In today's world unhealthy lifestyle is one of the key factors which leads to the deterioration of our health. This kind of lifestyle makes us vulnerable to various diseases which affects our day to day activities to a great extent. Therefore following a healthy daily routine will decrease the negative effects of our unhealthy lifestyle. Before discussing further, we should first know what being healthy actually means?
By being healthy we mean the well being of physical, mental and emotional health. Very often we see that people give a lot of attention to physical health but ignore the equally precious mental and emotional health. We see a lot of people going for daily walks, practicing yoga or hitting the gym. Most of them look physically fit but they may not be completely healthy. Many of them may be suffering from a range of mild anxiety to even life threatening depression.
There are many factors which contribute to the deterioration of mental and emotional health; getting bullied at school, being compared to other children, physical and sexual abuse, job pressure, unhappy relationship, death of near and dear ones, poverty etc. The symptoms are not so hard to recognize but sometimes they are so minor and common that we tend to overlook them. Some of the common symptoms which may be a signal of being mentally unwell are sudden change in behaviour, continuous sleepless nights, sudden rise in the heart rate, always feeling lonely among people, always haunted by negative thoughts, always having a gloomy mood etc. If we suffer from these or see others suffering we must approach an expert. Being mentally ill is never a matter of shame. There is still a stigma which stops us from getting expert help and latter the little anxiety we suffer develops into heavy depression which eventually leads into attempting suicide.
There is always a question that arises i.e. apart from detecting the symptoms and asking for expert help, what can we general people do to help the sufferers? First and most importantly we should try to overcome this stigma as soon as possible. If we suffer from a liver or a kidney disease we do not hesitate to approach a doctor, in the same way a brain is also an organ so why do we hesitate to visit an expert if we suffer from a mental illness. Secondly, we should always try to listen what the sufferers have to say. If they try to hide their feelings, we should encourage them to share. We may not have the solutions to their problems but even if we listen it may help them to open up. We must also encourage them to practice healthy habits such as meditation, breathing exercises etc. Thirdly, we must strongly oppose and act against the incidents of bullying, ragging, abuses etc. which are many of the leading causes of depression. I would also like to include what i feel is the most important factor which effects the mental health of a child is their parents not supporting them, comparing them with others and also putting performance pressure on them. When we go through a problem the first person we look upon are our parents and if they do not support us it is hard for a child to remain stable and motivated. So i would urge all the parents to not put any kind of pressure on your child and support them.
Last but not the least i would like to end it by saying let us learn to cry. Crying helps us release all our prisoned emotions and makes us feel better. Let us cry to laugh heartily and live fully.
