PROMOTING MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS

In a world that often prioritizes physical health and find it essential in daily living, mental health can be overlooked. There is a phrase in WHO website, says that ‘There Is No Health Without Mental Health’. By taking care our mental well-being, we can contribute to a healthier society as in physical and mental, in additional we can ensure a brighter future for upcoming generations. This blog post will explore into practical strategies promoting mental health awareness that each of us can make a significant different in preserving our mental health.

United States is the first country that started with mental health awareness, so when is the month of mental health awareness? The celebration falls on 1st of May. The green ribbon is the symbol of mental health awareness. On this month, we can highlight to public about this awareness by wearing green t-shirt as it is official color for a mental health awareness.

On additional, we can organize campaign in a school regarding this awareness, this is because, negligence of parenting since childhood due to abuse or trauma, bullies in school among children, experiencing discrimination or stressful environment at school, or severe long-term stress is among the reasons many individual falls into mental health challenges. All these scenarios causing stress, depression, anxiety, self-isolation, and loneliness eventually brings to suicidal thoughts if it’s not been taken any precautions. By organizing campaign in school, such as organizing coloring or drawing contest regarding mental health and thus provide evidence based or true story speech which we can help students to understand in dealing with these bullying, conflicts and most importantly providing them information to seek for help when in need. I believe, children are roots of our upcoming society, providing them basic knowledge about mental health awareness could make positive changes in society in coming future.

As we all well known, multimedia such as television and radio are used all of us, telecasting programs or movies regarding awareness of mental health could definitely give a big impact in society towards the incorrect stigma that has been grown up with them. In addition, nowadays, social media such as WhatsApp, telegram, YouTube and Facebook is used as a tool to perceive plenty of information regarding mental health support system. Example, for those who are more introvert person with mental health issues, can contact some reliable support networks to seek towards counseling or therapy. Other than that, using the hashtags# for mental health awareness which can create the integration among individuals who is sailing on the same boat facing the problems and encourage the world community to engage in breaking down the barriers.

I believe sharing these contacts will undoubtedly help many youngers and working adults out there from problems like depression, loneliness and anxiety. Below is a organization known as Mental Illness Awareness and Support Association (MIASA) analysis in total number of people who reached out to them in year 2021.

It has been clinically proven that people are most favorable in seeking help in WhatsApp and Messages the most, thus certainly social media play an important role helping in overcome mental health problems.

Family is the backbone of a individual. Making social connection face to face would be help to identify the common sign and symptoms such as feeling anxious or worried from time to time, having difficulty in sleeping, emotional outburst or being quieter and more withdrawn than usual which can observe in daily living activities. It also an help to break the silence by giving a safe and comfort space to initiate affected individuals open talk and share their journey without any judgement. They might need someone to ventilate out their problems which could help in reducing their stress and depressions, these could help in preventing suicidal thoughts in themselves. We could advise them to seek for appropriate organizations such as Talian Kasih, Malaysian Mental Health Association, MIASA and etc. As famous proverb says "Prevention Is Better Than Cure".

Share it around in hoping that you could save someone from suicidal thoughts today or facing other mental health issue. Let’s break the barrier of stigma and build a community that values and support the mental health among each other.