World Mental Health Day 2024, on October 10th, is an opportunity for the world and communities to unite behind the theme ‘Mental health is a universal human right” It is not just a day of awareness; it’s a collective step towards a healthier, more understanding world.
International Mental Health Day increases awareness about mental health issues. So, here are the positive and adverse on our minds explained by psychiatrist Sonal Anand from Wockhardt Hospital.
Mental Health Day: Ensuring Universal Mental Health Rights
Intrinsic Right: Mental health is a universal human right to well-being, intrinsic to our identity, and an essential component of human rights.
Respect and Dignity: Every individual deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, irrespective of their mental health problem.
Empowering Minds: Ensuring Universal Mental Health Rights Adequate mental health care services, including prevention, promotion, treatment, and rehabilitation, should be accessible to all without any form of discrimination.
Social Inclusion: Mental health as a human right means promoting social inclusion, understanding, and acceptance for individuals with mental health conditions.
Equal Opportunities: People with mental health concerns have the right & law to equal opportunities in education, employment, and participation in society. Discrimination in these areas should be eradicated.
Empowerment: Empowering individuals to make decisions about their mental health care, and respecting their choices, is a fundamental aspect of mental health as a human right.
Global Recognition: Mental health as a universal human right is recognized by international organizations
emphasizing the importance of mental well-being on a global scale.
Promoting Awareness: Raising awareness about mental health rights fosters understanding, reduces stigma, and encourages society to support, respect and help those struggling with mental health issues.
Prevention and Support: Mental health as a human right involves investing in prevention strategies and offering appropriate support systems to ensure individuals can maintain good mental health and well-being.
Collaborative Effort: Governments, communities, healthcare providers, and individuals all play a role in upholding mental health as a universal human right, working together to create a mentally healthy world for everyone.
Understand Social Media’s Positive and Adverse Impact on Our Mind with Sonal Anand
The influence of social media is such that there is rarely anyone who hasn’t been able to form a view and judgment of it whether positive or negative. Internet and social media usage have definitely changed brain cognition. On the positive side, we have seen better means of expression, positive changes in social acceptance, new skill development, and overall progress, and on the negative many perils and problems.
Positive Impacts of Social Media
Research is still going on as to how the brain is changing in structure and cognition due to the usage of screens. We know for sure that the brain is adaptable to continuous external stimuli and learning new experiences so it won’t come as a surprise that our mindset and behavior is influenced by social media and social networking usage. The number of ‘likes’ and positive comments that we get activate the reward centre of the brain and hence addiction becomes highly likely.
Social Media For our Development
Communication is the key area in which social media has exerted a very heavy and positive influence. With just a tap, you can join a community with similar and sometimes revolutionary views. This can be an advantage for introverts or people with lesser opportunities and marginalised individuals. Having a platform to express oneself without any boundaries can open whole new ways of thinking and creativity. Learning new skills and the variety of choices promotes self-worth and development.
Social Media For Sharing Emotional Problems
Social media makes it easy to find new friends, easy means of connectivity and new ways of social development. Sharing emotional problems online has helped many individuals who were otherwise cocooned into their own shells. A wave of change in some redundant and unfair social patterns has been seen because of the positive influence of social media. Taking part in such movements gives the individual a feeling of being an integral part of social change. Social media movements like ‘MeToo’, ‘BlackLivesMatter’ have been successful in reaching out to the masses and touching the right chords.
Negative Sides of Social Media
While the positive influences of social media on societal change cannot be doubted, the negative effects are what is bothering research scientists. The social media deprives a face-to-face interaction which is critical as non-verbal cues because body language has been an integral part of our evolution.
Habit of Comparing
The virtual image and real image become two parts of the individual and the resultant conflicts arising from the disbalance of the two is what mainly brings about negative changes. The impact of seeing ‘perfect lives and photographs’ of others and comparing them with oneself can become quite traumatising and difficult to express. One forgets that only one dimension is seen in these pictures and that reality could be different. People tend to post mostly the best versions of themselves and hence comparisons cannot be relied on.
Severe Mental Health Issues
Cognition is definitely affected by higher use of social media in the form of attention, memory and prioritisation problems. Sleep pattern could get dysregulated due to the blue light from screens leading to further problems. Cyberbullying, hate spread, negative comments, lies, misinformation, FOMO (fear of missing out) can hurt young minds and leave deep emotional scars. Growing minds are yet to hone their rationalisation and problem-solving skills. Such negative incidences lead to a variety of mental health problems like anxiety, panic, depression, insomnia, problems of self-esteem and hopelessness leading to self-harm behaviour and suicide.
Addiction to social media is what most people and parents fear. Living in a virtual world and forgetting to live in the real world can take out the meaning of life as we know it.
We cannot deny that social media is here to stay and so molding oneself to use its positive influences and striking the right balance can make life better. One must not be isolated by problems and social media pressure but instead open up to seeking help from family, loved ones, and mental health professionals.
share loves not only on International Mental Health Day, respect and love forever.
There is one tool that will always be with us and that is the power of thought. Thinking right is always in our hands and making the right decision can take care of our anxieties.
