What is Mental Health?

Pretty sure no one will disagree with the statement, “mental health is equally valuable than physical health”. The Center of Diseases Control and Prevention or CDC even dismantled the term mental health into 3 components specifically:

• Emotional
• Psychological
• Social wellbeing

Sounds complicated? Well, put it this way. Mental health affects how you think, feel and act. In a nutshell, it has a huge impact on each person’s personality. It mirrors your mind and behaviour. This is how important mental health is. It’s only right to take a deep dive and understand how we can take good care of our mental wellbeing.

As we’re starting to have a clear picture what mental health is, some people are simply wired to the idea that mental health is something that’s difficult to handle. As huge and intimidating as its sounds, it becomes even more helpful if you know better.

Why Is Mental Health Awareness That Important?

1. There’s something you can do  

Whether it’s someone you know who’s struggling mentally, or you came across a story of someone – the point is, you can always give a helping hand.  You might hand over a professional’s contact details that can be of help in managing mental health issues. That will come a long way.

2. You don’t know who might need it

Mental health wellbeing doesn’t take out anyone in the list. Anyone of us is VULNERABLE. It can be a person who has a corner office of the top most floor of the tallest building in the city, a less fortunate, the bubbliest person you knew, or even the most pessimistic individual you have ever met. Case in point, NO ONE IS EXEMPTED.

3. There’s so much more to learn in the area of mental health

Science has its way of evolving through time. Since mental health has recently created a paradigm shift in terms of treatment, it has become a learning path both for the general public and even healthcare professionals on how to manage and overcome issues with mental health over the years. We have just started looking at the brighter side of things. All that’s left to do is to keep going, keep learning.

Types of Mental Health Illness:

There are a lot of intricate terminologies attached with mental health diagnoses. Each is carefully assessed by a medical health professional. The most common mental health disorders as mentioned by the World Health Organization or WHO are the following:

• Depression
• Bipolar disorder
• Schizophrenia and other psychoses
• Dementia
• Developmental disorders including autism

How can someone be diagnosed with these conditions mentioned? Chances are, symptoms might be gradually developing over time. Every once in a while, we have to be mindful of our actions and observe red flags that might be shaking your mental health. With the evolution of symptoms and after several years of experience, mental health experts have revealed some of the most common symptoms as follows:

• Changes in sleeping patterns
• Loss of appetite
• Impulsive decision making
• Turning to drugs or alcohol in moments of distress
• Suicidal thoughts

Should you or someone you know that might be exhibiting symptoms mentioned, further observation/s must be conducted. In more ways than one, it’s somewhat easier to go by the statement “prevention is better than cure”.

Let’s now dive into the possibilities: What can we do to manage mental health disorder?

Ways to Improve Mental Health:

One of the biggest revelations of Science in the past years is this: the body has its second brain. It’s the GUT. Everything starts in the gut, it can even make or break your overall mental wellbeing. How is this even possible?

• The gut is basically the digestive tract which starts in the mouth and ends in the anus. It holds load of substances that plays significant role in digestion, immune system, and other vital functions for the body to work well.
• The gut holds what we call VAGUS NERVE. The gut and the brain are linked together through the vagus nerve.
• Because of this established connection, the gut and the brain have developed a unique messaging system or exchange of signals.
• With this one-of-a-kind relationship that they have, if the gut happens to be compromised, the brain reacts almost the same way, this escalates into mood swings, chemical imbalances that gravitate towards a more serious mental health issue over a period of time.

This has gained so much attention from health experts. It can finally address long standing issues involving mental health disorder, giving much attention to what we eat.

It is true that there’s something from the food that we eat that has hit-and-miss effect in our mental wellbeing. It actually lies on the QUALITY of the food that we eat. Let’s find out more about it here!

Unpopular Opinion: Foods That Have Bad Effects on Mental Health

Food plays a huge role on how one can mold one’s mental health. Of course, the hero and the villain will always be in the picture. Let’s start with the villains. Here are the UNHEALTHY FOODS that may bring harmful effects to someone’s mental health:

1.  Highly processed goods

Your brain cannot function without the perfect fuel. Imagine a car running without gas, how will the engine work? If your body is fueled with junk coming from highly processed food items such as chips, soda, fast food takeaways – without a doubt, it will lose its shape.

To sum it up, highly processed foods are packed with saturated fat, trans fat, insane amount of synthetic sodium that your body won’t need to function at its peak. Instead, it crashes your energy. This is the ultimate culprit of massive mood swings to people—the late-night pizza, ice cream, and colourful sodas. That’s your ticket to compromised mental wellbeing. It’s safe to say, “comfort food doesn’t give you comfort, after all.”

2. Refined sugar

For the record, refined sugar is not only known as one of the culprits in developing cancer and other non-communicable diseases. It can also whack your mood. In a study conducted to adults, refined sugar appears to be of the most common food items of those clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder.

There is some truth to it that the intake of sugary foods induces stress relief because of the brain’s “reward system”. Meaning, when you are in a very stressful situation, your brain likes rewarding yourself with adorable sweet, colourful foods to satisfy your mood.

However, the danger starts when it becomes a habit. At this point, the body and the gut cannot fully understand how much is too much sugar. And, that’s when the sugar problem begins.

Foods That Have Positive Effect on Mental Health

Now, it’s time to learn about the good ones. It is already well studied over the years that better-quality foods can improve mental health. Get to know your hero foods!

1. Antioxidants

This is the perfect example why eating crap doesn’t do you any good. It cannot create the harmony of antioxidants that your brain needs. The missing piece of the puzzle? Antioxidants.

Don’t get intimidated just yet. Antioxidants are quite easy to ingrain into your daily eating. It’s simply the most potent macro and micro nutrients that you put in your body. Antioxidants have a general positive impact on mental health because of its capacity to improve the function of the brain’s neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters create the right balance towards mood and overall mental wellbeing of an individual.

The job of antioxidants is to have a balance. Homeostasis from antioxidants is a total game changer. Another thing, antioxidants are very good sweepers of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is well studied as the primary culprit of inflammation in the body. These factors can actually cause chemical imbalance, leading to poor mental health—as one of its long-term effect.

Increased level of oxidative stress in the body may be due to:

• Poor eating habits
• Poor sleeping patterns
• Existing disease
• Intense stress in living conditions or environment

By now, you might be blown away by the idea of how antioxidants work. The next question is, where do you get them? There are 2 categories of antioxidants:

• A group that comes from food sources
  • Watercress
  • Spinach
  • Mustared, turnip, beet greens
  • Lettuces (red, green, romaine)
  • Fresh herbs (cilantro, basil, parsely)
  • Chicory greens
  • Pomelo
  • Peppers (bell, serrano or jalapeno)
  • Kale or collards
  • Pumpkin
• A group that comes from Vitamins and Minerals

2. Phytochemicals

Phytochemicals are substances that function as antioxidants once it has made its way inside the body. This is the exact reason why we need our vegetables and fruits to have a variety of colours. For the sake of variety and balance of colours brought by the phytochemicals from food.

It’s safe to say that when a person’s daily meal is packed with several colours of the rainbow, coming from fruits and vegetables, the body is given an extra layer of protection against oxidative stress, that’s known to be detrimental to mental health.

Here is the list of the most common phytochemicals that will aid your body in improving the balance of antioxidants and prevent the pile up of oxidative stress:

• Carotenoids
• Phytosterols
• Limonoids
• Polyphenols
• Glucosinolates
• Phytoestrogen
• Terpenoids (Isoprenoids)
• Fibers
• Polysaccharides
• Saponins

To further simplify on how you can get these phytochemicals, remember to build the habit of enjoying the colours of the rainbow by putting them in your plate. Colours of red, orange, yellow, green, purple are the ones that will be helpful for your mental health.

Are There Supplements That Helps Improve Mental Health?

Believe it or not, there are tons of supplements that can help with mental health disorders. This has paved the way of harmonizing the use of synthetics drugs in the treatment of mental health illness. Over the years, more people (including experts) are becoming more open in identifying that supplementations that are naturally occurring are equally effective.

Here are the most common supplements that are beneficial in the management of mental health disorder, all with the help of Science-based facts:

1. Vitamin supplements

Over the years, it has been known to people that adequate vitamin and mineral supplementation repairs almost ALL parts of the body. How?

• First, it begins repairing your gut health.
• Then, it builds an efficient way of detoxing your body from potential harm from build-up of oxidative stress which alters the mood and activates room in the brain that aggravate anxiety.

There are a bunch of vitamins and minerals, and even macronutrients that are linked in addressing mental health disorders. Here are some that made it to the top of the list:

a) B vitamins

B vitamins are known to create a healthy ecosystem for the nervous system. They are the building blocks of the essential hormones in the body that make up a positive mood and behaviour, namely: serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These three hormones are in-charge of emotions dealing with pleasure, motivation and even the feeling of fulfillment.

Apparently, clinical interventions done with B vitamin supplements have kept people diagnosed with Schizophrenia to stay on remission.

b) Vitamin D

This might blow your mind just because this aspect is sort of unspoken. Vitamin D  serves as a steering wheel of the brain’s neurotransmitters. This underrated vitamin traverse through the body’s central nervous system which regulates the cellular function of the body. All of these small happenings predict your behaviour and mood.

In line with the use of Vitamin D as a supplement, sun exposure is equally important in this aspect as well. When you get some sun for 5-15 minutes per day, it actually develops a more efficient way of activating other important vitamins for the body’s overall health. Also, sunlight is known to further improve a person’s behaviour throughout the day. It has shown positive effects in increasing the level of serotonin in the body, which is known to regulate anxiety and mood.

c) Omega-3 fatty acid  

Aside from the B vitamins, omega fatty acids deserve a spot when we deal with mental health. What makes it so unique is, it has the capacity to reach areas of the brain that navigates mood and behaviour. When a person has a significant drop in the intake of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids, it can take a toll in his/her mood and overall mental state especially over a period of time.

It’s already eminent that omega 3 can come from fatty fishes like salmon and such. But, the oral supplementation also serves as an efficient way of putting in high doses of omega 3 on a daily basis.

2. Probiotics

With the fact that the vagus nerve is the connecting link of the gut to the brain, that alone is a good reason enough to take care of your gut. How else do you take care of your gut? By populating your gut with so much good bacteria, yes.

On top of the famous probiotic capsules that we know, there are a bunch of foods that are loaded with probiotics or good bacteria. It would make a lot of sense if you wish to add any of these to your daily meals:

• Yoghurt
• Kefir
• Kimchi
• Kombucha
• Tempeh

What More Can We Do to Manage Mental Health Disorder?

In more ways than one, mental health disorder may be a snowball effect of a number of factors, rolled into one—then finally the signs and symptoms blow up in front of you. It is definitive though, that food and supplements can do so much in addressing the issue, but, what else can we do outside the circle of food and diet?

1. Speak your mind, be transparent with your feelings

Each person has a wide spectrum on how they want to define or draw a line with how they truly feel. One thing you can do is try not to put yourself inside the box. There is more to feeling “happy”, “sad” or “angry”. Encourage yourself and the people around you that feeling need not to be isolated and stored in a certain area of your brain and wait for it to be completely forgotten. Each individual needs different time and season to process, feel and understand their own emotions.

2. Move you way out of it. In other words, exercise

The body is composed of a handful of hormones and chemicals that all roll up together to create a feeling or emotion. Your hormones need help. You need to move and exercise to literally “open a can of worms” (in a good way!) to release the happy ones. Oxytocin and serotonin – are the ones in particular that needs some stimulation for them to dominate the body. Once you have established a physical activity that you love, regular release of these hormones is released in the body, having less room for anxiety to kick in.

3. Breathing exercises can ease your way out of mental health

Developing a breathing exercise is known to relieve stress, tension and anxiety in an instant. There are a number of articles saying that breathing exercises release tension and stress. It develops the habit of being mindful and be present in the moment. Some experts have concluded that anxiety is most likely rooted from fear, which may have been occurring when a person overthinks.

This re-occurring scenario gave birth to the practice of deep breathing. When a person has become more aware of how the body and mind connect, it’s easier to feel relaxed and calm.

4. Rest and relaxation: two of the greatest treat your brain can have

Rest and relaxation are 2 different things, you can be resting without feeling relaxed, that goes the other way as well.

Rest involves sleep. When a person is in complete resting mode, you’re actually giving yourself space to sleep where work and tension are literally non-existent. A person is recommended to have an average of 7- 8 hours of sleep to fully “re-charge” after a long day of stress that may lead to extreme exhaustion and burnout.

Relaxation is more of a state of mind. It’s the idea wherein the body is meant to reboot. A person can completely be in a state of relaxation even when awake. That’s the whole point of vacation leave, long weekend, or beach holiday – to relax your state of mind.

Professionals have pointed out that when rest and relaxation co-exist, it appears to improve mood, behaviour and even concentration. It even stretches someone’s threshold for stress when an individual happens to be well-rested and relaxed. It builds a rhythm where the body can have a space where there’s total absence of tension and stress in the air.

5. Identify the best relationships you have, in all aspects of your life

One of the most recent advancement in identifying triggers of inflammation in the body is called Epigenetics. According to Center of Disease Control and Prevention or CDC, epigenetics is defined as the study of how your behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. This definition goes the same way with mental wellbeing.

Our brain depends on its function based on its environment. If a person is exposed to a toxic, unhealthy environment, the brain will fall behind. Starting from the emotions that a person builds since he/she is a child, until adulthood. Chemical imbalances may happen in no time which definitely alters a person’s mood and outlook.

It all boils down to the fact that we all need to adopt healthy, fruitful relationships. Starting from the home, workplace, friendships, and even acquaintances, we have to be accountable for each other’s feelings and emotions. In hindsight, we won’t know how much power each of us have in altering someone’s environment. With this reality in front of us, we can actually influence another person’s health.

6. Seek professional help

Since the paradigm shift in this aspect of health has become more and more accessible over the years, it is really not as hard as before if you would want to have an extra hand.

You can always begin with your hand-picked trustworthy companions. It can be your significant other, parent, best friend or a colleague. Anyone who can serve as a medium where you can ask for help. These people you trust can go their extra mile and assist you in reaching out to a medical professional. There’s a wide array of support groups, organisations, private practitioners that would accommodate and assess a person’s mental wellbeing with utmost respect. All you need to do is extend your network. Ask for help.

7. Look for your comfort zone. Aim for your sweet spot that will serve as your mental health first aid

Your sweet spot can be a collaboration of a bunch of things. It can be the habit of clean eating, sleeping within the right time, having the perfect support group. It can be a lot of things.

The point is, be mindful in looking for that sweet spot where you can eventually move forward and build better habits in all aspects of your life influencing your mental wellbeing. Don’t get tired of collecting practices and habits that you will eventually bring towards mental healing.

Create a checklist. Prepare your go-to list of activities that you should follow whenever your mental health happens to be exhausted. This helps in creating a habit where you can easily pick yourself up when your branches seem to be falling apart at any given time.

Conclusion

This might not be the first time you will be reading (or hearing) about this. But, the treatment of mental health disorder is NOT a one-size-fits-all type of thing. Some might need a bit more time in treatment, others might recover faster.

However, it may be, what’s important is to always take the first step which is awareness. When a person has gained awareness of a mental health crisis, it’s one step closer to healing. With the right support system, it’s quite conclusive to determine the other symptoms that an individual might be suffering.

After this, symptoms or manifestations will eventually make sense to the person battling a mental health illness. By embracing the realities and expectations of the situation, other people who might be struggling with the same crisis will be more empowered to take a step and make a change towards complete healing.

It also pays a lot in the long haul when you and the people around you (your support group) have embraced the idea of learning. Since each person’s mental health is molded on a different level and to a certain extent, it adds value in the treatment and management when it working around a holistic approach. There’s a huge possibility that recovery and success are definitely possible.