How to Have Good Mental Health

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Let’s talk about your mental health.

Note your initial reaction to that suggestion. What do you expect when someone wants to talk about your mental health? In our society, people often expect to hear some kind of criticism. The little man or woman inside may be accusing me of thinking you are crazy.

Pay attention-I want to talk about your mental health-your mental and emotional assets. I believe that discussions about anything -mental- in our society should begin with assets-so that all parties come to the table with the understanding that people are not labels. Any person, who has ever had a condition such as depression, bipolar, anxiety, schizophrenia etc., must separate the diagnosis from their definition of themselves.

So what is mental health?

This question has been a question of hot debate since people began thinking about their thinking. In the past, mental health, as well as health in general, was defined as the absence of a disease or illness. This definition would define someone who spends their day doing nothing more than watching television as -mentally healthy- when they have the capacity to do much more.

Current definitions of mental health involve behaviors of coping, productivity, and quality connections with others.

1. The World Health Organization definition (World Health Organization 2007):

-A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.-

2. The Surgeon General of the United States definition (Department of Health and Human Services 1999):

-The successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and cope with adversity.”

What Can Mental Health Do?

Though mental health and health both involve our body, -mental health- generally refers to the effective functioning of our thoughts, moods, and behaviors (Public Health Service 2001). Effective thoughts, moods, and behaviors lead us to take care of ourselves, physically and mentally. We pay attention to what we eat, how we feel, how we interact. We are able to detect when something is -off- and make the necessary adjustments. We help build a world that facilitates the health and mental health of others.

Mental health is the foundation of our health. -There is no health without mental health- (World Health Organization 2007).

Do I Have Mental Health?

Everybody has mental health-thoughts, moods, and behaviors that work. The answers to the following questions can help you identify the mental health you possess:

* What mental processes and behaviors can help me -keep going- every day, as well as during times of crisis? * How can I mobilize my effective mental processes and behaviors to recover from illness? * How can I use my effective mental processes and behaviors to have a more abundant life?

Do You Want to Know More?

Stay tuned to Moxie Mental Health, where stories of how real people have transformed themselves, their families, and the world around them are posted three times weekly: Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

The next blog will discuss research from the field of Positive Psychology that has identified and classified specific mental strengths. The blog will help you identify several specific mental strengths that you own. Your strengths can be your means of encountering the difficulties you face with spirit and courage-enabling you to emerge from the fire as a grander, more magnificent person.

Katrina

Katrina Holgate Miller, PhD, MFT is a freelance medical journalist specializing in mental health.

Her professional experience has encompassed many facets of mental health care, including mental health assessment and treatment, substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse (victims and perpetrators), couples counseling, and adolescent group counseling. For the past five years, Katrina has worked with patients across the country to help them resolve their barriers to adequate and effective mental healthcare and chemical dependency/addiction treatment.

Her writing tells the stories of the patients who used their moxie to overcome their distress.

How Mental Training Can Improve Your Performance

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What would you be thinking?

Imagine you have been leading the Olympic triathlon since the start of the race, only to find another athlete arriving at your shoulder 5 km from the finish. This situation could stimulate two possible lines of thought that would result in quite different outcomes in the race. Clearly, the athlete who thinks, This year I really thought I had it.

I have worked so hard and now I have blown it. I really am a loser . . . will drop off the pace and fall back. However, there is a far greater chance of success for the athlete who thinks, Well, here she is. The woman they call the best triathlete ever. And she has only been able to catch me with 5 km to go. I will just tuck in behind the soon to be ex-number one, let her do the work for a change, and see if I can break her later. After all, my 10 km time is as good as hers, and in a close finish I will have the crowds behind me as they always back the underdog.

It is in situations such as this that sports psychology becomes so important. Champion athletes commonly exhibit a high degree of: motivation, commitment, positive thinking, focus, and mental toughness, among other factors (Gould, 2001).

Background

Psychology is the study of how we think and behave. Sport psychology is a science in which the principles of psychology are applied in a sport setting (Cox, 1990). Issues Sport Psychologists are interested in include, but are not limited to; what motivates an athlete, how athletes regulate their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and how they manage anxiety and arousal states in order to maximise performance (Parker, 2000). The principles involved in Sport Psychology are usually applied to enhance performance. The field embraces many concerns and concepts, such as motivation, arousal, reinforcement, psychological preparation, attitudes, attention, emotional health, and stress management (Davies, 1989). Rushall, 1995, proposed that sport psychology could assist athletes in the following ways:
a) The actual words an athlete uses in self-talk have an effect on the quality of performance,
b) It is possible to increase performance levels in elite athletes through thought processes alone,
c) Mental imagery is important for enhancing performance.
Sport Psychologists assist people by helping them to develop the skills necessary to become mentally strong, and prevent them from choking in key situations.

Motivation

Motivation is a particularly relevant issue in the field of Sport Psychology. Motivation can be defined as being aroused to action, to directed purposeful behaviour, although this may not always be either efficient or effective (Davies, 1989).

The Importance Of Mental And Health Attributes

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Mental and health attributes are essential for every organism ranging from body to the mind. Mental health is as important as physical health. Some people consider that mental health is just the absence of any mental disorder or abnormality. But it is not like this. In fact mental health is defined as the state of well being in which each and every individual comprehends his potential and is able to cope up with normal stresses and tensions of life. A person with mental health can work productively and can give fruitful results and makes positive contribution towards his community.

Mental health usually refers to cognitive or emotional well being. It is all about our thinking, feeling and behavior. Mental health also signifies the absence of mental disorders. Mental health is gaining attention because most of people are getting mental health problems in their lives. According to research only in UK 25 5 of the people has mental health problems and US is rated as highest in developed countries regarding the rate of the people having mental health disorders. Mental health affects the daily life, relationships and also physical health. Mental health is also described as the individual’s ability to enjoy life to achieve a balance between life activities and efforts to attain psychological elasticity. .

Anyone can get affected from mental health disorders regardless of age or sex, rich or poor. There are many types of mental disorder from which individual can suffer. The most common mental disorders are anxiety disorders and mood disorders and schizophrenia disorders. Anxiety disorders include panic disorders, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders, post traumatic stress disorders. Mood disorders include major depressions, bipolar disorders, dysthymia and seasonal affective disorders. Most serious disorders among all these mental disorders are Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

There are many ways through which mental health problems can be treated. But it is important to know that it is not necessary that the way which works for one person should also work effectively for the other. Some strategies are successful for one individual and some other strategies when combined wit other becomes effective for others.

Self help is very crucial to treat these mental health problems. People can do a lot to help them get rid of these disorders. Change in lifestyle including balanced diet, low alcohol, and exercise and getting adequate sleep can make lots of difference to mental health patients. First strategy of self help is diet and mental health. Psychiatrists, scientists and other professionals know that brain consists of fatty acid, water and some other nutrients. This is the reason that food affects the thinking, behavior and feeling of the people. Fatty acids in our brain perform important functions in making structure of brain cells so unbalanced amount can cause very disorders.

The government of every country should make efforts to improve mental and health attributes `throughout an individual’s lifespan starting from child to ensure healthy start and to prevent mental disorders not only in adulthood but also in old ages. These efforts can prove fruitful to make a healthy nation.

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Tips For Mental Vitality As We Become Senior Citizens

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Does your memory trouble you? There are many different causes of memory loss, all of which having a major impact on the quality of your life. Lapses in memory can leave you feeling helpless and cause problems in your career, as well as with your personal life. These easy tips will help you increase the power of your memory.

You can find a number of useful books on the topic of memory improvement at your local public library. Many well-known psychiatrists have written books to help you improve your brain function and memory. The tools given to you in these books may be what you need in order to help you remember things.gs.

If you want a great tip to help improve your memory, then check this out. When trying to remember material that is new to you, associate this new information with something you already know. Linking the new item to other items in your information network allows you to bootstrap recall by leveraging previously learned information.

Organize your life with memory aids, such as calendars, schedules and to-do lists. Purchase a planner and keep your appointments and to-do lists jotted down in it. Use your schedule not just to jot down upcoming commitments, but also to check daily to make sure you know what’s coming up. The more you write things down and view them, the easier they are to recall on demand. Your brain doesn’t have to remember as much, and these things are handy and helpful in case you forget.

One way to improve memory is by learning something new. New knowledge makes new pathways inside your brain, allowing you to make a lot of new connections.

One tip to strengthen your memory is to always do in-depth studying into any subject you want to remember. If you have excess knowledge on something, you may remember it better. Take learning a word. Don’t just read the basic definition. Read a full description of its meaning and history.

Teaching other people is a fantastic way for improving your memory. For instance, if you have forgotten the plot of that interesting anime you watched last year, recount it to anyone willing to listen. It reinforces it in your mind, and makes it harder to forget.

Don’t try to absorb a ton of information in one sitting. To be more effective, make several study sessions to break up the information intake. Do not try to educate yourself on a subject all at once. Your mind can only absorb so much at a time, and you will simply lose most of the information you have tried to learn. Make sure you study regularly so that your brain is stimulated into remembering.

When it’s crucial that you remember something, try “hooking” the information together. The logic implies that related information can be connected together, which will help you remember. However, by connecting unrelated items together, you can also have recall occur. For example, Kathy pulls candy on Friday; great stuff, is sometimes used to help biology students remember the classification of living things: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. This connection is quite unusual, which will make it memorable.

Make a lot of healthy relationships in your life if you need to prevent memory loss. It has become apparent through scientific study that socializing with friends and family often helps keep the memory functions of the brain running smoothly.

Laughing and telling jokes is a good way to improve your memory. By hearing jokes and attempting to determine their punch lines, the area of your brain that deals with learning and your creativity is activated. Find people you can share jokes with to stimulate your brains together.

It is a natural part of life. Find the tips that you need and apply them so that you can life with your memory loss.

Mentally Ill Juvenile Sentenced To 50 Years In Prison

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A court in Johnson County, Kansas sentenced a mentally ill juvenile to life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years. Andrew Ellman was convicted of murdering his mental health worker, Terri Zenner.

The defendant was 17 years old when he killed the victim. Because he was a juvenile at the time of the incident he was not eligible for the death penalty.

His victim, Teri Zenner, was 26 years old and recently married when he killed her. She worked for Johnson County Mental Health trying to help Andrew Ellmaker learn skills and find a job. She stopped by Ellmaker’s Overland Park home on August 17, 2004, for a routine home visit.

She never left alive. Andrew Ellmaker stabbed her to death and cut her with a chainsaw. He also stabbed his mother when she tried to intervene.

Sue Ellmaker, the defendant’s mother, survived the ordeal. She pleaded for mercy at the sentencing because of her son’s mental illness. She said that her son struggled early with mental illness. By the time he became an adolescent, his mental disorders overwhelmed him. He walked the hallways of his high school alone and wore a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his eyes. She placed her son in institutions until her insurance benefits ran out and then had to let him live at home.

The victim’s husband, Matt Zenner, cared nothing for this defense.

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about mental illness,” he said at the sentencing hearing. “Stand up and be a man. You sit there and stare at the floor…. It’s beyond my comprehension that you were able to do this.”

As the husband of the victim, Matt Zenner is entitled to his feelings of loss, anger and bereavement. The family of Terri Zenner deserves all our compassion.

However, as a society we must overcome our prejudice that mental illness is both incomprehensible and inexcusable. Otherwise, we could face even more tragedies like Teri Zenner’s.

More than seventy percent of youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from at least one mental health disorder, according to the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. For girls, the number is even higher. Eighty percent of girls in juvenile justice suffer mental illness. For all offenders, disruptive disorders are the most common, followed by substance use disorders, anxiety disorders and mood disorders.

Over sixty percent of youths in juvenile justice meet criteria for three or more disorders. Twenty five percent find their lives seriously impaired by mental illness.

For many of their families, juvenile justice provides their first and only access to mental health services. Sue Ellmaker testified that she kept her son in institutions “until her insurance benefits ran out.” Then he returned to the community, where he posed a deadly danger to the community.

Juvenile justice is not set up for mental health services. The aims and services of juvenile justice differ from the needs of the mentally ill youths who enter the system.

Families raising a child with mental illness feel frustrated, overwhelmed and exhausted. In my law practice, we help these families by coordinating special education, juvenile justice and mental health services.

Andrew Ellmaker deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. The rest of us, though, must work even harder to help families raising children with special needs. It’s the only way to prevent future tragedies from happening.