According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is “more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities.”
World Health Organization stresses that mental health includes the emotional, psychological, and social well-being of the people. It is who human beings are.
Mental health affects how we think, feel, and act. It helps determine how people handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.
When it comes to mental illness or disorders, these are conditions that affect one’s thinking, feeling, mood, and behavior. They may be occasional or long-lasting (chronic). They can affect one’s ability to relate to others and function each day.
There are different types of mental disorders. They include; anxiety disorders, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias. They also include depression, bipolar disorder, and other mood disorders., Interestingly, eating disorders can be included among mental disorders.
Others include personality disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, among others.
Most mental illnesses don’t have a single cause. Instead, they have a variety of causes, called risk factors. The more risk factors you have, the more likely you are to develop a mental illness.
Some of the risk factors and triggers of mental illness include:
- Mental illness often runs in the family.
- Living in a stressful environment can make you more likely to develop a mental illness. Things like living in poverty or having an abusive family put a lot of stress on your brain and often trigger mental illness.
- Childhood trauma. Even if you’re no longer in a stressful environment, things that happened to you as a child can have an impact later in life.
- Stressful events: like losing a loved one, or being in a car accident.
- Negative thoughts. Constantly putting yourself down or expecting the worst can get you stuck in a cycle of depression or anxiety.
- Unhealthy habits: like not getting enough sleep, or not eating.
- Drugs and alcohol: Abusing drugs and alcohol can trigger a mental illness. It can also make it harder to recover from mental illness.
