Yesterday (October 10) was World Mental Health Day.
Mental health, and mental health awareness, is always important. But it would be remiss not to recognise the increased need for awareness, understanding, compassion, and action at the moment throughout the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s imperative that we increase our understanding of how we feel, how we react, and how we are affected when our mental health is not the best. It’s also incredibly important that we consciously work to better our understanding of the challenges faces by those with chronic or short-term mental illness. By increasing our understanding and awareness, we can all play a part in looking out for ourselves, our loved ones, and those in our broader community when extra support is required.
Look After Your Mental Health (an organisation representing the mental health sector in Australia) explain good mental health as below:
‘Good mental health is when we can cope with the stressors of our daily lives, participate in loving relationships, contribute to our community, and work towards our goals. Everyone has mental health. And we can all benefit from looking after our own mental health and the mental health of our communities.’
This reminds us of the concept that mental health does not equate to mental illness; everyone has mental health, and there is a lot we can do (personally and for our community) to help maintain and promote good mental health.
The links below from Look After Your Mental Health include helpful tips, resources for more information, great downloadable calendars (for you, your family, or your workplace), and contact information for more support.
Look after yourself and one another.
Mental Health Calendars – general, young adults, families, older Australians, workplaces
