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Mental health and wellness: a necessity for productive living

Man as a social being needs to live and interact with other components in his environment. This ability to live in harmony, unity, and productive life with other men, animals, plants, and other resources in the environment defined the functionality and satisfaction of man in his environment. Hence, a man's health is beyond physiological measures; rather, the physical, psychological, financial, and socio-cultural components of a man's life are considered in determining every man's wellness. The ability of a man to maintain normalcy in all these areas determines the mental health of man.

Therefore, mental health can be described as the ability of a man to live as expected of him in a place, having the right thought pattern, good judgment and apprehension of things around him, ability to make decisions, and fully participate in the event of the society. Following this definition, mental health is beyond being hospitalized or taking a routine drug; it is more of a man's behavior as expected in society. Therefore, the culture of a society determines the behavior of people in the society. For instance, everybody in the United States is expected to put on clothes; if anyone steps out of his house naked, there might be a sudden call for emergency, and such a man might land in a psychiatric ward. Why? Because such behavior has gone contrary to the expectation of his society, such variation from the accepted and expected behavior of any man in his environment is called mental illness.

Mental illness can be defined as an angular shift in the behavior and thinking pattern of a man contrary to what is expected of him in society and relating with other men in his locality. Such deviation is without concern to the people in a place and it always calls for the attention of experts in the medical field. Stable mental health is essential for the activeness and productivity of a man in his society, while mental illness has a poor prognosis on a man’s functionality. However, mental illness is not a tornado nor a rocket science that occurs suddenly, and it always begins with some signs and symptoms such as:

For an accurate diagnosis of mental illness, at least five of the above signs and symptoms must be present in a man for three weeks. Thus, no diagnosis can be reached without a continuous watchfulness for these red flags in a man for three weeks. Examples of mental illness include schizophrenia, mood disorder, maniac, depression, Bipolar Affective Disorder (BAD), eating disorders, drug addictions, etc.

Causes: Many factors have been outlined to be probable causes of mental illness; many of these can be avoided if the necessary information is made available to them, which is what a Well tech company is helping to achieve. However, the major causes of mental illness include:

Treatment: Like other physical illnesses, there is medical help for the management of mental illness, and this intervention for mental illness is a multidisciplinary approach that involves the combined effort of a psychiatrist, nurse, occupational therapist, clinical psychologists, social workers, and family/caregivers. A couple of treatment given to such individual includes:

In conclusion, a man's wellness is not unilaterally dependent on the inward feeling of such man as decided by his homeostasis function. But wellness is also facilitated by how a man sees, interacts, and participates in his society, this is called mental health, and it can either be good or bad. Many factors can be the cause of mental illness. All of these can be avoided before the onset and can also be treated if the affected individual or family calls for help from the medical team.

Photo: Unsplash

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