These are the days of anxiety, worry and tension and the problem of mental illness is increasing day by day not only in India but throughout the world especially in developed countries rather than developing countries. In U.S.A. nearly half of the beds in hospitals are occupied by mental patients.
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This is because of so called fastness in life, materialism, discontentment and restlessness. The man, today has become lonely in a crowd with degradation of human values, loss of social ties, self centred life, lack of opportunities, deprivation and increase in the expectations due to excessive use of mass media.
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Man has become so instrumental and self centred that he has forgotten loving each other. With the advancement of knowledge and skills gained about modern mechanization the man has reduced himself to a negligible part of the total machinery.
According to modern concept of W.H.O. the health is defined as the complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely an absence of disease. Mental health is an important component of total health. As there is a saying that healthy mind resides in healthy body, physical health and mental health are interrelated with each other.
If a person is physically healthy he will also become mentally healthy because the mental health depends on physical health and vice versa. Therefore good physical health is the first stepping stone to mental health.
Mental health is important for an individual to enable him to lead a happy, contented and healthy social life, and to withstand the stress and strains of life in a satisfactory manner.
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Mental health is defined as the ability of the individual to make personal and social adjustments. These adjustments are concerned with one’s daily life in relation to others, at home and at work and he adjusts in a way acceptable to the society.
Characteristics of a Mentally Healthy Person:
A Mentally Health Person has the following Characteristics:
1. A mentally healthy person feels contented, satisfied, happy, calm and cheerful. He does not condemn himself and there are no conflicts within him. He has self respect. He neither underestimates nor over-estimates his own ability.
2. A mentally healthy person is able to think for himself and lake his own decisions. He does not shirk his responsibilities and is able to meet the demands of life.
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3. He has firm determination and self control. He faces problems and tries to solve them intelligently. He is not dominated by fear, anger, love, jealousy, stress and worries.
4. A mentally healthy person is able to adjust with other people, make sincere and long-lasting friends and does not feel isolated. He understands problems and emotional needs of others and tries to be considerate and courteous in his dealings with others. He accepts criticism and does not get easily upset and tries to overcome emotions.
5. A mentally healthy person adjusts himself successfully to the changing situations and does not get upset when things go wrong, whereas some people react sharply, lose their temper, talk loudly and make everybody around uncomfortable.
Factors Leading to Mental III Health:
1. Heredity: It is well known that certain mental diseases (e.g. schizophrenia) run in families.
2. Physical Health: Sickness and/or disability affect mental health.
3. Social Factors: Worries, anxieties, emotional stress, tension, frustration, unhappy marriages, broken homes, poverty, cruelty, neglect etc. all lead to mental illness.
4. The use of alcohol and other narcotics is one of the major causes of mental ill health and has ruined many homes.
5. Irritability over trifles, fluctuation of mood, insomnia, depression, and disturbed state of mind, state of fear and feeling of various non- existing complaints also lead to mental ill health.