Mental Health is no small matter. While we know how important physical health is, the importance of mental health is often ignored until negligence starts to create problems.
In the West, physical health is paid attention to. “A healthy body creates a healthy mind”. In the East, the philosophy is totally different. They believe that is the mind that has control over the body.
62% of American adults and 38% of children suffer from some form of mental health issues. Often, the symptoms are so mild that they are overlooked. And one day someone just shoots up a school.
If the importance of mental health is ignored, more is bound to happen. The scary part is that these people are the ones that lead the nation, sit in the Pentagon, and make important business decisions in the boardrooms.
This article does not suggest that all of them are psycho-killers, but the mild-natured effect is felt throughout.
Why is Mental Health Important?
It is because mental health can affect our overall life and the others around us. It is the key to a healthy society full of love, compassion, flexibility, openness, and understanding. Left unchecked, the opposite becomes true, and we have a society full of rigidity, fear, rage, and defensiveness.
You can see the manifestation of fear and defensiveness everywhere. We build big walls around our homes, we put up “No Trespassing Signs”, and CCTV cams are everywhere. And there will be more.
J. Krishnamurti once said a very interesting thing. “We want the society or the nation to come up with more laws, efficient policies, and fair and honest social systems. As if that will create a harmonious life for all of us. Yet, we do not care about the man. If the man is mentally corrupt and introduced to the most harmonious society in the world, the society will slowly get corrupted.”
The opposite is also true. It can be the most corrupt society in the world, but if the man in it is mentally healthy, they will start to create a harmonious society in no time.
And that is why mental health is so important.
How to Find out If you are Mentally Unhealthy?
There are a few distinguishable signs. As mentioned earlier, the symptoms can be very mild so you must pay attention to yourself. They are not mental illnesses per se. So there’s no need to be alarmed and seek professional help. However, detecting them earlier can prevent major breakdowns.
Here are 3 signs that tell you if you may have the potential for mental illness in the future:
1. Unacceptability
Human lives are not supposed to be perfect. Just imagine. If you had a perfect life, you would not move out of your bed. Bad things often happen so we have the opportunity to DO something about it.
When you accept that you are hungry, you create delicious foods. There’s a whole culinary industry built around the fact that we get hungry. I have personally tried a couple of great chefs and I have to say that they are amazing. Now imagine if you never get hungry.
Therefore, by nature, even the most well-thought-out plans can go wrong. It isn’t anybody’s fault. It’s just the way it is.
You are mentally unhealthy if you realize that you cannot accept it when things go wrong. You may look for someone to blame. Sometimes you blame yourself. Also, you may blame God for punishing you.
All of those are signs of mental issues. Unacceptability can lead to rage, anger, depression, and anxiety later on.
2. Rigidity
Rigidity may be a result of fear. Unfortunately, fear is one of the most natural and primordial emotions. There’s no way to avoid it. Yet, if fear leads to rigidity, it is a clue to mental issues.
For example, you placed your hand on a stove and burned your finger. You should be cautious about it. You should also teach your children about it. But you cannot protect your children forever. One way or another, they will bur their fingers and learn their own lessons.
However, if you shout at them or ground them into their rooms every time they are near a burning stove, that is a sign of mental issues. As a parent, it would be the kindest thing to do to expose the children to the world as fast as possible instead of trying to protect them from it.
Openness or flexibility to life with all its good and bad is the only way to prevent rigidity. This also improves adaptability in humans.
3. Cowardice
Although it looks different, it is a derivative of the first two (Unacceptability and Rigidity). If you cannot accept a problem, you tend to run away from it instead of facing it. A human being is endowed with the ability to think and act.
If you are in trouble, and you accept it and are open to it, you would also be able to get yourself out of it. Rigidity and unacceptability will cause you to react poorly to a bad situation. You may run away from your problems instead of facing them head-on.
The result of cowardice can be catastrophic. These are the people who develop social anxiety, loss of self-confidence, and suicidal behavior.
What to Do about it?
As mentioned earlier, these are not really mental illnesses that require professional help. These are early signs. According to Carl Jung, we all have a dark side. Instead of being an enemy to it, we should try to accept it and that gives us the power to control it.
You may have already guessed from our discussion that all you have to do to be mentally healthy is to introduce the opposites- Acceptability, Flexibility, and Bravery. Here are a few things you can do for better mental health.
- Spend 15 minutes a day, especially at night before going to sleep, trying to find if you felt unacceptability, rigidity, or cowardice towards a person or a situation.
- Review the situation/s mentally and correct them (imagine how it should happen) without being an enemy to it. Remember that things may not happen the way you want on the outside, but on the inside, you can fix them. For example, a friend or colleague did not behave the way you want to, and you felt anger. Accept the anger. Do not resist it. Be fully angry, and then instead of being an enemy to it or judging it, you may fix it in your mind. Imagine how your friend should have behaved.
- Be done with it. Once you have accepted and corrected the situation mentally, be done with it. Make sure you are done with the negative situations every day before going to bed. Do not let it fester. If 15 minutes is not enough, take an hour but do not sleep without mentally correcting every situation.
- If you are a parent, teach your children those as early as possible. This is where the old tradition of prayer before bedtime originated. Only, instead of a few generic words, which the children really don’t mean, you can introduce this self-reflection process where the problems of every day are dissolved completely before sleep.
These simple practices with save a lot of trouble later in therapy and medications. We have seen people who are looking for where to buy Valium online, and thanks to the internet, it is very possible to buy Valium online without prescriptions.
You do not have to go through it if you understand why mental health is important.