Every human has a ‘mind,’ which we do not see, but we all realize or feel its presence. So, we laugh joyfully, feel angry, hate, love, and weep. All of these feelings indicate our mental health.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), “mental health refers to a condition where each individual can realize his or her capability to deal with the stresses of life and to work competently and successfully, as well contribute efficiently to society.” Therefore, emotional well-being is an essential part of our ‘health.’
Mental health has been given prominence in the definition of “health” by the World Health Organization. ‘Health’ refers to the material’s physical, mental, social, and spiritual health condition and not just the absence or disability of the disease.
Therefore, nobody can say to have good mental health when he has no disability or mental retardation. In addition, social, psychological, and biological influences affect a person’s emotional well-being at a particular time.
Family violence, socio-economic stress, rapid social change, stress at work, gender discrimination, social isolation, unhealthy lifestyle, physical illness, and deprivation of human rights are the causes of disease or abnormal mental health.
At the World Health Conference of the 20th, “Content Mental Health Procedures 25-220” was approved. WHO, the Member States, has been committed to promoting mental health and achieving global goals.
The goals of this “content mental health program” are to:
- Improve emotional well-being
- Prevent mental illness
- Provide mental patient care
- Enhance immunity
- Guarantee human rights
- Reduce mental illness, disability, and death
- Psychological Assessments
This approach will focus on the following mental health objectives:
- Empowering effective leadership and workforce in the development of emotional well-being
- To provide community-based content, structured and responsible mental health care, and social services to marginalized people
- Implementation of strategies for the development of emotional well-being and prevention of mental illness
- Exchanging information on mental health and strengthening quantitative data and research
We can take the following steps to improve mental health:
- Childhood Things to Do: Provide a balanced environment that will ensure children’s health-sensitive and nutritious food, address any threat, ensure child education, support the development of the child, and make them emotionally matured
- Child-adolescent cohesiveness: life-based skills in childbirth activities, child and adolescent developmental work plans
- Social and economic empowerment of women: Provide education opportunities, micro-credit cover
- Development of school-centered mental health: To provide psychological check-ups and care for school children in the development of emotional well-being
- Mental Health at Work: Mental Stress and Preventive Activities
- The mental health of older people: Providing a friendly environment and daycare center
- Habitat policy: Improvement of family environment
- Poverty reduction and providing social security for the poor
- Social development activities
- Violence Prevention Program: To stop the availability of alcohol-related substances and to regulate the use of weapons
- Development of mutual social villages
- Improvement of mental patient entitlements, facilities, and services
What is suicide?
Ending one’s life with self-will is considered suicide. About 6,000 people die of suicide yearly, equivalent to 5 suicides every 10 seconds. The study found that in addition to each suicide, more than 20 people attempted suicide. Suicide can happen to anyone at any time in his life.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youths aged 8-20. Global suicide accounts for 5% of international and middle-class countries.
Suicide Procedures:
Suicide procedures are hanging on the neck, eating pesticides or sleeping pills, poisoning, and sometimes ending self with firearms are the main methods of suicide, also jumping high, jumping in front of a car, jumping in a river or sea, cutting the throat with knives or sharp weapons, stepping on the stomach, the fire self is the kind of suicide that we see in society.
Causes of suicide:
- Depression is the leading cause of suicide
- Patients with drug addiction (marijuana, yaba, alcohol)
- Personality problems
- Schizophrenia
- Mood disorders
- Sometimes the stress of life that the person cannot handle suddenly impulsively commits suicide
- Financial problems
- Relationship failure
- Long-term pain or illness
- Violence
- Epidemics
- Sexual violence
- Loss of something
- Loneliness increases the probability of suicide
Whose suicidal rate is higher among men and women?
Women are more than three times more likely to commit suicide, but men commit suicide more than five times more than women. Studies show that the suicide rate of single people is higher than that of married people. Women, widows, aggressors, minority populations, immigrants, epidemics, intercourse, or traumatized populations living alone also have a great chance of suicide.
Written by: Dr. Md. Rashidul Haque, Assistant Professor (Psychiatry)
Member, Faculty of Psychiatry, BCPS