What Do We Mean By Mental Health?

Mental health is a very broad term which can refer to a person’s emotional, psychological and social well being. It influences how we respond to the stresses and challenges of the world around us. It is important to remember that there is a wide continuum for measuring a person’s mental health and throughout our lives we may move from one end of the spectrum to the other and vice versa. 

Mental Health Support

Traditionally, mental health support takes the form of therapy sessions provided by mental health professionals.  Mental health therapy can take multiple forms and is usually tailored to the individual.  However, for many people in the modern world, accessing mental health therapy can be difficult, particularly because of the long waiting times to see a specialist.  A survey conducted by the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapy in 2022 advised that up to 40% of patients in Germany must wait between 6 & 9 months to even begin therapy. 

Why is Mental Health So Important?

Mental health is important because unstable mental health can have an adverse effect on your quality of life, as well as having a negative effect on your close friends and family.  Ultimately, poor mental health affects more than just 1 individual.  If you’d like to learn more about the impact of your mental health on your social circle, this article from Bettersleep.org offers some great advice on how to nurture the relationship between your social circle and your own mental health.

How Can I Understand My Mental Health In More Detail? 

This is a very meaningful and very personal question.  First of all, it’s important to emphasise that everyone's mental health status is different.  The best way to check in with yourself and your mental health is to consider whether you suffer from symptoms of poor mental health.  For example, does the idea of entering a new social situation fill you with fear or is this something you rarely worry about?  Understanding and analysing how you feel about new situations whether personal or professional is the one of the best ways to understand your current mental state.  Listening to and accepting your feelings are fundamental to truly understanding the current state of your mental health.

How Can I Take Care Of My Mental Health?

Simple acts of self-care like exercising regularly, ensuring you get enough sleep and maintaining a balanced diet have been proven to have a significant impact on a person’s mental health. In short, a healthy body is essential to ensuring good mental health. So if you want to improve your mental health, recognising the link between physical and mental health is very important. The US National Institute for Mental Health offers some great tips in this web article on how to take care of your mental health.

Here just a few of the tips mentioned in the NIMH article:

• Try to exercise regularly.  Ideally try to exercise moderately on a daily basis. You don't have to get all of your daily exercise in 1 go. You can break it up into several sessions, which can work better for some people

• Ensure you get enough sleep. Making a good sleep routine part of your daily ritual is 1 of the best ways to take care of your mental health.

• Eat nutritious healthy meals as much as possible. The 80/20 rule, where a person eats healthy meals 80% of the time and for the other 20%, a person eats what could be considered unhealthy is a very human approach in order to achieve a balanced diet. This kind of approach ensures health is prioritised when planning most meals but it also allows for the occasional indulgent treat, therefore maximising discipline and satisfying cravings.

• Be grateful to yourself and others. Practice saying thanks to yourself for a task or job well done or to a family member or colleague who lifted you up. This kind of humble appreciation for what you are thankful for can reduce stress and help build resilience. Even writing down what you are grateful for is a great exercise in giving thanks to yourself and others.

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How Can CharisMe Help Me with My Mental Health?

At CharisMe, we are passionate about helping people to improve and take care of their mental health. The CharisMe iOS and Android apps invite you to participate in playful and challenging exercises training you to become a more confident and content version of yourself.  Ultimately we believe that working through your anxieties using our scenario-based exercises are some of the best ways to unlock a more fulfilled, balanced and resilient side of yourself.  We envision a world where mental health worries can be overcome by scientific-based methods. 

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The Growth in Awareness of What Mental Health Means

The growth in the last 10 years of habit keeping or mindfulness apps are excellent examples of the growing awareness about the links between mental and physical health in wider society. Indeed many popular psychology websites such as Positivepsychology.com rank mindfulness apps depending on the depth of their exercises and also what they offer in terms of daily relief for app users. The internet as a technological phenomena, specifically the mobile internet in app or website form is one of the main catalysts which has enabled millions of people across the world to explore their mental health in more personal and meaningful ways.

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Analysing the upward trend of phrases like mental health or mindfulness over the last 20 years on Google Trends, both search terms have seen a steady increase worldwide. This trend illustrates how more and more people are searching for information on mental health or on what is meant by mindfulness. This trend is encouraging as it shows how speaking about mental health is becoming less of a stigma and points to a brighter more supportive future for everyone.

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