Think about it, your mental health affects every aspect of your life. If you aren’t coping and feeling overhwelmed, you can’t do your job as efficiently as normal, you may not be interacting with your partner/boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse as well as you could and you may generally be less accommodating and tolerant of others if your mental health isn’t good.

When I think about how the world would be different if mental health was more of a priority, it amazes me that more funding isn’t funnelled into mental health services

Would you rather lose an arm or lose your mind?

Not a great choice but a good illustration of just how important a healthy mind is to us. If you lose your mind (consider dementia) you lose the essence of you. You are just a shell of your former self – there in body but not in mind. You lose your identity, you lose your memories and you lose your ability to interact with loved ones and take care of yourself – far more severe disabilities than losing a limb.

Less divorce

I truly believe that if people were more edcuated on how to behave in relationships there would be fewer divorces. When people are mentally healthy, they behave in ‘adult mode’ rather than in ‘child mode’ and this increases the likelihood of success in a relationship. When we know how to respond to another, how to listen and not play mind games we fare far better than if we are passive-aggressive and use dysfunctional behaviour to get our own way. mentally healthy people, in general, are more reasonable and have more empathy for others which bodes well for relationship longevity.

Less crime and hate

Hate crime abounds in this world, an”us and them” mentality exists. If we were more mentally healthy as a planet we would show more tolerance and kindness. When you are happy you dont wish bad on others. There are many haters on social media trolls and this hatred they spew comes from an inner unhappiness. When you are mentally healthy, you are better able to deal with that inner anger and frutration byt using grounding techniques, increased self awareness, self compassion and other strategies to dissapare the inner toxic energy. In this chaotic world, many deal with their inner anger and frustration at the world by attacking others. This does nothing but create more animosity in an already stressed-out world.

Less cruelty

I’ll repeat, mentally healthy people show more kindness and tolerance to others. They treat animals well. They treat those less fortunate than themselves well and they do not act entitled or superior. They have no reason to because they are happy in their own skin. Look, we are all human and we all make mistakes but as a rule, mentall healthy people know how to deal with inner negativity, not allowing it to become toxic. They also deal with issues rather than blaming others or playing the victim. When you do this, you never really deal with the underlying issues.

People would cope better with stress, be more resilient

Mentall healthy people have great inner resources. They know not to sweat the small stuff and they know themselves well. They can usually tell when they are not coping and do something about it. They don’t consider it weak to talk to someone else or seek out professional counselling. In fact, they see this service as vital in their quest to stay balanced and mentally healthy.

Better parenting

Mentally healthy people do not take out their frustrations on their children. They are fair and reasonable and do whatever they can to bring up children who are confident with healthy self esteem. Enlightened parents know how much they can make-or-break their children by the way they treat them. Mentally healthy parents have a higher likelihood of enjoying mentally healthy grown up children one day.

Less suicides

Again, mentally healthy people can cope with stress better than those who are mentally unwell. They know what strategies to use and they know not to act when they feel emotional. They have the ability to wait and put off instant gratification. They have patience. Suicides are in part, a product of a broken society. More than half of adults apparently report feeling lonely. What a tragedy in a world that is overpopulated.

More productivity at work

Being mentally healthy leads to less absenteeism at work and better coping skills to deal with bullies at work and office politics. Less absenteesim leads to increased work production and higher profits for companies – a win win situation. Thankfully, many corporations are waking up to this and providing employees with mental health assistance in the form of Employee Assistance programmes. Sadly though, many corporations do this as a ‘tick box’ exercise without really making a proper effort and as a result the employee assistance programme exists but isn’t that effective. Very few organisations actually measure employee satisfaction once they have employed the services of mental health assistance. This is vital and rarely done in the form of psychometrics.

Better work/life balance and priorities

Mentally healthy people are more willing to see life as an adventure. They tend to be more optimistic and less driven by fear. They have an ability to focus on what works for them rather than what doesn’t work for them and not engage in self sabotaging behaviour. Mental wellness does wax and wane – we can’t all be expected to behave mentally well all the time. We are all susceptible to stress and to feeling overwhelmed. The main message in this post is just that if we had more access to mental wellness services, perhaps also teaching this stuff in schools, people would have more emotional reseverves and skills to cope with this tricky world.

From what I see happening in the world around me, we need all the help we can get.

Mandy X

Photo by Matthew Ball on Unsplash

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Photo by Natasha Spencer on Unsplash

Author: Mandy Kloppers

Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.