We all need a soul to rely on, and a shoulder to cry on in such a toxic world full of competition, conspiracy, fake people, and an unhealthy environment. Not everyone is born to fight back all these emotions with great vigor. Which later leads to the deterioration in the mental health of people. These people are then given tags like a psycho, mentally ill person, and many more by are over judgmental society.
It’s 2021 and it is high time to be vocal about the necessity of mental health in one’s life and the consequences of neglecting it. Therefore we celebrate October 10th as ‘World Mental Health Day’. The major objective of celebrating world mental health day is to spread awareness about mental health issues all around the world. On this day several initiatives are taken to explain how to control emotions like stress, aggression, fear, frustration, etc.
For the first time mental health day was celebrated on 10th October 1992. Deputy Secretary-General Richard Hunter started it as an annual activity of the world federation of mental health. This day was imagined as a day on which several mental health resources could be shared and many related issues could be spotlighted.
Purple color is denoted as the color of mental health. Several institutions, companies, etc hold banners, hoardings, etc to promote awareness about mental health on the world’s mental health day. Some like to accessorize with green ribbons on mental health day to show their concern to everyone they walk past regarding mental health day. Whichever color they choose to use as their symbol but the message remains the same that ‘mental health matters’.
Approximately, almost 10 percent of the population worldwide which makes up around 792 million people experience mental health illness in one form or another.
Many more are not even able to identify the mental disorders they are facing due to the lack of availability of information regarding these topics and people tend to avoid the fact that they have a mental disorder thinking about what people will think about them. This further leads to the ruining of their mental health even more. In some cases, this even leads to the death of a person.
Nearly there are over 300 mental disorders. These include depression, dementia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders, anxiety, and many more. Depression is the most common disorder a human experiences. It reportedly impacts around 300 million people. It affects women more than men may be due to the pressure women handle from their families.
As humans we all are curious about everything happening around us so were we about the causes of mental health. Even after years of research on this, the actual cause of most mental health illnesses is not known. Now it is becoming clear through more research that most mental health illnesses are caused due to a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors
Several biological factors are responsible for mental health disorders like genetics, infections, injury, or damage in the brain. Some of us suffer an early loss of a loved one, loneliness, poor nutrition, exposure to toxins, etc. these all play a huge role in the development of mental illnesses.
When the whole world was fighting against the coronavirus, we all were locked down in our houses but some were all by themselves alone. The lockdown was hard for these people, hearing of thousands of people dying daily and seeing the worst images. Later this led to the worsening of their mental health. It was recorded that almost 10 percent of adults and 20 percent of children/ teenagers suffered from one or another mental disorder.
While fighting a mental disorder it is extremely important to keep talking to a person explaining what you are feeling and challenges you face in daily life. One of the major reasons for any mental illness is a coalition of thoughts inside your head and those thoughts later gather so much that it becomes tough for people to think about anything but them. So it is good if you eliminate those thoughts by talking to someone.
Ever since the start, mental health day has always had themes. These themes vary from year to year. The reason behind having different themes every year is to spread awareness in as many ways as possible. The theme this year for world mental health day is ’mental health is an unequal world’. The whole week starting from 10th of October and ending on 16th of October is celebrated as mental health awareness week.
Getting tattoos done regarding mental health has been really effective for people dealing with it. It is a belief that issues like anxiety, panic attacks, etc tend to decrease after getting a tattoo. Some decide on getting inked during the mental health awareness week.
Many of us usually think about how to celebrate mental health day when we are not part of any big campaign- by raising awareness. Even if you can educate one person on mental health you have either saved one life from ruining or inspired someone to help people suffering from any mental illness. Even a single bit of work done with good intention counts and makes a difference.
The best way to spread awareness is to start with the people you know like your family, relatives, friends, colleagues, etc . This can further inspire them to spread awareness amongst the people they know. This chain continues to build and someday we may be able to create a society where mental health is taken seriously and taken care of by each one of us.
Celebrities like Selena Gomez, Ellen DeGeneres, Kendall Jenner, etc came forward to address the issues related to their mental health and the ways of healing. This inspired and influenced people to be vocal about mental health conditions and be normal about it.
By Shagun Sharma, Ghaziabad
