Need to take a Mental Health Day

In recent years, the epidemic of workplace stress has been on the rise. It has now reached a point where many companies have had to implement measures in an attempt to alleviate stress among their employees. The causes of this previously unheard-of level of occupational stress are multifaceted. More companies are having trouble filling positions, which forces current employees to take up the slack. With testing procedures, in-flux masking, and worries that lock-downs might not be over, the epidemic has also led to increased workplace stress. However, there is good news! A day for mental health can benefit people. How does having a mental health day benefit? Simply said, mental health days are time off from all work-related activities; yet, they are distinct from taking a sick day. They are private days that you can set apart for yourself in order to refresh and reset and focus on an activity that you find enjoyable and calming.

A day to care for yourself is a great way to recharge. Often, we handle stressors in our workplace and personal lives that leave us drained, so setting aside time to take care of yourself is a great way to help reduce the effects of workplace stress on your mental health.

Mental health is important to your overall well-being and quality of life, so it’s important to know what’s normal for you. If you’re confused about whether or not to take a day for mental health, below are some signs that it could be helpful to make the time for yourself:

You feel worn out and run down. Overwork and stress may quickly wear down the body and leave you feeling worn out or exhausted. You don’t have time to relax or get away from the workplace if your mind is constantly racing and you can’t stop thinking about work-related issues. This indicates that your work-life balance is probably incorrect. Constant fatigue and sluggishness may be directly tied to the stress you experience at work.

You are easily enraged. It’s all too simple to get upset and lose our temper when we’re stressed out and exhausted, even about things that seem insignificant. It may be time to take a day off and unwind if you frequently become irritated with (or even yell at) coworkers. Due to burnout, you don’t want to jeopardize your personal or professional relationships. Instead of venting to your coworkers, journaling for mental health is a terrific method to let your thoughts out on paper.

You can’t concentrate at work. Your ability to concentrate can be disrupted by stress, which makes it harder to complete your work and increases the likelihood of errors. Your focus is not the only thing that suffers. Memory and the capacity to learn new things can both be impacted by stress. Ironically, because you can’t finish activities as fast and easily as previously, being unable to concentrate can cause you to get completely engrossed with your work.

You’re not getting good sleep. In addition to being crucial for maintaining your general health, lack of sleep has been linked to a range of mental health disorders and is strongly tied with stress. Another indication of stress is persistent sleeplessness, which can lead to a vicious cycle. A lack of sleep affects your ability to concentrate, and stress makes it more likely that you won’t get enough sleep, and so on.

You don’t eat the right amount of food. When under stress, some people resort to food for consolation. Some people completely go out to eat when they are stressed. Both behaviors are unhealthy. Consider taking a mental health day if you frequently binge or miss meals so you can assess whether stress from work is a factor in your newly developed bad eating habits.

You Modify Your Alcohol Consumption Patterns. If you notice that you’re consuming more wine, beer, or alcohol than normal, this is one of the more alarming indicators that you need a mental health day. When people are feeling stressed out from their employment, they frequently use alcohol as a crutch to reduce their tension. Taking a day for mental wellness is preferable to using drugs as a coping mechanism. Keep in mind that drinking too much increases your risk of developing future mental and physical health issues.

You Experience a Disconnection from Others, Including Coworkers. Feeling cut off from your friends, family, and coworkers is just another indicator that you need a mental health day. For example, you can continuously feel that no one gets you or that you’re on a different wavelength than everyone else.

Ways to Mentally Refresh After a Stressful Day

Stress is a daily reality these days. Between employment, family responsibilities, social activities, and academic obligations. Many individuals think that experiencing stress on a daily basis is common and that it is just a regular part of life. The stressors and stress reactions of Filipino college students in connection to sex, course, and academic classification were determined, according to studies conducted by students from the University of the Philippines. For the study, 258 people responded. 32% of the responders were men, and 68% were women. 42% of them were in the soft sciences, and 58% were in the hard sciences, based on their degree. According to their academic standing, 10% were freshmen, 36% were sophomores, 33% were juniors, and 21% seniors. If you are ready to make stress a smaller part of your life then here are some ways to lessen it

Stress can be a continuous part of life. That’s why it’s important to have some ways to reduce it, such as: stress-management courses and retraining courses, which can help prevent stress from building up too much. The more you try to reduce your stress levels by having knowledge about how to manage stress, the better you are at being able to live according to your own values and needs.

Meditate

Meditation is a powerful way to deal with stress in your daily life.

Write it Down

Writing a diary can be a very healthy practice for many people who are struggling with stress in their daily lives.

Go for a Walk

This is a tried-and-true means to calm down that many of us were told about by our parents or other adults growing up.

Take a Break from Social Media

Social media is not a healthy environment because a lot of people are toxic which will make you just more stressed and mad for the day.

Take a Bath

While this is not always the right solution for everyone, there is something so peaceful and relaxing about soaking in a tub of warm water and just resting your eyes and letting your thoughts drift.

Invest in a Hobby

Hobbies are more therapeutic than you think. Like playing games is your only escape from reality, making you have fun even just for a brief moment is nice every now and then.

Reason Not to Put Your Mental Health on the Back Burner

At times we can get so busy with our work that we put off taking care of ourselves. This can lead to an unhealthy lifestyle, where we are not getting enough exercise and end up focused on our daily task instead of ourselves. After all, it is widely established that exercise is both a must for a fulfilling life and a successful career. Exercise raises IQ, builds resilience in trying situations, and is frequently the difference between success and failure in achieving our goals.

The idea that people who consciously change one thing—for example, starting to exercise twice or three times a week—unconsciously change many other positive parts of their lives is supported by compelling research. One decision can have an impact on a number of different areas of your life, including choosing to eat more healthfully and obtaining enough sleep.

The most important thing you can do to maintain a healthy body and mind is to adhere to a thorough fitness program that includes at least 60% strength training exercises. It affects your looks, cognitive function, and quality of life in addition to your physical, mental, and emotional health. Never ever allow yourself to believe that putting in an extra hour of work each day would ever make up for this.

Why Everyone Can Benefit From Therapy

You can learn more about yourself and your path through therapy.

It offers insight on how these sentiments are influencing your day-to-day life or your relationships with family, friends, and coworkers and enables you to understand your feelings and problems from a different perspective.

Even if the circumstances aren’t life-altering, therapy can help you deal with your feelings or problems. Therapy can be helpful even if you don’t have a mental health diagnosis. You might desire to improve your self-esteem. Or perhaps you’re trying to figure out how to maximize your potential. You can get new perspectives on who you are and what’s holding you back in therapy. Therapy can be beneficial even when things are going well. One benefit is that it might assist you in putting an end to your worries so you can begin appreciating your good fortune.

Perhaps you believe that counseling is only necessary for “crazy” or “disturbed” people. The prospect of seeing a therapist may make you anxious. It’s possible that you don’t address a mental disease the same way you would a physical ailment because you feel ashamed of it. Alternatively, you may be concerned about what others will think of you.

You can take care of yourself by discussing your emotions. You are acting in your best interests, which is what it means. In fact, studies have revealed that verbalizing emotions can significantly alter the brain in a therapeutic way.

Sleep Quality and Mental Health: What the Data Says

Sleep and mental health are connected. Lack of sleep affects mental state and mental health. Also, people with mental health issues are more likely to suffer from insomnia and other sleep disorders.

Most people know that sleep affects their mental state. After all, there’s a reason why people in a bad mood say, “I woke up on the other side of the bed.”

After all, there is some truth behind this slang phrase. Sleep is closely linked to mental and emotional health, and has been shown to be associated with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other conditions.

Sleep and Certain Mental Health Issues

How sleep and mental health are intertwined becomes even clearer when we look at what is known about how sleep is associated with many specific mental health conditions and neurodevelopmental disorders. increase.

Both sleep and mental health are complex issues influenced by many factors, but given that they are closely related, it is clear that improved sleep can have a positive impact on mental health and contribute to many mental illnesses. There are strong reasons to believe that it is a therapeutic component.

It turns out that there’s quite a deal of truth in this idiom. Sleep is directly linked to mental and emotional well-being and has been linked to disorders including bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression among others.

Screen Time and Mental Health: The Chicken or The Egg

Today, as we know it, people’s lives are becoming more influenced by technology. Over two hours a day are spent in front of screens among children ages 0 to 8, and as of April 2022, there are five billion internet users worldwide, which is 63% of the global population. Of this total, 4.65 billion, or over 93%, are social media users. This begs the question: Does technology affect a person’s development? This is now a serious concern among many people as we are living in the digital age.

Different questions are arising, such as: does technology affect our mental health? Is constant access to screens and the Internet helping or hurting our mental health? Is it providing an added source of stress and anxiety? Or do people with poor mental health tend to lean more toward technology? As the metaphor goes, “the chicken or the egg” makes us question “technology and mental health.”

Technology is becoming more common in our daily lives, and the decrease in social interaction has started to become more serious. When children grow into adolescence and young adulthood, having at least a solid foundation of communicative skills is very important for their development of healthy relationships with other people.

But if screens are frequent in your life (or in your child’s life), such as a study showing that in the younger generations, 1 in 4 children now show delays and deficiencies when it comes to their language, communication, motor, and emotional development skills, more research is needed to manage and understand how technology impacts children during their crucial periods of growth and development

But we cannot truly determine whether it is beneficial or a risk that comes with a price when it comes to the usage of technology in our lives.

There is no problem if you use technology to connect with your family and friends or when accessing a mental health resource to help aid you in your needs. But do not make your life revolve around technology or compare your life with others on the Internet, as it may result in problems like poor self-esteem, which can affect your mental health.

It is also important to engage in social interaction face-to-face and connect with others regularly.

If we are conscious of how we use technology and limit the amount of screen time we spend each day, technology will be able to assist our psychological state instead of harming it.

The Best Mindfulness Apps for Stress Management

Aura. The user of this mindfulness software receives daily, three-minute-long micro-meditations. With a cutting-edge, user-friendly, and powerful meditation platform, Aura offers customers stress and anxiety relief. It was developed by some of the top-rated and most in-demand meditation instructors and therapists, and AI was used to tailor it. Users of Aura have the ability to create a gratitude book, monitor their moods throughout the day, and take in some natural noises. The ability to level up as you learn and complete daily challenges even turns meditation into a game. If you only have a small window of time during the day to practice your meditation, then this app might be ideal for you.

Breathe. The free Breethe software tracks users from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to sleep. It offers them encouraging resources and direction to assist them continue their daily meditation routines. It provides five-minute meditations as well as advice on how to handle stress, experience love, and live intentionally and with inner peace. It is a user-friendly tool that is completely customisable and may support your practice. With the new “My Place” feature in this app, the user has access to all of the app’s content and can create favorites, explore any new or well-liked features, and receive pertinent recommendations.

Buddhify. According to where you are in your day, meditation sessions on this mindfulness app are arranged by theme. It is well-known to be among the finest anxiety applications and is tailored to your specific needs, from waking up, driving, or taking a little break at work to managing stress or having difficulties sleeping. You can choose from more than 80 specially made meditations that have been made by subject-matter specialists. For those in the modern working environment who are constantly on the go, Buddhify is fantastic. Even after using it for more than three years, some users still regard this program as their favorite.

Calm. Your daily life will be filled with happiness, calm, and clarity thanks to this software. Millions of users concur that this software is excellent for mindfulness, meditation, and positively altering your life. Calm features some brief meditations that you can utilize during a hectic day, as well as the soothing sound of falling rain in the background. You can even opt to be greeted by a crackling fireplace, crickets, or something termed “celestial white noise.” This app’s users claim that it is definitely worth the money. It encourages you to maintain a regular meditation routine and enables you to pay more attention in your daily activities. During these turbulent times, people have discovered that this software produces astounding outcomes.

Ways You Can Help to End the Stigma about Mental Health Care.

Most people who live with mental illness have, at some point, been blamed for their condition. They’ve been referred to as “a phase”or something they can control” if they only tried.” They have been illegally discriminated against,with no justice. This is the unwieldy power that stigma holds.Stigma causes people to feel ashamed for something that is out of control. The worst part is that stigma keeps them from getting the assistance they require.

Educate Yourself And Others:The more you know about mental health conditions, the less likely you are to judge people who have them. Read books, articles, and watch documentaries about mental health to learn more about the different conditions that exist.

Start a conversation: The best way to challenge the stigma of mental illness is to start a conversation about it. Talk to your friends, family about your own experience with mental health, or listen to the stories of others

Challenge the myths about mental health: There are several myths and misconceptions about mental health conditions that contribute to stigma. We need to challenge these myths and educate people about real facts.

Change your language: Try not to use words like crazy, insane, or psycho when talking about people with mental health conditions. Instead,try saying something like “she has schizophrenia,”or “he is autistic.”

Be an ally: If you hear someone making a joke about mental health illness, don’t laugh. Instead, tell them that it’s not Ok to make jokes about people with mental health conditions. You could also point out the fact that many famous and successful people have been diagnosed with mental health conditions.

Speak out: If you see someone making a derogatory comment about mental health, speak up. Show that you don’t agree with the way they’re talking about mental health and explain why.

How Mental Health Comorbidities Impact Diagnosis and Treatment

Comorbidity, defined as the presence of two or more illnesses in a person at the same time, has become the norm rather than the exception in many fields of medicine, including psychiatry. Anxiety and sadness are only two examples of the numerous comorbid illnesses that affect mental health. According to some research, 60% of people who experience anxiety also exhibit signs of depression, and the percentages are comparable for people who experience depression and anxiety. implies that treating mental health comorbidity will be much more difficult and time-consuming, but not impossible.

References:

https://www.talkspace.com/blog/signs-you-need-a-mental-health-day/

https://www.memorycafedirectory.com/mentally-refresh-after-stressful-day/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295584175_Stressors_and_stress_responses_of_Filipino_college_students

https://www.thesciencebreaker.org/breaks/psychology/screen-time-and-developmental-delays-in-children-a-chicken-or-egg-problem

https://calabash.courses/article/chicken-vs-egg-social-media-vs-anxiety-and-depression

https://discoverymood.com/blog/how-does-screen-time-affect-mental-health/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPwYX6sjbHE

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/January-2018/The-Comorbidity-of-Anxiety-and-Depression

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-comorbidity-3024480

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321450