Our world is on the verge of being more mentally unstable than ever. With years of ignorance of mental health concerns, India is possibly facing a mental health epidemic. The theme for World Mental Health Day, 2022 is “Make Mental Health and well-being for all a global priority.” The Child Help Foundation strives by the word that Mental Health is at the core of our survival and security. It does not end at acknowledging that mental illness exists but goes beyond to resolve and realize that we may also be one of them. Thus, sensitivity and active work toward healing is the priority.

It is important to bring to the fore the mental health concerns that are common among us and not yet worked upon. Anxiety, Stress, and Eating Disorders are not just problems, they are inherently affecting our mental stability, productivity, relationships, parenting, and physical health.

Statistically, India has one of the highest prevalences of mental illnesses globally. Marking the tentatively reported cases, 56 million Indians suffer from depression and 38 million suffer from an anxiety disorder. Quoting the successful suicidal rates, every year about 200000 Indians take their lives.

As per the current trends, children are more at risk of carrying mental health illnesses because of the baggage of years of denial. We find children, adolescents, and young adults dealing with unstable home environments, violence and abuse in close relationships, scarcity of resources to seek help, financial distress, and insecure parenting. Evidently, these are the surface-level problems that can be tracked to actively work upon from a mental health provider's point of view.

5 ways to enhance your mental health management:

1. Identify and associate with what you are going through:

We have been brought up in a culture where it is very common to disregard our emotional needs and suppress them deep down in order to fit in. However, it does not go well in the long run as it spills out either in our work life in the form of stagnation or in our relationships in the form of abuse. Thus, to healthily deal with issues, it’s important to be in touch and aware of our feelings and the causes of our suffering.

2. Enable Communication among each other:

The feeling of belonging to a group or a family comes from conversation and communication. We often catch ourselves talking about a lot of things other than the real problem that concerns us. Practice communicating about yourself in your closed circles to stay in touch with your personal issues and behaviors.

3. Share emotions with your loved ones:

As humans, most of us go through similar feelings in our day-to-day living and those in major life transitions. With restricted and unshared lives with our parents, family, and friends, we are more likely to feel alone and left out amidst our suffering. Thus, sharing life in its raw form will ease the process of making it through difficult situations.

4. Prioritize your needs and self-care:

One’s mental health can be aided by serving one’s own needs and inculcating self-care habits. In a collectivistic culture, we are often wired to prioritize others’ demands over significant concerns. It traps us into a loop of unfulfilled expectations and puts us under immense stress and pressure to find fulfillment in the wrong places. It is recommended that we indulge in 1 hour of self-care activity by prioritizing to fulfill our mental and emotional needs.

5. Seek affordable therapy:

Mental health awareness has been on the peak of its rise in the past few years. It is important to note that an individual is equipped to feel their suffering but not to recognize the concern. In the plight of living in a strenuous and hustled environment, one should always seek therapy to be able to manage their mental well-being. It eliminates the risk of suppressed traumas and spills over physical health issues.

Listed here are some of the organizations that provide affordable therapy:

Mindpeers https://mindpeers.co/

Manntalks https://www.manntalks.org/

Elixir https://www.elixirhelps.in/

Our health goals cannot be met without considering the parameters of mental stability. In the absence of the right directives and knowledge, we tend to fall back upon unhealthy patterns of destructive behaviors. Thus, it’s unarguably necessary to cater to the importance of its impact on individual and social living and create a healthy space for all of us.

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