Mental Health in Context

This article explores the factors contributing to mental health problems and the impact on individuals. It discusses the importance of understanding mental health in context and provides insights into the challenges faced by youth. The article also suggests new thinking for health promotion and addresses the stigma surrounding mental health.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH IN CONTEXT
MENTAL HEALTH IN CONTEXT
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Introduction:
Mental health is found to be an integral and one of the essential factors of health of a
person. According to the world health organization, the health is a condition which includes a
person’s state of mental, social as well as physical wellness and is not only a matter of
presence of disease or infection. Mental health is a condition of well-being where a person
obtains an understanding of his/her capabilities; it includes psychological, emotional and
social wellness. It is observed to be affecting an individual’s way of thinking, feeling and
actions. There are various factors that have been witnessed to be contributing in inducing of
mental health problems such as biological factors that can be genes or brain related chemistry
(Lubans et la., 2016). Life experiences, stress, trauma or any sort of abuse and family history
of mental disorders are also one of the factors inducing mental health problems (Rogers &
Pilgrim 2014).
In the short film, it showed how education load, work pressure, restriction and stress
can lead to depression, emotional distress and hamper a person’s mental condition. In the
video, a father and a son were highlighted where the father was facing work load and the
child was forced to do things he was not interested in and he was not allowed to do the things
he liked. It was affecting the mental health of both the characters in the short film. This
assignment focus on the different factors that are important in understanding the mental
health in context.
Mental health is more than an illness:
Mental health is defined as a health disorder which involves alteration in one’s
emotional, mental and behavioral status. It is also associated with stress and problem in a
person’s social, family and work life. Mental is not only related to one’s mind but also related
to a person’s physical and social health. It is a substance of emotions, communication, self-

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esteem and learning. A healthy mental condition leads to a better relationship, work place
emotion and healthy community. Each and every individual has different opinion related to
mental health some sees it as kind of positive and negative effect on mind due to the presence
of different stressor such as family issue or other problems. According to some, it is the state
which balances thoughts, feeling and behaviors which assist in coping with the stressors that
are present everywhere around us. The major kinds of issues that are found in mental illness
are depression, mood disorders, anxiety, and trauma, loss of weight, schizophrenia and
addictive behavior (YOUTUBE, 2019). This mental health challenge is commonly observed
among the young individual as their coping strategy is less developed as compared to an
adult. A study is conducted by distributing questionnaire among 6300 parents (which have
child of 4 – 11 years of age) and about 3000 children belonging to age group 11 to 17 years
age. After conducting the study it is concluded that around 1 in every 17 children of age
group 4 to 17 years old suffers from mental health issue, but the numbers of children
suffering from mental illness has been decreased from 1998 to 2013/14. The number of
children suffering from mental illness in 1998 is 12.2% whereas it has been decreased to
11.1% in 2013 and 2014. It is very commonly found in one of the five individuals in every
population around the world. The number of children identified to be suffering from mental
illness in 2013 is 560,000. The cases of children suffering from mental illness is commonly
observed in family who are already going through other crisis such as unemployment, and
family breakup. The number of mental cases recorded in families where the parents are
employed is 10.8%, however it is increased to 29.6% in children where both the parents and
carer are unemployed. If the parents are unemployed, it creates conflicts among the family
members which provides negative impact on the Children’s mind and leads to mental
disorder. Another study concludes that around 1 in very 12 individual (females) belonging to
age group 12 to 17 tries to harm themselves once in their past and it is increased to 16.8%

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(that is one out of every 6 girls) in older girls. From the study is also concluded that one out
of every 13 individuals tried to commit suicide because of the mental pressure. Hence from
the above survey it is conclude that mental disorder is very common and is especially
observed in teenagers and young adults, due to several kinds of stressors. These stressors
possess huge impact on their mental health and leads to mental disorder (VIMEO, 2019).
Youth mental health matters:
Mental health of the youth is very complex as compared to the brain or mental wellbeing of
an adults. Human are the only living being that goes through a lot of changes from infancy to
adulthood and from death. Brain of a teenager is more complex as compared to other adults
as it contains more neurons which is one of the reason, teenagers are more creative than that
of the adult individual. The prefrontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for managing
the behavior and ideas for future is less developed in case of teenager which gives rise to
their impulsive behavior, crazy decision and mood swings and as a result they jump to
conclusion easily without thinking much about the future consequences (YOUTUBE, 2019).
The cognitive ability among the youth is far different from the adults. The way of thinking of
an adult is more traditional and hence think in a very limited manner. Youth always want to
work something out of the box. During the transition period from infancy and childhood,
many changes take place within their body such as mental change such as they develop the
power of sexual reproduction or changes at hormonal level and physical change such as
change with respect to shape and size. These hormonal changes provide a huge impact in the
mental state of a youth. Brain takes around 10 years to develop and this phase is called
adolescence. In the adolescence phase, an individual gets most intense experience of their
life. Their body crave for some intense experience such as, involving in extreme supports,
watching horror movie and involving in romantic relationship. Their whole identity and
relationship changes. Friends becomes more important than family. They want to explore

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their life and enjoy their life to the fullest. Sometimes these craziness ad impulsive gives
lifetime which possess a positive impact on the individuals mind but sometimes it provides
negative impression on the mental health of an individual due to less planning and poor
decision. Adults usually do not think in that manner and they always try to engage a teenager
in the work they like the most such as involvement in study, focusing on career which
sometimes leads to conflict (YOUTUBE, 2019). According to an adult, there is only one
solution to be happy and healthy, which is by being focused on study and career, which
sometimes kill the enthusiasm and creativity of the child and hence as a result they loss their
confidence. To be happy and healthy at the same time it is important to involve in certain
activities such as, exercise, nutrition and diet, helping others, maintaining good relationship,
stress management and relaxation, spiritual and religious involvement and time in nature
which leads to mental peace. They always want to become like the one who they idolize the
most, it might want to become a skier or a hacker (YOUTUBE, 2019). Their mind works
differently and hence they like to involve in work which are challenging according to them,
but due to parent’s pressure they lose that creativeness and becomes dull.
New thinking for the health promotion of self and others:
In order to enhance the health of an individual and other associated people it is
recommended that the person maintain a good mood and low-impact exercise. Appropriate
exercise will lift the mood of a person and makes them happy and energetic. There are
different ways to exercise that will have a positive physical benefit on the person and later
that person can educate and teach the exercise methods to other people. These exercise
methods will tend to improve any symptoms of anxiety and depression and will help the
individual who is suffering from depression or anxiety to stay active and be mentally fit
(Use.doshisha.ac.jp, 2019). The mood of the person will be elevated and the person will tend
to feel happy and relaxed. Other new thinking method for better health is moving the body

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for at least ten to twenty minutes that will also help the person to elevate their mood and be
mentally fit and healthy. Hence, it can be stated that effective exercise strategies will help a
person to stay healthy and fit and in turn that person can educate other people under health
promotion strategy regarding the benefits of exercising and being mentally healthy and fit.
The person can have a psychological control on their body hence in any stressful condition
they can easily manage and overcome from symptom of anxiety and depression. The most
important step in new thinking for managing health condition of any individual is speaking to
each other or talk it out. Any kind of mental stress or trauma can be managed or controlled if
the patient is effectively speaking to other person or general practitioners and convey their
reason of stress or issue for proper guidance and support (Vimeo, 2019). Adequate support
and guidance will assist the person to understand what they have to do and how they can deal
with their problem in order to achieve better mental and physical health. In case of any
mental distress, an individual can also suffer from headache that can result in increased blood
rush and sweating. The color of that person’s body turn red under excess distressing situation
that person’s body goes out of control and they tend to suffer from extreme anxiety
(YouTube, 2019). In that furious condition an individual’s mind is not under their control and
usually react in certain non-acceptable ways like hurting themselves or getting mad at others.
Hence, different techniques must be recommended and suggested to such people like taking
deep breath, relaxing, find a place that is excluded of any external noise and where an
individual can calm down. These techniques will allow the body to slow down the blood rush
and control sweat and allow the brain to relax and come out of the distressing situation hence,
resulting in better health outcome (YouTube, 2019). The last health promotion method for a
better health condition is educating people on positive psychology that will revolve around
positive perspective of using science and education in teaching and learning where the

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teachers educates the student on different mindset and how to control their mind under any
distressing situation with a better sense of well-being.
Addressing the stigma of mental health:
Stigma regarding the mental illness of a person is found to be one of the widely
recognized factors by the public health organizations throughout the world. Various studies
have suggested that majority of the global population has stigmatized thinking regarding the
mental health. Stigma is observed as less evident in countries such as Asia and Africa. The
mental health stigma can be classified in to two different kinds: one is social stigma and the
other one is perceived stigma or also called self-stigma. In social stigma states the
discrimination and injustice that a society or people reflects towards an individual suffering
from mental health, which results out of the psychiatric tags and they tend to commit suicide
and suffer from psychological distress and trauma (YouTube, 2019). The self-stigma is factor
that affect a [person well-being by themselves or by their own deeds or activity due to the
mental illness related to the thought of discrimination. The fear of discrimination and
injustice trigger the initiation of these stigma that can be social or self and hence, an
individual suffer from some major health related traumas that can be either physical by
harming themselves or psychological by getting into depression or any other mental illness. It
is a major concern in the healthcare facilities and public health organizations as it is found to
be affecting a majority of the population and is increasing day by day (Theaustralian.com.au,
2019). The major step towards addressing stigma of mental health is by generating awareness
amongst the people suffering as well as those in the healthy population. Adequate awareness
by means of health promotion strategy will help the population to know the factors that can
lead to generation of mental stigma and thus apply adequate strategy to reduce the element of
these factors and be healthy There are various ways to generate recovery process for the
people suffering from mental illness and the discriminations they have been facing. Large

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number of children also tend to suffer from these condition that can arise from various factors
like bullying, change home location and school (Abs.gov.au, 2019). These factors will affect
the children and their mind hence resulting in mental illness and trauma. Hence, mindfulness
strategy can be used and can be taught to children’s in the school that will help them to
understand the factors that have resulted in these stigma initiation and thus reduce the affect
and consequence of these mental stigma and improve the health condition of the person
including children. It can be concluded that large number of population is suffering from the
condition of mental illness and trauma that arise due to these mental triggers that can hamper
the peace and mindful activity of an individual. Any kind of mental illness can result in
depression or trauma that can further be very fatal for the person hence effective strategy and
treatment should be included by the person to overcome the condition of mental illness by
removing these trigger and living a healthy life.
Conclusion:
In order to conclude, it can be stated that mental health is one of the rising concerns in
the day to day life and is drastically effecting the youth and adults of a population. Mental
illness is found to be affecting a person from inside to outside in every aspect, that can be
physical, emotional or the state of mind. Mental illness is the leading concern in youngsters
as they are the majority in a population dealing with depression. It is because of the pressure
and stress they face during the age group such as educational, emotional, relationship related.
The effects of mental illness are also observed to be increasing due to various factors such as
discrimination, competition and success. It is important to wipe out and address all the stigma
that has been enhancing these factors and increasing the risk of mental health in the world. In
the above assignment it is concluded that both the social and individual stigma plays an
important role in the mental health. Several strategies such as exercise, mediation which
helps in maintaining the mental wellbeing of the individual is also discussed. These mental

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illness is commonly observed in young individual which leads to self-harm and suicide. The
rates of mental disorders is high among the young adults and teenagers because their mind
behaves different from that of the adult individual. The prefrontal cortex of the brain is less
developed in case of teenagers due to which they get easily influences and becomes the
victim of mental illness.

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