According to Mental Health America, 1 in 5 individuals from the ages 12-17 experienced at least one depression episode in the past year, and more than half of them (56.1%) didn’t receive treatment to improve their mental health. In addition to the youth, over 17.42% of adults and 8.9% of the youth are also experiencing substance use disorders.
Mental health is the state of well-being that helps us cope with the stress that life brings while also helping us realize our abilities, and learn and work well. Mental health is a part of behavioral health that includes emotional, physiological, and social well-being. Mental health isn’t just a mental thing but in a sense is connected to physical health. If you are struggling mentally you could also be at risk of struggling physically. For example, if you have depression that can also come with a headache or maybe even digestive problems.
Mental health can be determined by many different factors. Some of those factors are lack of health care, lack of education, or even social isolation. The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murphy talks about the issues of isolation and loneliness in an interview at Axios. He went on a college tour where he went around the country, making this trip primarily about isolation and loneliness.
He said “as Surgeon General for over two terms, I have now done many different events in public but, there has been no serious of events that I’ve done that had as much demand and engagement as those events. And I think it’s because the issue of loneliness is so deeply felt amongst young people. Just to give you one sense the students would often come up to me, after you know we did our events in college, and they would ask me the following questions: ‘how are we supposed to build connections with other people when it’s no longer the culture for people to talk to each other anymore’ what their saying is right.”
Society normalizes social isolation and with this new norm, the youth is suffering from the change. The general touches on how social media can also play a part in mental health issues given people see so often the good people have in life but never the bad, never the issues that make people just as ordinary as the rest.
Statistics from, the World Health Organization, revealed that there was. 13% increase in reports tied to mental health disorders. The United States had become one of the worst countries for mental health leaving more than 12 million U.S. adults suicidal.
Mental health can be improved. Giving people access to the things they need for example education, housing, and employment can all become major factors that can improve mental health. In addition to what can be provided, the New York Times article titled ‘Physical Fitness Linked to better mental health in young people’ states that “improved performance in each activity was linked with lower risk of mental health disorders.” Mental Health doesn’t have to be the end of the world but with the help and resources that we have here in America, it can be limited and treated.
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