Your psychological well-being or the state of your mental health plays a crucial part of your capacity to lead an ideal life including the ability to study, work, pursue leisure activities, form and maintain healthy relationships as well as making day to day decisions that impact employment, education, housing, etc. Disturbances to your mental condition can have a huge impact on these choices and capacities, which not only leads to reduced functioning but ideally wider welfare losses at both the household and societal levels.
In a simple definition, mental health is a state of well-being where you realize your own abilities can cope with the typical stresses of life, be able to work in a productive manner and make a contribution to your community. This definition makes it clear that psychological or mental well being is not only influenced by individual attributes, but also socioeconomic circumstances and the broader environment that you reside in. We are going to delve into all these aspects in this read.
Individual Characteristics/Behaviours
These relate your innate and learned ability to deal with feelings, thoughts and to manage yourself on a daily basis. Not just that but also the capacity to deal with the social world around you by taking part in social activities, taking responsibilities and even respecting the views of those around you. Your mental state can ideally be affected by biological and genetic factors, i.e determinants that an individual is born with including chromosomal abnormalities and intellectual impairment caused by parental exposure to alcohol and the like.
Social & Economic Factors
The capacity for a person to flourish is ideally influenced by their social surroundings, and that includes their opportunity to engage positively with their loved ones – this is especially true for elderly with home care services from the likes of Gabriel’s Angels in comparison to those staying in nursing homes, colleagues and friends, earn a living for themselves as well as the socio-economic circumstances that they find themselves. Lost or limited opportunities to get an education and earn a living are particularly pertinent socio-economic factors.
Environmental Factors
The broader geopolitical and sociocultural environment in which you reside can ideally affect your psychological well-being including the level of access to basic commodities and services including essential health care services, water, exposure to predominating cultural practices and beliefs, and even the economic and social policies introduced at a national level. For instance, the global crisis had substantial mental health consequences including excessive use of alcohol and increased rates of suicide. Social or gender inequality, discrimination, as well as conflict, are other examples of significant determinants of psychological well-being.
It is paramount to note that these various determinants interact with each other in a dynamic manner and they can work for or against your mental health state. For instance, your self-worth could be diminished or enhanced depending on economic security or social support at the household level, which could ideally be influenced by the extent of your country’s economic growth, social justice as well as political stability.
Psychological Health Promotion & Protection
The array of mental health risks are not meagre, and so, responses to them ought to be multi-sectoral and multi-layered. Examples of broad strategies are early recognition and prevention of behavioural or emotional issues, nurturing core individual attributes in the early stages of life such as resilience and self-esteem, promotion of positive interactions (this is especially important in childhood and adolescence age), anti-discrimination rules and campaigns, social protection of the poor, the provision of working and living conditions that enable self determination and psychological development, especially for those who are vulnerable as well as promotion of the rights and opportunities for those with mental disorders.
All these not only help reduce the risks of mental health problems, but they also help create a community and a society that is safe and ideal to live in.
