How Mental Health Affects Us Everyday

Have you ever had a negative thought that makes you change your mind on what you can and cannot do, but you just had a sudden burst of confidence in which you knew what you could do. Your thoughts at times can speak louder than words and can make you back out of your choices. For example, going rock climbing with a friend. The most common reason why this happens is our mental health. Mental health is how you feel, somewhat like our emotions. Our mental state can affect us physically either externally, our environment, or internally, inside the body.

Mental health affects us in our environment. At times our environment is not easy to control since we do have other people in our lives such as, family and friends. Our mental health can affect us in our environment in many ways. For example, bipolar I disorder, the affects of this disorder are, manic episodes that occurs for at least 7 days, the person needs medical attention due to the episode or depressive episodes lasting 2 or more weeks according to the National Institute of Mental Health. During a manic episode a person may feel very active or be very tired, may talk faster than usual about different things, may become irritable and engage in risky behavior (National Institute of Mental Health). In addition, major depression can also affect you physically. Major depression is “A period of two weeks or longer during which there is either depressed mood or loss of interest of pleasure…” states the National Institute of Mental Health. In addition, depression can affect you physically causing you not to do the activities you once loved and found please doing such as spending time with family, drawing or exercising. This affects us in our environment as the person may discontinue communication with others or not engage in social activities. Many other mental health illnesses can cause other issues including aggression, paranoia, low self-esteem and staying away from large crowds. Mental illnesses can affect how you feel and how you handle environmental situations

In addition, to physical external issues there are internal complications. Having internal health complications can vary from your circulatory system to your digestive system.

The Mental Health Foundation states having poor mental health can have a negative impact on your body as well as increase some health conditions. For example, anxiety attacks can cause an increase in heart rate and can make the respiratory system feel as if it is under distress. There is other illness that may affect you body in other severe ways. Such as, eating disorders like anorexia in which someone stops eating or lowers their portion size in an unhealthy way making them loose weight in an unhealthy way. This may cause the body to go into a ketoacidosis state meaning that the body uses ketones which are made up of left-over sugar mixed with acids that your body stores if your body does not get the sugar it needs, it is stored in the fat and is made in the liver. Going into a ketoacidosis state is very dangerous since it is an acid used in replace of sugar therefore releasing ketones. The affects of having lots of ketones in your blood stream is risk of an increase in death or a coma. Mental health is important to ensure that your body is running well, and you can take care of it the best way you can. However, not all mental health disorders affect us internally such as borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that is marked by a continuous of changes in patterns of mood, self-image, and behavior. This mental illness has no internal health issues just emotional or behavioral.

Taking care of your body mentally can also help you with your bodily functions.

In conclusion, mental health can affect us in everyday life. Mental health may affect us in our environment or internally. It may affect our environment by not doing the things we love to do with friends and family. It could also affect just our bodies and how they work and the daily functions. It is very important to take care of the mind in order to take care of your body.