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What is Mental Health?

“Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well, and work well, as well as contribute to their community”

Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response

 

• If you have poor mental health, you are going to struggle to be able to cope, realize, learn, work or contribute!

 

• The W.H.O. States in their research, “The need for action on mental health is indisputable and urgent.”
• Our individual Mental Health plays an important role to supporting our overall well-being.
• There are several variables that can affect the status of our mental health, this is includes but is not limited to:
  • Psychological Factors
    • Unfavorable social economic, geopolitical and environmental factors.
      • Poverty, violence, and other trauma relayed things faced on a societal basis.
    • Abusive Relationships
    • Physical Traumas
    • bullying
    • Harassment
    • Sexual Abuse / Harassment
  • Biological Factors
    • Pharmaceutical Medications
    • Alcohol
    • Recreational Drugs
    • Hormone Deficiencies
    • Constant Stress
    • And more…

 

Today’s Mental Health Statistics

Source: https://www.usa.edu/blog/mental-health-statistics/

 

• The NIH reports that 57.8 million adults live with some form of Mental Illness.
• Anxiety Disorders are the most common form of Mental Illnesses.
• Women are more likely than men to experience depression.
• 17% of Adolescents (ages 12-17) experience a major depressive episode.
• 33.5% of adults with a mental illness also have a substance use disorder.
• Almost 4x as many men commit suicide as women.
• Anxiety Disorders hit approximately 19.1% of adults over the last year!
• The second most popular form of disorders is Depression, as of 2021, 21 million adults reported having at least one episode of major depression.
• There is a higher instance of depression in women than men.

 

Rates of Mental Illnesses in U.S. Adults

• Anxiety Disorders 19.1%
• Major Depression 8.3%
• PTSD 3.6%
• Bipolar Disorder 2.8%
• Borderline Personality Disorder 1.4%
• Binge Eating Disorder 1.2%
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder 1.2%
• Schizophrenia 0.25-0.64%

 

Mental Health Disorder Age Statistics

• 50% of individuals start to experience disorder symptoms by the age of 14, 75% experience symptoms by the age of 24.
• Common Mental Illness within Different Age Groups:
  • 18 – 25: 33.7%
  • 26-49: 28.1%
  • 50+: 15%
• In 2020:
  • 17% of adolescents experienced a major depressive episodes
  • 12% had serious thoughts of suicide
  • Mental health related ER visits for adolescents increased by 31% in 2020, compared to 2019.

 

Why do Adolescents deal with more Mental Health Illnesses?

Source: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know

 

• We already know our brain develops as we are younger, and getting older…
• Most people do not know that the brain does not stop developing until much later in life.
• According to research at the NIH, “Although the brain stops growing in size by early adolescence, the teen years are all about fine-tuning how the brain works. The brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature.

 

The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907136/

 

• “The prefrontal cortex (PFC) intelligently regulates our thoughts actions and emotions through extensive connections with other brain regions”
• Essentially the PFC is where our cognitive skills happen, this is where we process information as it comes in, choose and shape how we are focused, process moral dilemmas, make decisions, and so much more.
• When you are young, and don’t have a fully developed brain, you are easily influenced, you are easily confused, and can be easily misled.
• This part of why if a child is not raised in an appropriately way in which helps develop a health brain (on all fronts including physically, mentally, and spiritually) they can end up like so many of our late teens – early 20s youth in partying all the time, not accomplishing anything, not seeking success, etc.

 

Young Adults reaching Key Life Milestones Later than in the Past

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/23/young-adults-in-the-u-s-are-reaching-key-life-milestones-later-than-in-the-past/

 

• According to the PEW Research analysis of Census Bureau data, “adults who are 21 are less likely than their predecessors four decades ago to have reached five frequently citied milestones of adulthood. This includes:
  • Having a full-time job
  • Being financially independent
  • Living on their own
  • Getting married
  • Having a child
• “In 2021, the most recent year with available data, 39% of 21-years-old were working full time, compared with 64% in 1980.”
• These statistics look like this:
  • Full time work: 39% in 2021, 64% in 1980
  • Financial Independence: 25% in 2021, 42% in 1980
  • Home Independent of Parents: 51% in 2021, 62% in 1980
  • Marriage: 6% in 2021, 32% in 1980
  • Child in Household: 6% in 2021, 18% in 1980
• “By age 25, the financial differences between young adults today and those in 1980 are narrower but still statistically significant. About 2/3 of 25 year olds (66%) were working full time in 2021, compared with 74% in 1980. 60% were financially independent in 2021, compared to 63% in 1980”.
• We could continue going over all of these stats but you get the general idea, and can review all of my sources for data on my website by going to www.traviskunze.com/podcast

 

How Mental Illness Affects Us

• Children ages 6-17 are more likely to to repeat a grade if they have mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems.
• 21.6% of adults working full-time have experienced symptoms of mental illness within a one-year period, compared to 32.2% of those who are unemployed.
• 33.5% of adults with mental illness are reporting substance use disorder as of 2021.
• Those with severe mental illness have a life span 10-25 years shorter than the general population.

 

WE HAVE A EPIDEMIC ON OUR MENTAL HEALTH!!!

 

• There are over 580,000 unhoused people in the U.S. and 21% have several mental illness.
• In 2021, over 6.6 million hospital ER’s visits were from mental health or substance abuse.
• Untreated serious mental illness results in over $193 billion in lost earnings each year.

 

COVID Made it Worse

• With the separation of people socially, there was a spike in mental illnesses including:
  • 12% of adolescents, and 4.9% of adults having serious thoughts of suicide.
  • 69.1% of youth age 12-17 said they experienced a major depressive episode.
  • 45.2% of adults with mental illness perceived that COVID harmed their mental health.
  • 14.5% of adolescents said they started to drink anywhere from a little to a lot more alcohol during COVID.
  • 10.7% of adults said they were not able to get the mental health services they needed, which had a moderate to severe impact on their health.

 

Being Alone is NOT Healthly

Source: https://chtc.sites.uiowa.edu/news/2021/03/science-behind-loneliness-and-why-it-important-be-connected

Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/how-social-isolation-loneliness-can-shorten-your-life/

 

• According to the University of Iowa:
  • Being alone for long periods of times causes us to developed loneliness, which is an overwhelming sadness that comes from feeling like you are disconnected, you have no friends, family etc.
  • The American Heart Association points out that.
    • Those who live a lonely life have a 50% increased risk at an early death, and being isolated increased stroke and coronary artery disease risk by 32%.
• In a interview on The Harvard Gazette:
  • In a study, those who were m ore likely were about 40% more likely to die over the next four years, while those who were socially isolated (didn’t just feel, but had literally little, to no social interaction whatsoever), were about 75% more likely to die.

• Our bodies were not meant to be alone long term. There is nothing wrong with being alone in short spurts of time but total isolation can and often does lead to an acceleration in life coming to an end.

 

Understanding the P.M.S. Connection

• It is very clear we have a lot of mental health issues in the world today. In fact, it is playing a clear effect on the destruction of our world, and collapse of our society.
• This is affected by many different, and more often then not it is because society lacks the understanding of the connection between our Physical, Mental, and Spiritual health.
• Our Physical Health, affects how we feel, how we think, how we process things emotionally which is founded in our Mental Health.
• Our Mental Health, affects how our body operates, how we respond physically and emotionally.
• Our Spiritual Health, is a major influence on both our Physical and Mental health.
• It is also important to remember that our Subconscious Health plays a major part in our overall health, which we will discuss more of in a later podcast episode.
• One of the biggest reasons why our mental health is collapsing though is because of the exposure to what is around us environmentally with chemicals, molds, pesticides, allergies, and so much more.
• another big area which we will focus on more is understanding how what we consume, affects our physical and mental health.
  • We will briefly touch on this, as again we can do a much deeper look at this in a future episode.

 

The Gut-Brain Connection

Source: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/the-gut-brain-connection

Source: https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/pressbooks/druguseandmisuse/chapter/how-drugs-work-in-the-body-and-the-brain/

 

• Our Gut and Brain are connected through our nervous system,
  • The gut-brain connection can link anxiety to stomach problems, and vice versa.
  • The brain has direct effect on the stomach and intensities, just the idea of eating can cause the release of the stomach juices before the food even gets to the stomach. Again, this goes both ways.
  • A troubled intestine can send signals to the brain just as the brain sends it back to the intestines, they communication consistently!
    • The distress in the intestine can cause or be the product of anxiety, stress, depression, or several other factors.
• Because of how closely the connection is between the gut and brain, it explained why when you are nervous, and anxious it can cause your stomach to feel unsettled.
• What we consume such as foods that are inflammatory, or foods we are allergic to play a huge part in the bloating, inflammation we deal with in our body, and the stress affects several other factors like our hormones.
• Another thing to factor in is medications also have a similar effect to us on our overall health just as food does. They are a chemical substance that when taken will have major impacts on the body.

 

Conclusion

• Our mental health status has majorly declined in today’s world.
• It needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed differently then the standard response of take this medication to get “fixed”.
• The fact is medication is just a temporary solution for emergency situations and should not be used longer term.
• We need to address the root cause to the cause in decline in our overall health on all fronts, physically, mentally, and spiritually.