A guide to Mental Health for teenagers

Chapter 2: What is Mental Distress?

There are many explanations of Mental Health however all of them try to capture one important aspect. That aspect is that a healthy brain provides us with a healthy mental health. The brain is an important part of the body and both work in harmony and it isn't possible to consider them separately. As much as it is important for us to provide our body with good nutrition, it is equally as important to provide our brain with good nutrition as both of these components are connected.

To state in simpler words, mental health means having the ability to successfully adapt to the challenges that life creates for us. These challenges can be positive or negative and our brain needs to apply all of our emotions, thinking, and behavior to succeed in these challenges. Our mind learns how to deal with these challenges which increases our capacity over time and we tend to get more successful over time while facing challenges.

It is a common misconception that negative emotions aren't part of a good mental health. Crying, feeling annoyed, angry or sad are all normal signs of good mental health. So are negative thoughts such as, "people don't like me" or "things are too hard for me" or "I am not a good person". Negative behaviors such as avoiding a situation or yelling at someone are also part of good mental health. Being stressed is also a part of good mental health, being able to identify the source of one's stress and being able to overcome it which solves the problem simultaneously is also a fundamental aspect of having good mental health.

For e.g. you are feeling stressed about writing an examination and this could either lead to negative or neutral behavior. You could either go out drinking with your friends to "forget" about the stress or you could behave neutrally such as meditating. However none of these will result in you doing well in your exam. A strategy that might help you is studying or seeking help from your teacher or instructor to help you understand topics that are troubling you. Exercising such activities are all signs of good mental health.

In order to understand mental health, it is important to understand three related components of it; mental distress, mental health problems and mental disorder.

Mental distress is a signal of stress or anxiety that is produced when something in the environment is demanding one to adapt to a challenge. Challenges can be writing a test, giving a presentation, failing to join a sports team etc. This signal is also called a stress response. This stress response has different constituents to it.

The first constituent is emotions such as worrying, feeling unhappy, being energized and being annoyed. The second constituent is thinking which consists of negative thoughts such as believing that you aren't good at anything, or having regrets etc. and it also consists of positive thoughts such as "this is something I need to do" or believing that you can complete one of your objectives. The third constituent is physical symptoms. These are caused because the mind and the body are interlinked. If you are feeling distress, your body will act in a certain way such as stomach aches, headaches, having butterflies in your stomach etc. The last constituent is behavior. These may include avoidance of a situation, engagement in a challenge, positivity or even withdrawal from others. As you can see, a stress response can result in positivity or negativity.

Mental distress can cause you to experience problems in the way you think, feel or m=behave, this can cause mixed up emotions which can impact you relationship with other people and can interfere with work or life. Having mental distress or being with someone who has mental distress can be hard but you shouldn't be ashamed about it because everyone experiences mental stress at some point in their lives. It is symbol of good mental health. This stress acts like a signal that tells to solve a specific challenge. As you develop strategies and solutions to solve challenges, you figure out what works and for you and what doesn't. This leads to a healthy learning process and the stress eventually goes away when you finally overcome that challenge.

Let's look into what can cause mental stress or mental distress:

Young people such as teenagers do not require counseling when they encounter mental distress. The reason why they don't need help is because dealing with mental distress is an experience that teenagers can manage themselves by developing new skills. These skills are developed by trial and error which is practiced by using advice from friends, parents, teachers and other sources which may include media.

You can also use different techniques such as having a regular sleeping pattern, spending time with friends and family and most importantly staying away from drugs. Sometimes teenagers end up trying strategies that may not work such is instead to studying for a test, they may go out to a party or instead of taking a good night's sleep before an exam, teenagers may stay up all night to study and such strategy can increase distress.

The bottom line in all of this is that bad choices lead to good choices. It is all a process of growing up. If teenagers begin counseling and seeking help at this level, they will be taught how to moderate the stress response but they will not be taught how to learn new skills. This can have a negative impact on their process of development of skills and these skills are a definite part of a successful adult life.