The following article was written by Tieara LeeAnn.
What is the difference between mental health and mental illness? Let’s talk about it.
What is Mental Health?
What affects you psychologically? Mental health involves learning your limits and setting boundaries. Once I learned about our society’s problems with mental health, I found out that it is simply the key to wholeness. Two of the factors to wholeness are your emotional and mental well-being. Staying within my own means of happiness is crucial to balancing your emotional and mental health. I do not allow others (or things outside of my control) to control me. You have to train your mind to problem-solve with positivity rather than spiraling with negative thoughts.
Never overlook the power of your mind. It can make you or break you. We need mental health to prevent mental illness.
Poor Mental and Emotional Hygiene Can Cause Mental Illness
Let’s say you just experienced a breakup from a five-year relationship. The relationship went left after you found out your partner was being unfaithful. All of the emotions and frustration from the devastating breakup caused you to feel sad, you sank into a dark place, unable to get out of bed or get dressed like usual.
The best thing to do in that case is find someone who can support you – for instance, a therapist or close, trustworthy friend. By taking those measures, you are promoting mental health. But what if you didn’t take those measures and find someone to talk to? What if you allowed that situation to get the best of you? In that case, you’re allowing the emotions that stem from that event to control your thoughts. Those emotions can then cause mental disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or substance abuse.
Foster a Healthy Mind
Taking care of your mind should be fun and exciting. Why is there such a stigma behind great mental hygiene (taking care of your mind)? Each season causes different outcomes. One day, you may be happy. Another day, you may wake up feeling a total mess. Neither situation is wrong or inherently poor mental hygiene. What matters is that you have the right tools to cope.
Mental health is to your mind as physical health is to your body. And mental illness is only the aftermath of not taking proper procedures to get back on track.
Article written by Tieara LeeAnn. Follow her on Instagram at @tiearaleeann.
