Hard Times Require Good Mental Health, now more than ever

Good mental health, like good physical health, is not something that we have total control over. Certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and dementia do have a genetic component. This means that if someone in your family, especially a close relative like a parent or sibling has a mental illness, then your chances of developing the condition are increased.

Although you cannot control your heredity and genetics that may predispose you to psychiatric illness or substance abuse problems, you can control your response to stressors in life and how you deal with anxiety or feelings of depression. You can attempt to learn good coping skills and adaptive behaviors that will improve your chances of success when confronted by the difficulties in life that we all must go through.

There are many reasons to become depressed or anxious and you don’t have to have a family history of depression or anxiety to develop these conditions. Anyone can have depression at some time in their life, although it may not be over the complete time span of one’s life or at the level of severity that would qualify for a major depressive episode, as defined by health care professionals.

Anxiety is a normal part of life. There are countless things of a very real nature to worry about day by day for everyone. In fact anxiety disorders, which include phobias, are the most common type of psychiatric illness. Often there is no medication or treatment that needs to be given for some anxiety disorders. Fear of heights or spiders is not something that needs to be corrected necessarily.

Instead, most of the time, one can simply avoid the objects or situations that frighten us. We can also become overly anxious with regards to everyday situations, such as going to work or school, being in crowds or driving. When our fear becomes so intense that we begin to avoid people or places and our lives become limited due to the severity of the feelings, we then may have an anxiety disorder and could benefit from treatment for it.

Although we all become briefly depressed over conflicts with others or problems in our lives, however many of us can become so depressed that it affects our energy, appetite or sleeping. Symptoms are more severe when one begins to have morbid thoughts of death or thoughts and plans of suicide. This is the time when seeking help from a mental health professional is recommended.