What do you believe "normal" or "healthy" really is?!
Question: What do you believe "normal" or "healthy" really is.?
What do you believe it means to be a emotionally/mentally healthy individual.? It seems so easy to point out what is unhealthy, I'm not quite sure I know what "healthy" is anymore!Health Question & Answer
Answers:
That's actually a very fundamental question in the field of psychology.
A mental illness has to cause distress or dysfunction. Either you must be hurt by it--experience distress--or it has to cause problems with you carrying out the activities you do in your daily life--taking care of yourself; work; school; relationships.
A mental illness also has to be unusual. For example, grief is not considered a mental illness even though it causes significant distress and dysfunction because it is a universal human experience upon experiencing a loss.
If you are not experiencing distress or dysfunction, then you are mentally healthy--strictly speaking--because you do not have a mental illness. You can be quite unusual and still be quite healthy; a good example of this is eccentricity--people who don't fit into the dominant culture, but otherwise experience no problems with their lives. Especially individualistic people actually have greater self-confidence than average.
You have to remember, though, that "health" as the absence of disease isn't the full definition. After all, who's probably more healthy--the guy who loves playing sports, or the couch potato who thinks it'll kill him to touch a football or a running shoe.? Doesn't matter if neither of them have a diagnosis; the guy who's more active (and most likely eats sensibly to sustain the active lifestyle) is probably healthier; that is, he's more resistant to disease. He recovers from colds faster. If he gets a heart attack, it'll be due to genetic factors beyond his control; and when he does, he's more likely to survive and will recover from it faster.
Mental health is like that, too. Some people are more resilient than others; and your lifestyle plays a big role. Stress reduces your resilience; supportive relationships increase it. Even little things can change how mentally healthy you are--owning a dog, for example, shows a measurable boost to your resistance to mental illness. You're more vulnerable when your life is hard--a divorce, a layoff--or even when it's happy but stressful, such as just after you've gotten married. There are a great many things you can do to increase your resilience; and the nice thing is, they're also things that'll make your life more fulfilling as a whole.
And, of course, there's a feedback loop between mental and physical health: The healthier you are physically, the healthier you'll be mentally; the healthier you are mentally, the better your physical health will be. Being depressed actually lowers your immune response to the common cold!
The line between mentally ill and not has always been a fuzzy line. Psychology isn't a hard science; and the definitions of the extent of "distress" and "dysfunction", or just how unusual something has to be before it gets a diagnostic label, don't have any hard-and-fast cutoff lines. It's often a matter of opinion--the psychologist's and the client's--whether someone ought to seek treatment.Health Question & Answer
A mental illness has to cause distress or dysfunction. Either you must be hurt by it--experience distress--or it has to cause problems with you carrying out the activities you do in your daily life--taking care of yourself; work; school; relationships.
A mental illness also has to be unusual. For example, grief is not considered a mental illness even though it causes significant distress and dysfunction because it is a universal human experience upon experiencing a loss.
If you are not experiencing distress or dysfunction, then you are mentally healthy--strictly speaking--because you do not have a mental illness. You can be quite unusual and still be quite healthy; a good example of this is eccentricity--people who don't fit into the dominant culture, but otherwise experience no problems with their lives. Especially individualistic people actually have greater self-confidence than average.
You have to remember, though, that "health" as the absence of disease isn't the full definition. After all, who's probably more healthy--the guy who loves playing sports, or the couch potato who thinks it'll kill him to touch a football or a running shoe.? Doesn't matter if neither of them have a diagnosis; the guy who's more active (and most likely eats sensibly to sustain the active lifestyle) is probably healthier; that is, he's more resistant to disease. He recovers from colds faster. If he gets a heart attack, it'll be due to genetic factors beyond his control; and when he does, he's more likely to survive and will recover from it faster.
Mental health is like that, too. Some people are more resilient than others; and your lifestyle plays a big role. Stress reduces your resilience; supportive relationships increase it. Even little things can change how mentally healthy you are--owning a dog, for example, shows a measurable boost to your resistance to mental illness. You're more vulnerable when your life is hard--a divorce, a layoff--or even when it's happy but stressful, such as just after you've gotten married. There are a great many things you can do to increase your resilience; and the nice thing is, they're also things that'll make your life more fulfilling as a whole.
And, of course, there's a feedback loop between mental and physical health: The healthier you are physically, the healthier you'll be mentally; the healthier you are mentally, the better your physical health will be. Being depressed actually lowers your immune response to the common cold!
The line between mentally ill and not has always been a fuzzy line. Psychology isn't a hard science; and the definitions of the extent of "distress" and "dysfunction", or just how unusual something has to be before it gets a diagnostic label, don't have any hard-and-fast cutoff lines. It's often a matter of opinion--the psychologist's and the client's--whether someone ought to seek treatment.Health Question & Answer
I asked my psychiatrist the other other day what the hell the meaning of "normal" really was. Much to my surprise, he couldn't give me an answer.
To me, "healthy" means that a person can get through life without getting into a lot of conflict with others, can manage to have some (real) laughs, and is able to have intimate relationships with others without having to run away.
In short, a "healthy" person can walk the streets without getting arrested. That last statement might seem a bit simplistic, but it does work.
As for "normal," I can't give you a scientific answer, and I defy anyone else to do so. You just have to believe that you're going to be fine.
Hahahaha. Sorry I wasn't much better.Health Question & Answer
To me, "healthy" means that a person can get through life without getting into a lot of conflict with others, can manage to have some (real) laughs, and is able to have intimate relationships with others without having to run away.
In short, a "healthy" person can walk the streets without getting arrested. That last statement might seem a bit simplistic, but it does work.
As for "normal," I can't give you a scientific answer, and I defy anyone else to do so. You just have to believe that you're going to be fine.
Hahahaha. Sorry I wasn't much better.Health Question & Answer
balanced and saneHealth Question & Answer
HM....Health Question & Answer