MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health is “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." There is emerging evidence that positive mental health is associated with improved health outcomes. Health condition that is characterized by alteration in thinking, mood, or behavior associated with distress and/or impaired functioning is a 'state of not being mentally fit' of an individual.

Researches suggest that an individual is mentally healthy when he/she indicates the state of psychological, social and emotional well being. These states may arise when a person possesses an intense feeling on self-acceptance, spirituality, positive relationships, optimism, hopefulness, satisfaction, happiness, cheerfulness, peacefulness, social acceptance, personal self worth, sense of community etc..

More details about mental illness and disorders in:

mental disorders

Learn more about mental health:

mental health

Tips to stay mentally fit:

• Love and take care of yourself. Be active and have a good eating habits. Frequently do the thing in which your passion lies. Combine physical activity with a balanced diet to keep you feeling good by nurturing your body and mind, inside and out.
• You become, what you think. So, try and develop a positive attitude towards all the situations in life. Start to think about good achievements and eliminate negative thoughts and feelings. Change the aspect of how you see and tackle your problems. Be consistent and stay focused on your goals.
• Try to be in a circle of people with positive thoughts in their lives and are supportive in every possible way because sometimes all you need is encouragement to be happy and mentally fit.
• Rest and refreshment are the another worthy reasons to be mentally active. Get a proper sleep daily, go to bed and wake up at a regular time on a daily basis. Refreshment could be achieved by for example, dancing, walking down to your favorite streets, listening to your favorite music, jotting down what you feel, travelling and exploring new places, letting your mind wander by imagining beautiful things and daydreaming etc..
• Be where you are. Enjoy what you are presently doing, for example if you are watching a movie of your favorite actor, don't let your mind hover around the problems your currently facing or something like that. Stay focused on what you are doing at present.
• Don't overthink and over-analyze the situations. Try to accept the change as soon as possible because overthinking doesn't mitigate the serious circumstances, either could make it worst. 
• Most importantly, work out at least 30 minutes per day. Working out or exercising helps you to relieve stress and helps in greater relaxation of mind. When you work out on a regular basis, your body releases a hormone called endorphin which helps as relaxation to stress. 

Stress: how to deal with it?

Stress is a natural reaction and an automatic response to the events that make us feel threatened, fearful or upset our balance in some way. Faced with danger, the body kicks into gear, flooding the body with hormones that elevate our heart rate, increase our blood pressure, boost our energy and prepare us to deal with the problem. The stress response is mainly considered as an emergency action. After sensing fear or threat, a nervous system of a human body releases stress hormones which prepare body for the emergency action. 

Rising of blood pressure, pounding of heart at higher rate, being shorter to breath, and senses becoming more sharp etc. are the reactions in response to stress. Increased strength and stamina speeds up the reaction time and enhances focus preparing us to either flee from or fight with the situation.

Signs of stress:

• Negativity
• Memory  related problems
• Unable to concentrate
• Anxiety
• Unhappiness
• Sense of isolation
• Agitation
• Sleep problems
• Aches
• Digestive problems
• Dizziness and frequent cold related infections
• Nervousness
• Irritation and anger related issues
• Weight issues

In order to avoid short term and long term health problems, reducing and managing your stress is the must. Here are some points which could help in reducing stress levels.

• Identify the stress causing problem and develop a plan to address it. Imagine its importance, for example, 'if done what happens, if not, what happens'. Then branching out, deal with the problem specifically eliminating the non-essential points.
• Manage your anger related issues. Since, short temper is a contributing factor for increasing stress levels, walk away or back off from the situation where you think you cannot control your anger anymore.
• Building a strong relationship can reduce the level of stress since talking about your hard time to someone close to you like your family members will help you to get rid of unnecessary stressful situations.
• Get enough of rest because lack of proper relaxation time enhances the stress level in the body.
• Learn to accept the things you cannot change. There are many invincible situations in life that you can do nothing about. So learn to accept the things you cannot do anything about, this helps in management of stress in an efficient way.
• Develop healthy eating habits and exercise regularly, at least for 30 minutes per day. Working out regularly releases a hormone called endorphin which reacts against the pain and stress mechanism of the body.