October 3, 2019

Top Resources for Mental Health Aid

People are very conscious when it comes to staying healthy, physically. In an unlikely case of them suffering a physical injury, they would try out different strategies to feel better. For instance, one might take the stairs instead of going up the elevator, leave his favorite junk food and start eating healthy or start applying a special ointment that smells foul- all because his doctor recommended him to do so.

Unfortunately, they do not care as much about their mental health, despite it being equally important, if not more, as compared to physical health. In fact, there are so many people who do not even know what mental health is. It is much more than a diagnosis. It is about how well a person feels psychologically.

It not only includes how a person feels about himself and others but also how he manages his feelings when dealing with daily routine difficulties. While taking help from professionals is certainly important when it comes to dealing with mental health issues, one should always start from taking steps on his own to improve his mental health.

Since improving your mental health would leave a positive impact on your overall well-being, we have listed down top resources for mental health aid. If you or anyone you know is suffering from any mental illness, this list will show you ways to cope with it.


Often called talk-therapy, a lot of people with mental health conditions have found this treatment very helpful. Always remember that the type and length of therapy will vary from one person to another, depending on your situation. Different people have different kinds of mental health issues. Your therapist, after carefully assessing your situation, will recommend what you should do. It might be a part of your overall treatment plan, which would include some medications or other treatment options as well.

The whole point of this treatment is so that you can talk about your behavior, thoughts, symptoms, goals, stresses, and past experiences with your therapist. This is not as easy as it may sound. People suffering from mental health issues do not find it easy talking about the aforementioned things. Sometimes, it may take people more than a few sessions to open up about their condition.

Once they do, however, it would help you in dealing with your problems. People sometimes may also feel light after going through an emotional release. Furthermore, during such sessions, they may get a sense that they are being heard, understood, and supported.

There are a lot of different therapies, but some of the most common ones include:

• Cognitive-behavioral
• Interpersonal
• Family
• Art
• Psychodynamic
• Psychoeducation

You are free to ask your therapist all kinds of questions concerning how his therapies work. You will benefit from it more if you have an idea about how the process works. You will also be able to choose the traits of a therapist, so you feel more comfortable. For example, your therapist could be a man or a woman, someone younger than your or older than you, someone who belongs to the same cultural background as you or someone who has a friendly style as opposed to someone who is formal.

Virtual Therapy

With the way technology has taken over every field of our lives, it was only a matter of time before people started using it to improve their mental health as well. And thus came virtual therapy. The news of using this treatment to treat mental health issues has risen over the past few years, albeit it was first used during the 1990s. Though people associate virtual therapy with video games, usually, innovative technology seems to have other applications as well. The most important being using this kind of therapy to treat mental health problems. In therapies, virtual reality has the following applications:

• Exposure
• Cognitive Behavior
• Stress Management
• Assessment

Virtual reality has a lot of benefits in the field of mental health. In exposure therapy, therapists are able to control the amount of exposure in every session. For example, if there’s a person who suffers from ‘fear of flying,’ the therapist, over the course of many sessions, allows the patient to experience what it’s like in a typical flight. Depending on how well the patient is doing, he can increase the level.
Virtual reality also happens to be convenient for both the patient and the therapist. In the ‘fear of flying’ scenario, both the patient and the therapist would have to board on an actual plane in order to work on that mental health issue. However, in virtual reality, they would not have to do that, but they would be able to experience something very similar.

Maintaining the confidentiality of the patient is another place where such kind of treatment would prove to be of great help. Different people have different kinds of phobias. In some phobias, people do not have to be outside of their homes to experience that while other people have phobias that require them to interact with the outside world.

To treat such people, the therapist would have to take people outside of their homes. For example, some people have a fear of crowds. So, for the therapist to treat that, he would have to take the patient through a crowd, which would give rise to countless problems. With virtual reality, however, they would be able to go through the same scenario in the safe walls of the therapist’s office.

Mental Health Awareness

In 2017, 970 million people worldwide suffered from a mental disorder. Keeping this fact in view, one would think that talking about mental health awareness would be easier for people. The truth is far from that. While yes, the stigma around mental health isn’t as strong as it used to be, but it still causes problems for a lot of people.

Fortunately, with the internet and social media on the rise, one can always shine a light on mental illness awareness whenever he wants. There are a lot of reasons why people should fight mental health illnesses with the help of spreading awareness about mental health. They are:

• It eliminates stigma: The whole reason why people still are not able to talk about their mental health is that we live in a society where talking about it is considered absurd. When you make others understand there is nothing wrong with it, they would feel comfortable to talk.

• It affects a lot of people: A recent study found out that 1 in 5 American adults suffer from mental illness each year. This means that either you might be experiencing it yourself, or someone you know might be experiencing it. But when you talk about mental health awareness and encourage people to do the same, it would break the stigma, and as a result, it would decrease the number of people experiencing it.

• It helps people look out for themselves: On one hand, talking about mental health would encourage people to seek help and educate themselves on the matter. On the other hand, it would break the stigma around it. People suffering from mental health may also develop other medical conditions, so taking the first step might go a long way.

Everyone in this world deserves a chance to be happy. Whether you are seeking help for yourself or someone you know, it is never wrong to talk about your mental health. If you are just starting, do keep in mind that the steps you take don’t need to be big, they just have to take you in the right direction.

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