Chapter
What Is Mental Health?
Mental health “includes emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, act, make choices, and relate to others. Mental health is more than the absence of a mental illness—it’s essential to your overall health and quality of life.”1 According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, or mood. The condition may affect a person’s ability to relate to others and function throughout the day. A recent survey of over 350,000 college students from almost 400 campuses across the U.S. found that more than 60% of students met criteria for one or more mental health illness diagnosis (i.e., depression, anxiety, eating disorder, suicide ideation).2 Although mental health illness worsened among all students, health disparities were found among racially and ethnically minorized (i.e., Asian, Black, Latinx, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Arab American) students.
Questions to Consider
- What are some of the ways to tell if you are holding onto stress?
- How do mindfulness and gratitude encourage emotional health?
A mental health condition isn’t the result of one event; it is most often the result of multiple overlapping causes. Environment, lifestyle, and genetic predisposition can all be factors in whether someone develops a mental health condition. Traumatic life events or stressful experiences may make some people more susceptible, and brain biochemistry may play a role as well. Exposure to harmful social media also plays a role and impacts your anxiety levels, self-perception, and other aspects of mental health. Mental health conditions show up in many ways. Anxiety, depression, and eating disorders are some of the most common.
Depression
Most people feel sad at times. This is a normal reaction to loss or struggles we face. Being sad is not the same as having depression. When intense sadness lasts for several days or even weeks, and you are no longer interested in activities you once enjoyed, it may be depression. Depression can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.
Depression occurs when something in our brain stops functioning correctly. This dysfunction prevents you from taking care of yourself, interferes with your relationships, and may lead to you missing school or work. Depression does not have a single cause. It can follow a life crisis or physical illness, but it can also occur spontaneously. Several factors including trauma, a significant life change, brain injury, and drug and alcohol misuse may contribute to depression. Regardless of how or why it occurs, depression is a treatable medical condition, and the ability to identify what it is and how to treat it is important.
Because depression is a medical illness, it needs to be treated by a health professional. If you are experiencing symptoms of depression, reach out to