What is mental health? By dictionary definition, mental health is the overall condition of a person's emotional and psychological well-being. It is an important aspect of a person's life. Our emotional well-being is as important as physical health because it affects our ability to function. Mental health isn’t just the way a person feels, and it can affect how we interact with the world around us, view others and ourselves.

Take for example someone with a broken arm. The last thing someone would say to that person, is that their arm isn’t broken. So why do people do the same thing with mental health? Just because you cannot physically see an MRI scan or physical evidence, does not mean their condition is non-existent. Because just like with the broken arm, a person with depression still deserves treatment. They may not be in the same condition (as a broken arm is a physical condition, while depression is a mental condition), but both deserve attention and care. Without care symptoms can get worse. So it is important to treat mental health and physical care similarly, in the sense that they are not undermined or left untreated.

Therefore a person's emotional wellbeing isn’t just a person's feelings. It involves a lot more than that, and one of these is the chemical imbalances in the brain. This is why treatment canm involve medication for some people. For example, with ADHD, the brain lacks dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine is the “reward” center in the brain. When a person completes a task, they get a hit of dopamine, but with an imbalance of dopamine, starting tasks (including long-term ones) become harder. Norepinephrine controls attention, alertness and impulse control, so a lack of this brain chemical results in poor attention, meaning people with ADHD are easily distracted in comparison to someone without. As a result some people may label a person with ADHD as lazy or unmotivated. But that isn’t always the case. It’s important to recognize that with mental health disorders it isn’t right to slap a label onto someone. Some people just struggle more than others, and that’s alright.

The way people can view themselves, the world, and other people is affected by their mental health. If a person is in a constant state of depression, they might not see the world as a good place, and may not see themselves positively. In a sense, their “lens” becomes blurry. They may not see the full view ahead of them because in their current state they are not able to. Yet, on the other hand, a person experiencing constant euphoria may see everything as wonderful and find it hard to calm down from constant excitement. All in all, our current state tends to dictate the way we see everything, although it may not always be how things truly are, our mind may try to make it seem that way.

In conclusion, mental health is important, because it affects more than our emotions, needs treatment like with physical conditions and shaped our world view.

 

Sites include: https://add.org/adhd-brain/ & https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mental%20health