Meridian Professional Counseling

What is Mental Health?

People who are emotionally healthy are in control of their emotions and their behavior. They are able to handle life's challenges, build strong relationships, and recover from setbacks. But just as it requires effort to build or maintain physical heath, so it is with mental and emotional health. Improving your emotional health can be a rewarding experience, benefiting all aspects of your life, including boosting your mood, building resilience, and adding to your overall enjoyment of life.

Mental or emotional health refers to your overall psychological well-being. It includes the way you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships, and your ability to manage your feelings and deal with difficulties.

Good mental health isn't just about the absence of mental health problems. Being mentally or emotionally healthy is much more than being free of depression, anxiety or other psychological issues. Rather than the absence of mental illness, mental and emotional health refers to the presence of positive characteristics. Similarly, not feeling bad is NOT the same as feeling good. While some peope may not have negative feelings, they still need to do things that make them feel positive in order the achieve mental and emotional health.

Some qualities of people who are emotionally healthy are:

• A sense of contentment
• A zest for living and the abiity to laugh and have fun
• The ability to deal with stress and bounce back from adversity
• A sense of meaning and purpose, in both their activites and their relationships
• The flexibility to learn new things and adapt to change
• A balance between work and play, rest and activity, etc.
• The ability to build and maintain fulfilling relationships
• Self-confidence and high self-esteem

These positive characteristics of mental and emotional health allow you to participate in life to the fullest extent possible through productive, meaningful activites and strong relationships. These positive characteristics also help you cope when faced with life's challenges and stresses.

The role of resilience in mental and emotional health

Being emotionally and mentally healthy doesn't mean never going through bad times or experiencing emotional problems. We all go through disappointments, loss and change. And while these are normal parts of life, they can still cause sadness, anxiety, and stress. The difference is that people with good emotional health have an ability to bounce back from adversity, trauma, and stress. This ability is called resilience. People who are emotionally and mentally healthy have the tools for coping with difficult situations and maintaining a positive outlook. They remain focused, flexible, and creative in bad times or good.