Achieving Positive Mental Health
So why
do so many people wait until they develop a mental illness before taking steps
to improve their mental and emotional well-being?
Media
images portray physical fitness as sexy, a worthy pursuit for people with self-discipline
and high self-esteem. In contrast, learning to deal with emotions and improve
one's mental health is viewed as an indication of weakness, something only a
sick person needs to do.
These
widely held views prevent people from achieving positive mental health and
increasing their resistance to mental illness, according to the Canadian Mental
Health Association.
According
to Canadian and American statistics, one in five people has a mental illness at
any given time. Moreover, people with low self-esteem are up to three times
more likely to experience depression than people with healthy self-esteem, according
to a study by Statistics Canada. Men and women under constant stress are almost twice as
likely to develop depression as their less-stressed counterparts, the study
concludes.
These
findings show the logic of prevention programs and ongoing activities aimed at
maintaining positive mental health. Examples include stress reduction programs,
activities that help children build self-esteem and community events that are
accessible to members of society who may feel isolated such as seniors or
people with disabilities.
In order
to reduce the impact of mental illness, Canadians need to learn what positive
mental health is and how to achieve it. Health professionals have a variety of
definitions for mental and emotional well-being, but the consensus is that
mental fitness is more than just the absence of illness.
The two
qualities that appear most often in definitions of well-being are resiliency
 the ability to rebound from life's setbacks  and empowerment which
means having a sense of control over one's life whether one lives in an
institution or in the community.
An
important aspect of resiliency is learning how to cope with different situations.
It is especially valuable to model good coping skills for children, so that
they are better equipped to meet life's demands without their mental health
suffering. Modelling good coping skills, and moderate and appropriate use of
substances is an effective way of communicating to young people and improving
their resiliency.
When
Aaron Antonovsky studied survivors of Nazi concentration camps, he noticed that
some were in remarkably good health and had coped relatively well with their
horrific experiences. To explain this, he theorized that people with a healthy
outlook on life are more able to cope successfully with trauma and stress. He
defined a healthy outlook (or a sense of coherence) as the extent to which
people feel that life is meaningful, manageable and comprehensible. Since many
people with mental illness find meaning in life and excel in many
circumstances, they, too, can strive for and achieve empowerment and
positive mental health.
The idea
that health extends beyond the physical person is not new in other parts of the
world. Many cultures do not differentiate between mental illness and physical
illness. For example, Asian and African cultures, which tend to view health
issues more holistically, consider any illness as a sign that the person's
overall being is out of balance. In fact, some African cultures treat the whole
community when a person has an illness, believing that if the person is sick,
the community is sick.
These
ideas are gradually emerging in Western medicine as well, says the CMHA. The
mental health community considers both the individual and his or her
experiences within a larger context that includes the immediate family, the
workplace and the broader ecological, social and economic environments.
Ten Steps to Mental Health
-
Build a healthy self-esteem
- Learn to manage stress effectively
- Acknowledge and express your emotions
- Make friends who count
- Develop positive family relationships
- Create a reasonable budget and live within your means
- Learn to enjoy nutritious foods and regular exercise
- Create strategies to cope with changes that affect you
- Get involved in your community
- Have a spirituality to call your own
Source: Canadian Mental Health
Association
Do You Have Positive Mental Health?
People
with positive mental health are:
-
authentic: live in the here and now, respond
to people and events in a genuine way
-
realistic: know the difference between what
they can and cannot change
-
in the driver's seat: take steps to control what they can
change and take responsibility for their actions and feelings
-
open to experience: willing to experience both their
internal and external realities accurately and fully even if it means dealing
with grief, anger or frustration
-
capable of intimacy: are able to give and receive love
and share their feelings with others
-
accepting of others: gauge people by their individual
merits and not according to race, sex, age or economic background
-
balanced in their reactions: able to lead as well as follow,
judge as well as empathize
-
able to enjoy life: take pleasure in family, community,
work and leisure without expecting perfection
-
self-accepting: feel good in their own skin, like
themselves and have a sense of being worthwhile
Source: Dr. Ian Pike
If you
have any questions regarding this issue, you can always contact Professional
Counselling Resources for more information. You can call us at 1-800-481-5511 or visit our look at our website at www.walmsley.ca
Information in this FACT Sheet has been used by kind
permission of the members of the "Here to Help" website: www.heretohelp.bc.ca