10 top tips for mental health

10 top tips for mental health

In this article, we will describe 10 top tips for mental health.

1. How do you define mental health?

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

2. What is the WHO definition of mental health?

The WHO defines normal mental health as “a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders.”

Over the course of your life, if you experience mental health problems, your thinking, mood, and behaviour could be affected.

3. Factors affecting mental health

Mental health problems are usually multifactorial, caused by:

• Biological factors – such as genes or brain chemistry
• Environmental (life) factors/events – such as trauma/abuse, and recreational drugs/alcohol
• Family history – of mental health problems.

These three groups are not really separate. For example, your genes could give you an increased likelihood of mental health disease. But your family’s own mental health illnesses (partly because of common genes), could affect your mood.

4. How common are mental health problems?

Mental health problems are very, very common.

A fifth of men (20%) and a third of women (33%) have had diagnoses for mental health conditions confirmed by professionals, like depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and panic disorders.

And over 7 million people in the UK are taking anti-depressant tablets (17% of population). It is the largest single cause of disability.

5, What are the 4 types of mental health problem?

There are 4 main types of mental health problem:

1. Mood disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder)
2. Anxiety (or ‘neurotic’) disorders
3. Personality disorders
4. Psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia).

6. Cultural differences

Cultural norms and social expectations also play a role in defining mental health disorders. There is no standard measure across cultures to determine whether a behaviour is normal or when it becomes disruptive. What might be normal in one society may be a cause for concern in another.

This does not mean mental illness does not exist as it it is defined by being different from ‘what is normal’ locally. For example, severe depression and schizophrenia are diseases, and similar in all cultures.

7. Outlook for mental health disorders

Most mild-moderate mental disorders are treatable and get getter – often completely. But people with severe mental disorders die 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population,

8. Self-harm and suicide

• About 1 in 15 people in England self-harm
• About 1 in 15 people in England attempt suicide.

45-to-49 years have the highest age-specific suicide rate (24.1 male and 7.1 female deaths per 100,000).

9. Mental health and work

Upto 15% of all sickness absence days in the UK are due to mental health conditions.

10. Loneliness

25% of people in England, approximately 14 million adults, say they feel lonely at least some of the time.

Summary

We have described 10 top tips for mental health. We hope it has been helpful.

Mental health problems are very common, and range from loneliness and ‘minor’ self-harm, to psychotic illness. The causes are usually multifactorial. There is a lot you (and the NHS) can do. Most people with mental health problems get better, and many recover completely.

Last Reviewed on 7 May 2024