Mental Wellbeing - Essay Example

“About 45% of adult Australians will experience a mental illness at some stage in their lives”(Mental illness facts and statistics). Depression, anxiety, substance abuse, etc are the major mental problems found among Australians. While substance abuse and depression are affecting teenagers more commonly, anxiety seems to be affecting all people irrespective of age differences. The symptoms of these mental disorders vary from person to person. However, the most general symptoms of these disorders are feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, loss of interest in daily activities, weight changes, sleep problems, fatigue, self-loathing, anger, concentration problems, restlessness, complaints about pain and aches, suicide tendencies, aggression, etc. Family members, friends, and relatives can easily identify or recognize these symptoms and the services of a psychologist should be sought immediately. Psychologists can identify the disease and suggest remedial measures. In some chronic cases, the service of a psychiatrist is also necessary. The combined efforts of a psychologist and a psychiatrist can easily identify the disease and prescribe remedial measures. Psychotherapy in conjunction with medications is found to be suitable for majority of the mental disorders. Young Australians especially teenage boys seem to be more vulnerable to mental disorders in Australia.

In 2007, 26% of 16-24-year-olds had experienced a mental disorder in the previous 12 months, while only 5.9% of 75-year-olds and over had experienced a mental disorder during that time. 25% of males and 19.7% of females living in step/blended families, and 22.2% of males and 26.7% of females living in sole-parent families experienced mental health problems, compared to 11.3% of males and 10.7% of females living with their original parents (Mental illness facts and statistics).

“When someone has a mental health problem or is experiencing mental distress, it is important to try to keep friendships going, even though people with mental health problems often want to see their friends less than usual” (Friendship and Mental Health).  If any of my friends develop some kind of mental problem, I can help him and his family in many ways. As a friend, I should try to identify the root causes of his problems without agitating him. In many cases, people who face mental problems may reveal the root causes of their problems only to trusted people. I should take immense care while talking to him and should use only soothing words to calm down or settle his emotions. I should try to fill positive energy into the mind of my friend. Most psychological problems are occurred due to the dominance of negative thoughts. Removal of negative thoughts is important in the treatment of any kind of psychological problem. Even though medicines can help a mental patient in suppressing his negative thoughts, friends and family members have a major role to play in helping the patient from getting rid of his negative thoughts.

Friends can motivate mental patients to do more activities that are necessary to avoid their negative thoughts (Better Health Channel). Most mental patients like to avoid the company of others. They like to stay alone in their own world. If they were allowed to stay in their own world, they will never come out of that world. Their negative thoughts will spoil them further and their disease becomes severe. If left uncared, these people can even think in terms of committing suicide. So giving company to a mental patient is as important as giving medications to him. Friends can play a vital role in doing so. Majority of the psychological patients may show reluctance in seeking medical advice for treating their disease. Friends can persuade them to seek medical advice to get rid of their problems. I should talk to his family members and help them in finding some suitable mental treatment or psychological service centers at Darwin. Some of the renowned psychological service centers at Darwin are given in the appendix.

In order to increase awareness about psychological diseases, advertising campaigns may help. Even though we have a lot of print and audio-visual channels of advertisements, in my opinion, social media or social networking websites seem to be the most effective ones for spreading messages about mental problems. Social networks like Facebook, twitter, youtube, etc are used by the majority of Australians at present irrespective young or adult.

The irritating thoughts about the past, the agony about the future, and the failure to act properly at present are the major reasons for the mental problems developed by the Australians. Keeping the above fact in mind, I would like to spread the slogan; Forget about the past, Think about the present, Future will be yours, using social networks.