Mental health includes your psychological, emotional, and social well-being. It affects how you make choices, relate to others, handle stress, and so much more. Everyone has mental health, just like everyone has physical health. Conditions such as stress, depression, and anxiety can all affect your mental health and create challenges.
Prioritizing mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood all the way through adulthood. Poor mental health can affect your mood, behaviours, and thinking, and negatively impact your relationships and physical health. This link also works in the other direction – your relationships, physical well-being, and habits can all affect your mental health. The impact of mental health on physical health and quality of life – and vice versa – is why mental health is so important.
Mental health and mental illness are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
“Mental health” is a concept similar to “physical health”. It refers to a state of well-being. Mental health includes our emotions, feelings of connection to others, our thoughts and feelings, and being able to manage life’s highs and lows.
The presence or absence of a mental illness is not a predictor of mental health; someone without a mental illness could have poor mental health, just as a person with a mental illness could have excellent mental health.
Problematic substance use is sometimes linked to poor mental health or mental illness; it can be a coping strategy for untreated trauma, pain, challenging thoughts or emotions, or other health symptoms.
Everyone has mental health and will experience challenges regarding their mental well-being, but not everyone will experience a mental illness. Mental illness indirectly affects all Canadians at some time either through their own experience, or that of a family member, friend or colleague.
Mental health and physical health go hand-in-hand. For example, physical exercise can improve your mood and reduce your anxiety, among many other benefits. Similarly, neglecting your mental health can lead to serious health complications, including heart disease, high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, obesity, and more. Depression can cause problems like insomnia and chronic fatigue.
People with mental health problems sometimes use drugs and alcohol to self-medicate and reduce symptoms like anxiety, depression, or insomnia. While drugs or alcohol can make you feel good in the short-term, over time, regular or heavy use can have a negative impact on your mental and physical health. You can get caught in a vicious cycle: you use drugs or alcohol to feel better, but they make you feel worse, so you use more, which continues the cycle.
While the physical sensations of anxiety and stress can be similar, their causes are usually different. Stress is usually caused by external pressures we’re having difficulty coping with. When we’re stressed, we usually know what we’re stressed about, and the symptoms of stress generally resolve themselves once the stressful situation ends. Anxiety, on the other hand, is usually caused by worries or fears about potential threats or troubles, or even anxiety about the anxiety itself.
Sadness is a normal reaction to some of life’s challenges. Feeling sad from time to time is a normal part of being human. If your feelings of sadness resolve themselves on their own over time and don’t impact your life in a big way, you’re probably not dealing with depression. That being said, if you continue to feel blue, it’s important to seek help, as depression doesn’t usually go away on its own. Depression is much more than low mood or sadness. Look for physical signs, such as problems with sleep, appetite, or energy.