Some people seem to bounce back from their struggles, and others seem to hardly struggle at all. We might envy their ability to overcome their emotional challenges. It turns out, these people might not simply be born with an innate ability to manage their struggles. They may just have good artillery of preventive mental health care strategies.
- What are preventive mental health care strategies?
- Are there preventive mental health examples?
- What are some preventive mental health programs?
- What is involved in promoting mental health?
- What is the importance of promoting mental health?
Preventive Mental Health Care Strategies
It can feel like we are at the mercy of our emotions sometimes, and it's hard to shake a bad mood or low spirit when we feel it. However, there are many strategies and habits that we can cultivate to give us the best line of defence against certain mental health risks.
Therapeutic Lifestyle Change
Human beings are biopsychosocial creatures. This means that we are influenced by biological, psychological, and social elements. These elements also work to influence each other. Making certain lifestyle changes may not completely cure us of clinical depression or severe conditions like schizophrenia. They can, however, reduce certain mental health symptoms and give us a better defense against developing mental conditions.
Preventive Mental Health Examples
There are several strategies we can use to address biological, psychological, and social elements of our mental health.
Biological
Some of us inherit genetic conditions that make us more likely to develop mental health conditions. If we have the right genes for certain disorders, we are more likely to develop them. However, there are some biological strategies that we can employ to reduce mental health symptoms or to ensure we maintain better mental health.
Fig. 1 - Woman Jogging
Exercise
Have you ever noticed that you feel better emotionally after exercise or a good run? The physical benefits of exercise are numerous, but Rebar et al. (2015) found that those who exercised regularly actually managed stress better, had more self-confidence, and less fatigue and depression than those who didn't. Regular exercise also reduces the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's Disease. (Kramer & Erickson, 2007).
Meditation
Meditation is one strategy you can add to your biological prevention toolkit. Meditation requires us to sit still and turn our attention inward. We pull away from external distractions and acknowledge and accept thoughts and sensations as they occur. (Hofmann et al. (2010) found that those who kept a regular meditation practice had lower levels of anxiety and depression than those who did not.
Psychological
Preventive psychological strategies require us to look at how we understand the nature of control and our own temperament.
Control
How we understand control in our lives plays a large part in the prevention of conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression. In terms of mental health, it helps to have an internal locus of control.
Someone who believes that they are largely in control of their fate has an internal locus of control. Someone who believes that external elements and forces have a greater influence over their fate has an external locus of control.
Brian and Roger have an exam coming up on Friday. Brian believes that if he studies hard, he will get a good grade on the exam. He has an internal locus of control. Roger doesn't bother to study. It wouldn't matter if he did. He's just not someone who does well on exams. Roger has an external locus of control.
Lefcourt (1982) found that those who had an internal locus of control felt less depressed and had better overall health. Sherman et al. (2012) found that those with an internal sense of control actually exhibited lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Adopting an internal locus of control is advantageous for your mental and physical health.
Optimism
We are born with a certain temperament that can cause us to be more introverted or extroverted, or more optimistic or pessimistic. However, learning to adopt an optimistic mindset is a helpful strategy to prevent mental health setbacks. An optimist looks at life in a hopeful way, even when obstacles present themselves. A pessimist has a consistently negative view of things, even when there is no direct cause for it. Segerstrom et al. (1998) found that self-reported optimists experienced better moods, stronger immune systems, and better overall health. Optimism is a helpful strategy!
Social
Our social lives and the societies we live in can have a strong influence on our mental health. There are certain social strategies we can maintain to help prevent mental health struggles.
Social Groups
The people around us can really make or break our mood. If we are at odds with the people in our lives, or if we feel unsupported, it can have an intense effect on us. Social support is a feeling of care, acceptance, and encouragement that we get from other people. Many studies have shown that people who have close relationships have happier and healthier lives. (Brannan et al., 2013)
We can develop close connections with family members, romantic partners, friends, colleagues, or really anyone in our lives. Social groups can be built from our career path or shared interests. It's not enough to merely participate in social groups, however. To really benefit from social support, we need to form strong, close bonds with people in our lives. Those who do so have even been found to live longer! (Shor et al., 2013).
Fig. 2 - Social Groups
Spirituality and Faith
Those who engage in a spiritual or faith-based practice enjoy some considerable health and psychological benefits. In a broad, longitudinal study, Kark et al. (1996) found that those who are spiritually active live longer than those who are not. Spiritual communities usually promote healthy lifestyles and discourage risky behaviors like smoking or excessive drinking. The strong worldview and social network that spiritual communities provide promote a deeper sense of security and satisfaction.
Preventive Mental Health Programs
Mental health programs take place in all the settings where people work, learn, and live. Companies are beginning to understand how important the mental health of their employees truly is. Industrial-organizational psychologists often conduct research on employee satisfaction. These professionals are interested in creating the optimal environment for businesses or institutions to succeed.
They have found that employee satisfaction is a great predictor of a business's success. Happy people do better work.
School psychologists do similar work, but focus on the academic setting. They explore ways to optimize the learning environment, taking individual needs into account so that all students have access to quality learning. They also identify and intervene in cases where students are at emotional, psychological, or physical risk.
Community psychologists work to promote and implement programs that foster social involvement and support mental health in the community. They intervene and promote policy change in cases of underrepresented community members.
Promoting Mental Health
We have much greater access to mental health resources than the generations of the past had. Mental health is a topic that has swept popular culture, and it's easy to find mental health awareness and strategies being promoted on social.
On the ground, health psychologists are working to promote health and prevent diseases. These professionals help people live healthier lives by implementing programs to help people sleep better, stop smoking, reduce the spread of infections, and manage mental health concerns. Health psychologists work on the community level to implement public policy toward healthcare and to increase awareness of resources and healthy habits.
Importance of Promoting Mental Health
Having an awareness of our mental state and strategies to maintain our mental health is important because it can reduce suffering and possibly save lives. When we are struggling with our mental health, our lives can seem like they are put on hold. Mental suffering interrupts our lives and our pursuits.
It can take time to recover from mental or emotional setbacks, so it's important to understand what your resources and strategies are.
If we talk openly about mental health and create a network of support in our communities, we can help people who feel like they are out of resources or despairing. The sooner people understand what they are going through, the sooner they can find the strategies and treatments that they need.
Preventive Physical and Mental Health - Key takeaways
- Human beings are biopsychosocial creatures. This means that we are influenced by biological, psychological, and social elements. These elements also work to influence each other.
- Preventive biological strategies include exercise and meditation.
- Preventive psychological strategies include notions of control and optimism.
- Preventive social strategies include social groups and spiritual or faith-based practices.
- Mental health programs take place in all the settings where people work, learn, and live and can be implemented by industrial-organizational, school, or community psychologists.
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