what is meant by mental health?

We all have a mind and we all know that it doesn't always work as it should do, just like any other area of our body. Although I have addressed the problems and advice coming from certain mental health problems, I haven't addressed what mental health is itself. 

Everyone has a mind, and looking after it is just as important as looking after your body because without one, you can't necessarily do as well without the other. It's becoming more common that perhaps people's mental health isn't as it should be - 1 in 4! This tends to be defined under the umbrella term of mental illness.
Just as if you were to have a physical illness, mental illness just means that your mental health isn't working perhaps as it should do, for example causing different behaviours and moods. Disorders can include anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and so on and these all have a range of remedies to try and help bring your mental health back to where you'd want it to be. 

Just like physical illness, recovering from mental illness may take a while and may take a range of different remedies to find the best way for you to get better. 

Mental health is the same as physical health and it's just about trying to get better in the best way you can. It's common to experience mental illness and you shouldn't be ashamed of doing so. Getting a cast for a broken leg is just as important as getting medication to balance your serotonin. 

Best Wishes,
Amy Xx

Self harm advice

This post is following on from my previous one giving an introduction to self harm, which you can read, here. This time round, I'm going to share with you some advice of perhaps other coping techniques, or how to deal with self harm itself.

• Talk - talking is always key. If you have someone to whom you can share how you're feeling with, I believe the chances of self-harming reduces because the intensity that you're feeling should lessen. You also know that you have that support around you.

• Find your own techniques - Self harm for me tends to be something that can happen when you can't find any other way to release the tension and to not take part in it, can require a lot of will power. But to try and avoid it - try to do things such as going outside, doing kick boxing, mindfulness, talking and so forth. Give yourself the image of how you would feel afterwards.

• Thinking - If you have the urge to self harm, try to give yourself some breathing time to consider whether you really want to go down that route or not. Giving yourself this time can mean that you don't harm myself in the end.

• Care - If you do find yourself self-harming, don't feel ashamed. It doesn't mean that you have taken a few steps back, it just means you needed to do something to get rid of the pain you were feeling. Of course, embarking on less harmful ways of reliving pain is something to work on. Make sure that you look after any wounds, and give yourself some time to heal afterwards. 

You can find Mind's self harm advice, here.

I hope this has helped in some way. If you have any other advice, please leave a comment below.

Best Wishes,

Amy Xx 

Early intervention

I cannot stress this enough. Early intervention is so important. As people say 'old habits die hard' and this true in terms of mental illness. As years go by, the more you will reinforce your actions, thought patterns and reactions. This in turn, makes it harder for you to break them. I know that this is true for myself. I had been using the same safety behaviours for many years and I had the same thought patterns, kind of being stuck at at young age whilst growing older. In this way, I had felt too young and anxious to drive, to have a job, to catch a bus and so on. But, with proper counselling and CBT I am finally getting to a point where I have almost retrained my thought patterns, so that I think and react in different ways. I know that this would have been easier many years earlier, but I didn't know I had a problem with my mental health for many years. For those that do, it's so important that you get help as early as possible. Don't get me wrong, the mental health services we have here in the UK are pretty poor, but that doesn't mean that you should be put off by a doctor who doesn't understand or a long waiting list - I have been there. The longer you rely on your old ways, the more ingrained it becomes and the harder it is to get out of it. That doesn't mean that you won't, it just might take you longer. 

I so wish that there better mental health services, so we could nip the problem in the bud before it even begins to grow. Imagine, if even children could be taught about mental health and have access to someone who they could talk to at such a young age. I feel the problems could be lessened, so that it wouldn't necessarily be as of a big problem as they got older. Even though the mental health services aren't amazing, talking, doing your own CBT, and even going down to your local GP are all steps in the right direction and I strongly encourage those struggling to take a stand and take a step towards their recovery. It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it. 

You can get there. 

Best Wishes,
Amy Xx