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Why is world mental health day important? Because World Mental Health Day encourages us to support good mental health for everyone and brings what has historically been swept under the carpet to the light where it can be openly discussed and acknowledged as a condition most of humanity will experience in some form over the course of their lifetime.
This year’s focus was on young people and helping to ensure they have the right assistance to establish and maintain a bright future despite adversity.
World Mental Health Day falls on the 10th of October and is a day to help raise public awareness of mental health issues worldwide through global media. The aim of making mental health a global topic talked about and discussed is to remove the stigma and shame around being diagnosed with any of the mental health conditions.
The aim is to inform the public as to what good, positive mental health is, and what signs to look for in someone whose mental health has been impacted and could be sliding into a mental health crisis that could be avoided with the right assistance, assessments, and treatments.
Youth Mental Health
Adolescence and early adulthood bring many changes, including new schools, leaving home, and starting university or a new job. For many, these are exciting times filled with normal challenges to conquer that create experiences and memories that will be looked back on in the later years.
However, for some people, there can be times of stress, hardship, anxiety, and apprehension that, in some cases, left undiagnosed, can lead to mental illness that can have life-impacting and relationship-destroying consequences. Taking a FirstAidPro MHFA course could be the difference between you seeing the early warning signs in time to effect a positive change.
The addition of online technologies at any time of the day and night, and the sheer volume of information, videos, pornography, and trolling prevalent online means that many young people are feeling constantly unworthy, depressed, vilified, and under pressure to have peer validation via all social media sites pervasive push to ‘Like’ their content, images, and content.
Never in the history of humanity has a six-year-old been exposed to the level of poverty, debt slavery, sex, drugs, violence, consumer brainwashing, corruption, and political deplorability than in 2022. Children are being forced to grow up and think and behave like adults, to comprehend the cost of living and the financial burdens the family budget is constantly under. They enter their teenage years already stressed out, anxious, and somewhat defeated by the system where poverty is a factor. They grow up believing they have nothing to live for and that no one cares for them or their loss should they choose to take their own lives.
All of these contributing factors can lead to poor mental health that has a lasting effect and impact on the quality of life they experience. By providing the source of information to get the help they need, early intervention can prevent the development of poor mental health and remove the stigma from those who are experiencing mental health issues.
When Should You Take A Mental Health Day Off
When you wake up in the morning and the thought of facing the day ahead genuinely fills you with depression or anxiety. If you have been putting in long hours and burning both ends of the metaphoric candle and are close to burnout, then you need to take a mental health day or two to recenter, destress and return your equilibrium to a normal level.
For some people, the fear of taking a mental health day might be driven by the stigma attached or by their casual work situation and fears they may lose their job if they need to declare a mental health day. Mental health days are not an excuse to take the day off because you can’t be bothered going to work, nor are they legitimate ‘sick days’.
Mental Health Days are a request for time to decompress before a situation gets out of hand, or before a worker suddenly snaps under the pressure and stress and then shoots their colleagues, or a student takes a gun to school and decides to take out all the people who made their life hell.
Maintaining good mental health is no different to going to the gym to maintain your body or the salon to maintain your external appearance. Mental health is your internal appearance, and while the outside world cannot see the turmoil experienced inside someone with mental health issues, they can see external signs that alerts them to the person potentially experiencing a crisis and that they might need external help to get the issue corrected and their life back on track with a gentle intervention.
Benefits Of A Mental Health Day
Mental illness does not have to be a permanent condition in most cases. With the correct assessment, diagnosis, and treatment plan, people suffering from a range of mental health conditions can return to good mental health with time and the correct supports in place. Read our article on ‘what Peer support workers do’.
