Mental Health and Balance

When I was doing my clinical spiritual care training at the hospital, I kept asking myself; Which one is more important? Physical health or mental health? 

Of course, all kinds of illnesses are important and affect our daily functioning. You may say physical illness or disability affects us both physically and emotionally. And, you are right. However, a mentally stable mind has the skills to handle physical problems, because mental health is related to better functioning and better management. 

There is a saying, “If you can not change a condition, you can change the way you look at it.”  Another says, “You can not stop the waves but you can learn how to surf”. 

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It helps us learn how to deal with problems, relationships and decisions. 

In 2019, the Canadian Paediatric Society announced that 1.1 million children under 20 suffer from mental health problems, with that number set to increase 50% in 2020. Again, according to the studies, most mental health issues emerge in adolescence, and the most common problems are major depressive disorder and social anxiety disorder (1). When we look at the severest mental problems, we see that they start with depression and anxiety. 

Depression is basically being worried about the past and anxiety is being worried about the future. 

I do not want to frame a terrible picture, but I just want to draw your attention to the importance of protecting mental health.  I believe in preventive medicine, which is available also for mental health.

Here, I would rather try to focus on practical incidents signalling dangers in our mental health. First, let’s discover what is mental?  It is useful to understand what mental includes. Mental is related to mind. We act according to what our mind says to do. Therefore, it is our navigation. Our mind processes what we see, hear, and learn by interpreting, judging, comparing and evaluating. We reach a conclusion with the help of previous experiences and knowledge. Then what do we do with our thinking? Mental actions are cognitive processes. Our reasoning activities. Our thoughts affect our feelings and our feelings affect our behaviours. There is a circular interaction among these three aspects. What makes us “us” is our thoughts, emotions and behaviours. Thoughts help us determine which mood we experience in a given situation. It depends on how strongly we believe in this thought. The severity of the feelings depends on how much we believe in those thoughts. When we are hurt by somebody, if we believe that it was intentional, we feel sad and start to think of other interactions with that person to support that mood then we begin to feel sad. This leads us to behave against that person. Our feelings also affect our thoughts or behaviours. Whatever starts the circle does not matter. This circle continues.

So, when our thoughts start to get negative and constant, we start to develop mental problems. Because it causes other dysfunctional behaviours. When we have these negative thoughts, we start to have self-talks and dialogues in our minds constantly. We ruminate about them. This affects our mood. Then bounces back and leads to withdrawal from the triggering factor. So, for example, if we think we are not very successful we avoid trying new things for the fear of failure. Then we may resort to spend our time with unhelpful or even harmful behaviours, which may vary from person to person. This affects our mood more and more and is reflected as physical symptoms.

These negative talks can be various. We overgeneralize.  I am always, I will never, whenever I … Or we make assumptions. We exaggerate, we minimize or undervalue. We take it personally or we assume things.

We may not analyze how we get into this vicious cycle but we can recognize some symptoms. So, for example, we have strange feelings and we can not describe it. We may have no joy or interest in anything. We may lose appetite, feeling worthless or we may have irregular sleep or lack of sleep. We procrastinate. It may even go as far as feeling suicidal.

If we look at the case from the other side, we can say that when we have mental health we do not get caught in that vicious cycle. Mental health means being strong, confident, and fair in thinking, feeling and acting. There is harmony and balance among them. Mental health is important because with a healthy mind we think reasonably and make functional decisions. We can identify our feelings and emotions. Most problems occur in a family because of being unable to express our feelings. Healthy minds are aware of the events that are happening and act accordingly. They can distinguish right from wrong and make a balance in their actions. With a healthy mind, we can resist peer pressure, bullying issues or handle work-related problems.

So, it is basically a matter of maintaining a balance. Let’s think of our lives and divide it into parts. For example, we have a work life, social life, family life, learning life, and spiritual life. When we overdo one of them one side receives less care. Having a balance in our life is putting the things in the right place, in the right time, and in the right amount. As human beings, we can not be perfect. We lose the tracks. We lose the balance in our eating, relationships, and social activities. We lose balance even in our feelings and thinking. We either love too much or too little. We give overemphasis on things we favour.

We know that we all have something with which we lose balance and we are aware of it. However, I observed that we do not realize where we lose track. 

Do you know about knitting? While knitting, let’s say, we missed a loop and we did not realize it because of a distraction and we kept knitting. On the next line, we did not realize it again and we kept knitting. Some people realize it as soon as they miss it. Some people notice it in the second line, and some never realize it until they think of checking or somebody warns them. Some wear it like this or some undo it. 

If we do not want to miss a loop we need to check it from time to time. So, if we want to work on behaviour on which we lose the balance we think of checking it after the problem occurs. We should ask from time to time: why am I doing the thing that I am doing? When we lose balance, we forget why we do what we do. We act impulsively. Or we give priority to others’ needs forgetting the hierarchy of our needs. Do we really need to take our children to every activity? Do we really need to join a friendship gathering every weekend? Do we need to follow every episode of a tv show? Do we really need to buy a new version of a phone? Do we need to accept the offer of an extra pie at dinner?

I know it is not that simple. It is a matter of practice. All we have to do is check in with ourselves, practicing mindfulness. 

What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Asking these questions helps us develop self-awareness that is necessary for strong mental health.