Good mental health
Mental health is something most of us take for granted, at least until someone we care about struggles with a mental health disorder.
Depression, extreme anxiety and other serious mental illnesses affect more of us than you would think. Twenty percent of Canadians will personally experience some form of mental illness. Mental health issues can strike suddenly or creep up on you. Youth, seniors and people in their prime are at risk – there’s no age discrimination.
I don’t mean for this to be a downer entry amidst my usually upbeat blog posts. I just believe that too many of us fool ourselves into thinking that we’re superhuman, so we suppress or ignore signs, thoughts and behaviours pointing to our mental health burdens. We pay attention when other body parts tell us we’ve stretched beyond the limit, yet we neglect our noggins. Fear, shame, denial, exhaustion and countless other emotions can impede our ability to judge if we’re mentally fit or not.
Even if you’re convinced you have exceptional mental health, why not take stock of your current state. I promise it won’t take long. Just complete the brief, anonymous online mental health metre, provided by the Canadian Association of Mental Health (CAMH).
Answer the questions honestly (there are no right answers) and you’ll see an objective assessment of your mental health, ranging from your degree of self-actualization, your resilience levels, the scale of flexibility you exhibit, your ability to enjoy life, and the amount of balance in your life.
If the metre points to areas worthy of mental health improvements, then try out a few activities from the CAMH mental health fitness list. Reach out to friends, hotlines or professionals and be good to yourself. After all, we can each benefit from paying attention to our mental health.
If you improve upon—even if it’s by baby steps—and appreciate your personal mental fitness, then that’s
AWESOME!
If you support and foster the mental health of family, friends, colleagues and even strangers, then consider yourself dubbed
ESPECIALLY AWESOME!
Kudos to my mom, who throughout her career as a psychiatric nurse, has helped countless mental health patients, both in hospitals and out in the community. For this post, I’ll refer to her by the following title: HER AWESOMENESS ELLIE.
[Many of you ask why I choose to write about particular topics. Before you jump to conclusions that this post is about anyone in particular, I wrote about good mental health given that tomorrow, September 10th, is World Suicide Prevention Day. Please take steps to stay or become mentally healthy, one and all.]
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