Mental Health

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well being. It affects how we think, feel and act. It also determines how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important in every stages of our life, right from childhood to adolescence and through adulthood.

Over the course of our life, we may experience mental health problems,our thinking, mood and behavior could be affected. Many factors contribute to mental health problems like

• Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry
• Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse
• Family history of mental health problems

1. Physical health and mental health are closely associated and it is proved beyond doubt that depression leads to heart and vascular diseases
2. Mental disorders also affect persons health behaviour like eating sensibly, regular exercise, adequate sleep, engaging in safe sexual practices, alcohol and tobacco use, adhering to medical therapies thus increasing the risk of physical illness.
3. Mental ill health also leads to social problems like unemployment, broken families, poverty, drug abuse and related crime.
4.  Poor mental health plays a significant role in diminished immune functioning.
5. Medically ill patients with depression have worse outcome than those without.
6. Chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer, heart disease increases the risk of depression.

STIGMA
Anyone who has been affected with mental health issues or the one who is in mental health field can tell you despite the advances in medical field and psychiatry , still there is a stigma attached to mental health. People go to physicians so regularly but fail to visit a psychologist or a psychiatrist even if they have mental health issues.
Stigma is when someone views you in a negative way because you have a distinguishing characteristic or personal trait that's thought to be, or actually is, a disadvantage (a negative stereotype).

The stigma attached with mental health can be of two types

• Social Stigma, which involves the prejudiced attitudes that others have around mental illness
• Self Perceived Stigma, which involves internalized stigma that the person with mental illness suffers from.

Stigma can lead to discrimination. Discrimination may be obvious and direct, such as someone making a negative remark about your mental illness or your treatment. Or it may be unintentional or subtle, such as someone avoiding you because the person assumes you could be unstable, violent or dangerous due to your mental illness. You may even judge yourself.

MENTAL HEALTH IN INDIA

Mental Health is linked to behavior and seen as fundamental to physical health and quality of life.

India is currently home to a population of over one billion citizens. A study conducted by the World Health Organization in 2015 shows that one in five Indians may suffer from depression in their lifetime, equivalent to 200 million people.

Due to the stigma associated with mental illness, a lack of awareness, and limited access to professional help, only 10-12% of these sufferers will seek help.

CONCLUSION

The belief that talking about mental health issues is attention seeking is root cause of the stigma. People die in silence and fear to reach out because of this judgment. Let’s talk about mental health and not leave until it’s too late.

We are entering 2020; let’s join hands to break the Stigma