Mental healthcare has been at the forefront of social media, and most of our lives in the past decade. It is a topic of growing significance in today’s world. More and more people recognize the importance of not just taking care of our physical body but of our mind as well. Here is a brief explainer on mental health, and what you need to understand about it.
Understanding Mental Health
Mental health is the state of a person’s, emotional, psychological, and social well-being. In the past, it hasn’t been given much attention, but now we as a society have slowly opened up to addressing mental health issues and normalizing them. We now know that our mental states are as important as having a healthy body.
The Evolution of Mental Healthcare
Although there have been many questionable practices in the past, we have reached a place, where we have learned from our mistakes and developed many new ways of dealing with mental health issues that are not harmful. The shift towards a more compassionate approach started in the middle of the 20th century and began with a focus on community-based care and destigmatization.
The Importance of Mental Healthcare
Physical and mental health connection
Our minds are just a part of our body. Research has shown that mental health and physical health are interconnected. When we are neglecting one or the other, we don’t feel holistically well.
Quality of life
Having good mental health enhances our quality of life. It lets us enjoy things that make us happy, pursue our personal goals, and create meaningful relationships.
Productivity and success
A good state of mind is important for success and productivity. When we feel good, mentally, we can pursue our goals, better, work, more effectively, study, well, and do good in many aspects of our lives.
Reducing stigma
Accessible and open mental healthcare helps fight the stigma around having mental health issues. In today’s age, we are slowly becoming open to the idea that mental health issues are a normal thing that most of us go through at some point in our lives. We still have a long way to go to achieve total destigmatization, but we have come this far at least.
Social media and the pandemic really took a toll on everyone’s mental health. Being confined in one space for a long period of time made us all anxious, depressed, and many other things concerning our state of mind. But it has also raised awareness and a collective thinking that we are not alone in what we are feeling. Social media really helped a lot of people make connections virtually. Now that we are shrugging off the last effects of the pandemic, it has made us more compassionate and understanding of people who have mental health issues.
As we move forward, mental healthcare should be at the forefront of our priorities as a society. there are still barriers. We need to break for fully accessible mental healthcare. It’s still very costly to go to a professional and seek help, and there are still some people who are not open to the idea of having mental health issues. But community and a good support system or the keys to combat the stigma, and we need to think collectively of ways on how we can help ourselves and those around us.