For a long time, mental health was a taboo topic in the United States. Thankfully, that’s changing, but the conversation still isn’t where it should be. Almost everyone is dealing with their own private mental health struggles, from the temporary and minor to the very major. If we can all step back and think and speak more openly about mental health, the world would be a better place for it. With that in mind, here are 6 tips and facts regarding mental health to keep in mind in your everyday life. According to the National Institute on Mental Illness, 44.7 million adults were living through some form of mental illness. If nothing else, that figure should convince folks that this is an incredibly common struggle that many people are going through. If anything, these numbers are likely lower than the actual count due to the high number of non-reported mental illnesses in America. Therapy is a common and effective form of mental health treatment that has gotten a strangely bad reputation in popular culture over the years. Therapy should be made as acceptable as possible in order to encourage those suffering to seek treatment. By being more open and accepting of mental health in others, it will make for a better world for everyone. The therapy process can differ in many ways depending on what is needed in each specific case, so being open to whatever that therapy process looks like is important to make a change in our culture. We need to provide better mental health services for children. In another National Institute on Mental Illness study, it was concluded that 5.7% of all adults in the United States have experienced Generalized Anxiety Disorder in their lives, but only 2.7% of the population is recorded as having experienced the disorder in the past year. Generalized Anxiety Disorder is described as “excessive anxiety and worry about a variety of events or activities (e.g., work or school performance) that occurs more days than not, for at least 6 months,” meaning a major anxiety episode that lasts a long time. Again, to show how common these disorders are, in a classroom of 28 children, on average, four of them will have a disorder of one of these types. As a society, we need to focus on making these disorders socially acceptable, so that we can help more people overcome them. Out of those four children, how many of them will be left behind because the system wasn’t able to accommodate their mental health? This one is a little more common knowledge, as it’s often thrown around by those against marriage, but it is worth remembering. Couples that undergo the couples therapy process during or sometimes even before their marriage have a higher rate of success, making it something worth considering when undergoing marital stress. Couples counseling services are easy to find if you take a look into local therapy options. Do you have any other mental health facts or tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments, and thanks for reading!
2. 10% of Children Aged 3 to 17 Participated in the Therapy Process in 2016
3. 1 in 20 Adults Will Experience Generalized Anxiety Disorder, But It Is Usually Temporary
4. One Out of Every Seven Children is Diagnosed with a Mental, Behavioral or Developmental Disorder
5. The American Divorce Rate is Around 50%