The Bouras Blog

Hello Everyone!

Did you know that “May is Mental Health Month?” Life is full of challenges and some people are able to handle challenges or stressors better than others.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what mental health is. How many of you can honestly say that you are “mentally healthy?” How many people live with unrealistic expectations from their spouses, their children, their co-workers, or their job? How many people feel “stressed out” or “there is not enough time,” yet, instead of taking time for themselves and reevaluate their priorities, they just keep doing what keeps them stressed out in the first place? How many people tend to “escape” with drinking alcohol or procrastinate, instead of eating healthier, exercising and coming up with a plan to address stressors?

As you can see, one can be mentally unhealthy, without necessarily also having a psychiatric-medical illness. This is analogous to being somewhat overweight and having occasional pain and aches, but without also having a medical illness, like heart disease or arthritis. Without taking some time to rest and reevaluate diet choices and exercise, some people might end up developing a medical illness. So, unless one takes time to reevaluate relationships and priorities in life, one might develop a psychiatric illness, like clinical depression or clinical anxiety.

In the same way that not everyone with a poor diet will develop diabetes, not everyone with poor coping skills will develop clinical depression. People who develop diabetes or clinical depression are usually genetically predisposed, as we know that both of these illnesses tend to run in families.

Because of  misconceptions about mental health and psychiatric illness, there is still stigma that needs to be eliminated. Just like our car dashboard, our body sends us warning signals when our body hurts or feels stressed. Ignore the signals, and you can still drive for a while; but, unless you take the time to assess the signals and take care of any problems, you will end up with a more serious problem that will be more costly…

So, take the time to assess your mental health. You will feel better and live a happier, more fulfilling life.