Now that we covered the topics of what is stress and its synonym as well as stressors and their synonym, it’s time to once again take a glimpse to a term shortly discussed in one of the previous articles.
This term is sound mental health.
You are now in a position to understand what does stress reffer to.
For many of you, unfortunately, living with stress is something you take for granted.
It is if it bacame a habit, a bad one, but still a habit.
You are probably aware of the need to break up with this bad habit.
Similarly as a smoker would like to stop smoking.
I say similarly, because smoking has a feature of addiction, while stress does not.
Also, the development of the addiction is, although many would argure, under the sole discrection of the user of the substance.
The development of stress, on the other side, is often dependable on the situation or events in our environment that act as stressors.
Stress arises only when our minds interpret is a being stressful.
Also, the other, even greater problem may be that you do not more remember how it is to live without stress.
Or better to say, how does sound mental health look like.
That is one of the main dangers of the modern life.
Mental issues, stress included, which arise from our try and often inability to cope with demands represent our silent killer.
Why silent? This is due to the fact that we are able to recognize only some of the issues that stress drags with itself.
The issues that we notice are psychological as well as physiological.
However, if the exposure to stress, as explained previously, is longer in term or higher in intensity, a lot more goes in the background.
Exactly the things that go in the background, which is strictly the field of medicine, carries the danger or serious medical issues.
Those medical issues can over time deprive us of our ability to function as a normal productive human beings.
That is the reason why sound mental health, as a condition we have to strive to achieve, need to get proper attention.
What is sound mental health?
We repeat that we have given you notice on sound mental health in one of previous articles.
However, we are now on the course of the further elaboration of that term.
Our sole aim here is to concentrate on the content of the term.
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Reach of the negative determination of sound mental health
In regard to stress, we would all prefer if it would simply go away.
That would be a step in the right direction fot the improvement of our mental health.
But, would that suffice?
Or should we strive to achieve a higher goal?
Not so long ago, a sound mental health would simply that you haven’t been diagnosed with some kind of mental dissability or disorder.
Well, times have changed and the pure absence of the aforementioned medical issues just means that you are on a good way to get one of those.
So, we cannot speak of sound mental health just based on this, although necessary, presumption.
Therefore, the reality asks us to go one step further.
Sound mental health is something you need to run up to and embrace it.
You have to do in a continuous manner.
That is how you draw closer to being a fulfilled person.
Positive affirmation of sound mental health
As we mentioned, the change of the view of the expert community regarding the question of sound mental health is rather a new occurence.
It is an encouraging development.
Science should always take into account how life an its requirements change and the difficulties that arise from this process.
The new trend emphasizes not only preservation, but also restoring mental health.
It does so on an individual basis, but also on the level of local, regional, national and global communities and societies.
It also recognizes that mental health is at risk regardless of age, sex, income or social status.
One of the moest interesting developments in this field regards the acknowledgement of the multidimensionality.
Multidimensionality pertains to the different possible sources from which a danger to our mental health may arrive.
Each dimension represents a group of factors that influence the quality of our lives.
It is vital to notice that sound mental health isn’t anything else than the successful keeping of balance between the different dimensions.
This, however gets harder and harder.
Also, it is always useful to have in mind that sound mental health does not necessarily mean being in the good mood and feeling happy most of the time.
Positive affirmation of the sound mental health takes into account the circumstance that we cannot protect ourselves from experiencing negative emotions which come with loss, life hardship and dissapointment.
Therefore, sound mental health requires an active approach.
It pressuposes the existence of action.
This means engaging in the activity that makes you feel productive, emotionally and intelectually.
Any activity which develops you in a way to build your self-esteem and self-respect keeps mental issues away.
These activities do not consist in anything demanding.
Some of the examples can be walking a dog, entering in a productive discussion with other people, hanging around with your friends, reading a book and so on.
It is up to any individual to find out what serves her or him the best.
I have named only the comfortable activities here.
It may come as a paradox to you, but these activities do not have to consist in something comfortable.
These examples may include sports, which may be hard and exhausting, some intellectually demanding work, as long as it does not become unproductive as well as standing up to protect some of your rights as a customer and citizen.
We are sure that you see the value also in this group of acitivities.
As long as it lets you grow, do not hurt you or people around us, they are desirable.
What comes as a result of such behaviour is building up of the capacity to act in a flexible manner.
Concretely, this means the ability to take on the hardships, to alternate our behaviour and change and general, which further enables our capability to adjust.
Capability to adjust, on the other hand enables us to take our emotions under control to employ our skills, abilities and resources to their full extent.
Flexibility and adjustment make us in position to confront with and then actively solve problems.
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Environment and sound mental health
A very important contributor to our overall sound mental health are the fulfilling relations we build and tend to keep with the persons in our surroundings.
Sound mental health implies sound relationships.
Such are the relationships from which we recieve support and affirmation that we matter and that we are of value just as we are.
The positive affirmation of sound mental health may really come to shine here.
As we said, the creation and keeping of sound relationships requires activity and engagement.
Sound relationships with people in our surroundings guarantee the reception of understanding and support in challenging times.
These help us get over the challenges in a successful manner.
Building sound relationships also means that we always have to be conscious of the other side of the coin.
This means to break up the relationships which causing to feel dissatisfied or hurt.
Regarding that, sound mental health implies also that we creae in environment of other people which are themselves of sound mental health.
In addition, a society which tends to be of mental health must head in the direction which leads to the respect or worship of the contribution of each of its members.
Sound mental health must be viewed as a fundament for the good functioning of every individual.
Moreover, it is a basis of a normal functioning of every society.
Therefore, every society or better to say the competent authorities in each society should invest in social and emotinal skills of its members.
It is vital to do that as early as possible, beacuse the positive impact of this skills acquired on the protection of sound mental health is likely to continue further on.
Sound mental health definition
Previous title show us clearly that sound mental health is not to be taken for granted.
We have seen how the absense on mental illness does not guarantee sound mental health.
We have also seen that sound mental health is also the responsibility of the community in which individual lives.
And lastly, we described that hte work on our mental health should be a continuous action and directed to developing our social and emotional skills.
In the end, these skills enable us to cope with some usually stressful situations and events.
And now, we may repeat the definition earlier given in one of ou previous articles.
But, I believe that you will read it differently now and may interpret it with a new meaning.
That is exactly what we wanted to achieve by the broad elaboration that paved the way to sound mental health definition.
This definition was given by the World Health Organisation that operates under the United Nations organisation.
Definition highlights all of the above mentioned factors.
It states that sound mental health represent a state of well-being.
This state enables an individual to realise the abilities and capablities she or he is equiped with.
Such realisation enables the individual to cope with stressful situations in life.
The ability to cope with such situations makes it possible for an individual to function in a productive manner.
Moreover, the sound mental health of the indvidual is a prerequisite for the ability to make a contribution to a community where she or he lives.
The role of sound mental health in overall health
It is appropriate to say that there is no overall health without mental health.
Even the ancient Greek and Romans had a saying “Healthy spirit in a healthy body.”
This highlights that the appropirate care of our physical bodies may largely contribute to our sound mental health.
Over the time, the way in societies function drastically changed.
Due to the growing demand our mental health is in ever higher risk of deteriorating.
The antient people, as we saw, noticed a link between a spirit and physical body.
But, it seems they pictured it as one way highway.
Today, we are more than aware that this link goes two ways.
Modern medicine and psychology also concluded that there may not be a healthy body if our mental health is in bad shape.
Previous article just scratched the gravity of the problems that may arise to our physical health is we suffer from a certain mental illness.
Stress, especially if chronic can contribute to all kind of health problems, with long term consequences.
Conclusion
Sound mental health is a complex term.
It is even more complex in practise.
All of us have a reponsibility to cultivate our mental health.
It is a responsibility to ourself and our communities.
To us it is the same as brushing your teeth or taking a shower regularly.
We saw that a community has a great role in keeping the sound mental health of its members.
This requires a social climate that protects and respects the basic human, social-economic, political and human rights.
The absence of the security and freedom ever community and society should guarantee makes it impossible to speak about sund mental health.
Now, it is time for us to see how stress manifests and how do stressors influence our optimal functioning in the major areas in our lifes.
I f you had some trouble understanding any part of this article or the terms used, feel free to comment.
In any case, do not forget to get your Anti-stress app to guarantee you sound mental health.