What Is Mental Health?
Introduction—Mental health is one of the most discussed topics in our culture today. Anxiety, depression, burnout and chronic stress are conditions that millions of people live with each day. If you type "mental health" in your google browser, 3,900,000,000 hits come up in less than a second. As you scroll through your daily newsfeed, Tik Tok, Instagram or any other social feed, you will find countless conversations around all things mental health. Just today, as I scrolled through my Apple News feed, at least ten articles came up in my algorithm about mental health in our culture.
The reason why mental health is so popular in our culture is because so many people are struggling with their mental health. The statistics are rising year over year. People are struggling outside of Christianity. And people are struggling inside of Christianity. No one is immune to mental health struggles.
Mental health struggles are closely connected to our lives personally. I have struggled with my mental health in various seasons. People that I that love have struggled with their mental health. People that I pastor have struggled with their mental health. And people that you know and love have struggled with their mental health.
Mental health is a reality for everyone.
It is vitally important to understand what mental health is.
Here is the question that we should all be able to answer.
What is mental health?
Answering this question gives us wisdom to become aware and navigate the challenges we face with our mental health.
A Definition of Mental Health
Mental health is our well-being mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually.
Another way to say this is...
mental health is whole person well-being.
If mental health were an equation, it would look like something like this...
- Mental health =
- Your thoughts +
- Your emotions +
- Your relationships +
- Your relationship with God.
These are the four building blocks of mental health. These are also the four major aspects of being human. Humans think, feel, relate and worship. And each of these aspects of being human are essential for human flourishing. If we want to be well, then we have to understand each of these aspects.
A Two-Sided View of Mental Health
A few days ago, in a meeting that I was a part of, someone said, "Why is mental health always spoken about in terms of suffering?" What that person was communicating is that there are two sides to our mental health.
Side One | Cultivating our Mental Health—flourishing. What can we do to intentionally steward our well-being as followers of Jesus? In other words, mental health is something that we can invest in. You can intentionally cultivate your mind, emotions, relationships and relationship with God.
Side Two | Challenges with our Mental Health—suffering. What can we do to normalize and navigate the mental health challenges we face in a broken world? In other words, mental health is an area of being human that we can suffer in. We feel the affects of living in a fallen and broken world in our mind, emotions, relationships and in our relationship with God.
A Description of Mental Health
Let me briefly elaborate on each of the four aspects of mental health.
Our Minds
Mental health includes the life of my mind--psychological factors. Think about this aspect as our thoughts influencing our well-being, whether positively or negatively.
Included in this category would be things like:
Thought Patterns. Every person has developed patterns of thinking over time. Some patterns are positive thinking patterns. Some patterns are negative thinking patterns. These negative patterns are often called cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are unhealthy patterns of thinking, often, developed over time.
Processing Stress. Stress is a part of every person's life. How we mentally process through stress often determines the state of our soul. Learning to thoughtfully practice healthy stress-coping mechanisms will positively influence our mental health.
Brain Chemistry. Your neurological health affects your mental health. The human brain is the most influential organ in your body. What is taking place in your brain as an organ neurochemically influences your mental health. Included in neurological health would be things like neurological diseases, brain injuries and neurochemical responses in your brain based on various factors.
Feeding Your Mind. What we feed our minds influences our mental health. Feeding our minds healthy input has a positive influence on our mental health. Feeding our minds unhealthy input has a negative influence on our mental health. What we feed our minds matters.
Our Emotions
Mental health includes the life of my emotions--emotional factors. Think about this aspect as our emotions influencing our well-being, whether positively or negatively.
Included in this category would be things like:
Identifying Emotions. Feeling our feelings and cultivating a vocabulary to name what we are feeling influences our mental health. We are emotional beings. God is an emotional being. We were created to feel. And we were created to learn the communication of emotions through the spectrum of emotions that we feel.
Processing Emotions. Learning to process emotions in a healthy manner will influence our mental health. Emotions are forms of communication in our soul. Listening to them or ignoring them will impact the state of our soul.
Emotional Regulation. Practicing emotional regulation skills will influence the state of our soul. Learning to steward and control (self-regulate) our emotions is an important factor in our mental health.
Emotional Health. Our overall relationship with our emotions influences our mental health. Have we cultivated a healthy relationship with our emotions? Have we cultivated an unhealthy relationship with our emotions? Have we learned how to identify our emotions and process through them in a healthy manner? The answer to these questions will often determine the state of our mental health.
Our Relationships
Mental health includes the life of my relationships--social factors. Our relationship with society and people influences our well-being, whether positively or negatively.
Included in this category would be things like:
Family of Origin. Our family of origin deeply impacts the state of our mental health at a formative level. What were our relationships like in our family? How did our family handle conflict? Did our family practice healthy attachment? Did we experience detachment or neglect in our family of origin? Was there trauma? How we process through our family experience is an important factor in our mental health.
Core Present Relationships. The people that we are closest to in proximity and relational intimacy influence our mental health. The state of these relationships will affect the state of our soul. Relationships can cause our soul to flourish. And relationships can cause our soul deep pain and trauma.
Societal Relationships. The norms and narratives in a particular culture influence our mental health. Some of these are healthy and some of these are unhealthy. Cultural practices, ways of life, ideologies, systems and narratives have an influence on each person in that cultural context.
Relationship Wounds. Painful relationship wounds influence our mental health. Wounds like trauma, childhood neglect, abuse, betrayal or loss can leave deep painful wounds in our soul. How we process through these wounds to heal will influence our mental health.
Our Relationship with God
Mental health includes my relationship with God-spiritual factors. Our relationship with God influences our well-being, whether positively or negatively.
Included in this category would be things like:
Relationship with God. A person's relationship with God is the center and foundation of life. If God created us, then he designed mental health and human flourishing. Existing in a connected and flourishing relationship with God is essential to the well-being of our soul.
Relationship with God's design. A person's relationship with God's design for health and flourishing influences mental health. Learning who God is and how He designed us to flourish is vital to our well-being.
Relationship with God's plans. A person's relationship with God's plans for life and the world will influence mental health. Aligning your life to live in harmony with God's design is ifluential to our well-being.
Relationship with God in suffering. Suffering plays a role in each of our lives. Understanding how to navigate the hard places of life with God helps us to become resilient and impacts our mental health.
And all of these areas of human life are connected to our bodies. We were created as embodied beings. Human life takes place in a body. We are integrated. No part of us is an island. That means what happens in our mind or emotions or relationships impacts our body. And vice versa. As the well-known book on trauma by Bessel van der Kolk states, The Body Keeps the Score. Our bodies are a major component to our mental health.
An Encouragement for Mental Health
These explanations are not meant to be exhaustive. I simply use these examples to paint a picture of mental health as a multi-layered reality. And we should think of it in this way, a nuanced part of life that deserves intentionality and compassion. Intentionality to cultivate our mental health. And compassion when we are suffering in our mental health.
And finally...
The next time you have internal dialogue about your mental health, recognize that there is nuance. Be kind to yourself.
The next time you have dialogue with another person about their mental health, recognize that there is nuance. Be compassionate to others who are struggling.
May we exhibit patience, thoughtfulness, compassion and understanding to the nuanced reality of mental health in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.
There Are Better Days Ahead.
Much Love + Peace,
Wesley Towne, Founder