While medicine and popular culture are almost singularly preoccupied with physical health, mental health has sadly been neglected, often going invisible apart from an unfortunate stigma whereby seeking help is considered a weakness. Even positive initiatives are at times poorly executed, with a sometimes zealous desire to diagnose with reduced attention to accuracy. With this in mind, the following are reasons why you need to start focusing on your mental health.
Stress Management
The first reason why you need to start focusing on your mental health is that it affects the way you deal with stress. Stress in some form or another is nearly unavoidable in one’s life, and how we deal with it makes a world of difference in terms of our quality of life and overall ability to function. Focusing on your mental health helps you become more mindful and aware of yourself and your responses to the stresses you encounter throughout a given day, allowing you to properly process and resolve stresses as they come rather than bottling them up so that they take an insidious toll on your life. While we can’t control the reality and inevitability of stress in our lives, we can cultivate healthy coping mechanisms like hobbies and socialization and create a balanced way of life in order to handle it better and even come out on top.
Mental Health is Physical Health
The second reason why you need to start focusing on your mental health is that, contrary to public misconception and Cartesian dualism, it is not separate from and indeed influences your physical health. Physical ailments and injuries can alter mood, exacerbate anxiety, and lower motivation, for example, while a poor mental state caused by something like clinical depression can manifest as physical symptoms like insomnia, fatigue, and reduced pain tolerance. Thus it can be seen that mental and physical health interconnect cyclically, and therefore being self-aware is important to distinguish whether a mental health issue is triggering a physical response or vice versa.
Social & Familial Relationships
The third reason why you need to start focusing on your mental health is that it could affect social and familial relationships. Mental health conditions like depression can cause you to retreat inward in an attempt to self-diagnose or conserve what’s left of your energy. This results in social and emotional withdrawal from family and friends, which can adversely affect you, them, and their relationships with you as they try to understand what’s going on and help you as best they can, in some cases being inadvertently toxic. The remedy to this problem is communication and remaining upfront with those you care about with your emotions and concerns so that everyone can work together and support each other effectively.
Motivation
The fourth reason why you need to start focusing on your mental health is that it could affect your motivation. Motivation, like other things in life, is something that varies. On some mornings you may wake up feeling refreshed and invigorated, ready to take on the day. On others, you may have no desire to get out of bed or do anything at all. This can be normal from time to time, but if it is a persistent feeling that negatively affects your ability to function with society and with yourself, it could be an indicator of a mental health issue and the right time to address it.
Self-perception & Self-esteem
The fifth and final reason why you need to start focusing on your mental health is that it affects the perception we have of ourselves. Those with healthy self-esteem and full-spectrum CBD oil can maintain an almost unshakeable sense of self-worth at their core and see themselves as people with intrinsic value deserving of positivity. As a result, such people usually take good care of themselves physically and emotionally, allowing them to manage in a sometimes difficult and uncertain world. However, mental health issues can distort one’s very core self-image, causing him or her to obsess over perceived flaws, feel overwhelmed, and misinterpret innocuous or friendly social interactions as threatening. This can significantly impact that person’s performance at work and in society as well as self-perception.
Mental health is as important as any other, and it is not too late nor is it a weakness to seek help for you or for loved ones.
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.
