What exactly is a mental health? According to The World Health Organization (WHO), “mental health is a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stress of life”
Basically, mental health is a person’s condition regarding to their emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It can also affect the way we think, feel, and act.
Why is it so important?
Mental health is as important as physical health, it is something that we develop ever since childhood through adulthood. Even so, most people still belittle the importance of good and or stable mental health for a person. Poor mental health can lead to poor physical health or harmful behaviours. If someone’s mental condition is at a very low state, then it can surely affect their physical health. Furthermore, it can also develop into a mental illness. Mental illness can involve changes in your mood, thinking, and behaviour. Some examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc.
Youth mental health
Most people these days that have experience mental illness are usually young people, like teenagers. Many of them suffer from it and have no courage to speak about it, with the fear of getting criticize by other people. Thereby a lot of news about teenagers harming themselves and even committing suicide.
A study conducted in UK that used reliable national databases to look at trends in reports of self-harm among young people aged 10 to 19 since 2001. It found annual rates of Self-harm of 37 per 10,000 girls and 12.3 per 10,000 boys. Despite some media speculation, the study didn’t explore the reasons behind these trends. It could be that due to greater awareness of the help available, more teenagers are willing to report self-harming.
A CDC study examined mental health symptoms in four different U.S. school districts during 2014–2018. Based on teacher and parent reports, about 1 in 6 students had enough behavioural or emotional symptoms and impairment to be diagnosed with a childhood mental disorder; rates varied among the different sites. Schools, communities, and healthcare providers can use this information to plan for the healthcare and school service needs of children and adolescents with mental disorders.
In 2015 Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan Kesehatan (Balitbangkes) of Ministry Of Health of Republic of Indonesia found that 650 among 10.300 students from all of the province in Indonesia have suicidal thought.
What should we do?
Mental illness can also be caused by childhood trauma, and if it doesn’t get treated immediately, it will progressively become worse. Even so, there are ways to prevent someone from worsening their mental conditions, such as:
- Talk about your feelings
- Eat and drink properly
- Take a break
- Ask for help if something is bothering you, or pressuring you
- Seek a professional help when things become too much for you to handle
- Do something that can help boost your energy, etc
It is not a joke when it comes to maintaining your mental and physical health. Both has an important role in our live, usually, most people would only focus on maintaining their physical health, without giving a care about their mental health.
As you can see, mental health have an important role in our lives, this actively demonstrates that we have to keep our it in checked.
Contributor : Anabella Patricia Buhis (DKV)
