Importance of Mental Health Essay Sample

Mental health issues have been more accepted by society today than in past generations. Now, people who struggle with mental health can have easier access to the help they need. This response to mental health allows people to receive help such as therapy or medication without shame or judgment from our society. Even with more acceptance people today seem to struggle more with anxiety and depression. What is more shocking is anxiety is the number one mental health issue instead of depression. It is also important to remember that there is no shame in needing help for your mental health. Many people struggle in silence, and this will not fix the issue or help long-term. Many causes affect our mental health such as social media, quarantine, stress from school and work, etc. These effects can make people’s mental health suffer such as someone developing depression after being in quarantine. Society needs to identify and acknowledge mental health issues. Mental health is extremely important and needs to be taken care of like any other health issue. 

In 2020 a world pandemic happened from a disease called Coronavirus or Covid-19 that spread rapidly. This eventually led to everyone having to quarantine which meant that people could not leave their house unless it was for necessities such as grocery shopping. This lockdown was the main cause of an increase in mental health issues. With the virus being so unknown this left many people uneasy about the future and caused extreme amounts of anxiety. The schools were put online, and people could not see their family or friends so they could protect everyone from the virus. While quarantine was necessary to do for people’s safety being in lockdown caused mental health issues to skyrocket. Not only was it difficult for everyone not to be able to see people they cared about, but the only way also to have connections with people was online. This caused people to feel depressed, anxious, and have other mental health issues. Which was difficult because the pandemic made it hard to get help for mental health issues. 

Another issue was that people struggled with their mental health. It was also hard to find someone who could take you in for an appointment. Personally, when I was struggling with my mental health it took me three months to get in for an appointment with a psychiatrist because there was a long waitlist before anyone could see the psychiatrist. Many people also had that experience and struggled to get an appointment for the help that they needed. Which was also challenging because everything was online and the only way to see a therapist or psychiatrist was online.  

Quarantining made many people feel isolated and it made them anxious about the future. Now that many Covid-19 restrictions are being lifted it is strange to get used to the fact that we may be going back to the way things used to be. Even though some people may be hopeful of the future it is quite troubling that we still do not know what may happen. This uncertainty and stress can affect people’s mental health for the worse. Prolonged periods of stress can even affect your immune system. While stress does not make you sick it can make your immune system weaken and that can lead to you being more prone to getting sick. A weakened immune system is not good to have, especially during a pandemic. It is important to talk about how Covid-19 affected people’s mental health because our mental health can also affect our physical health. While it is scary that we are still learning about this disease, many people have lost loved ones to Covid-19. Losing someone that you love is hard, especially when you cannot say goodbye. When people were hospitalized for Covid-19 they could not have visitors to prevent the spread of the disease. This can lead to depression and the struggles of going through the five stages of grief which is the process that people deal with grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). People now after lockdown tend to struggle more with socializing, the reason for this is that people did not have to talk to people in person. Instead of having to confront people in person during quarantine, they would send an email or text. Which is the reason many people now struggle more than ever with social anxiety.  

Since quarantine prevented people from leaving their homes online school also affected people's mental health. Most people in public school were not used to or prepared for this new way of learning. This made people feel stressed and even lose motivation to do their schoolwork. I remember when I was in my senior year of high school, my psychology teacher talked about how online school is causing many kids to drop out of school. This was upsetting to hear that so many people struggled with this change. Schools were already stressful but online schools had different issues. Many students struggled with adapting to this change distance learning was new to both students and teachers at public schools. I remember when I did distance learning in high school it was incredibly stressful for me because it seemed like no one knew what to do. Many of my teachers did not know how to work with technology and it made school even more challenging. I felt like I had to do more work and the stuff that I was learning was not clicking. Now that in-person learning is back many people are excited to go back but other people worry about if that will change with the uncertainty of Covid-19. The amount of stress that Covid-19 has caused people is not healthy and has a negative impact on people’s mental health. 

Covid-19 also affected people’s jobs with lockdown people either had to work at home or they lost their jobs. 2020 was an extremely stressful time for people in the workforce. Some people still had to go to work in person with the fear of getting Covid-19 and spreading it to a loved one. Others had to work at home not being certain what would happen with their job. Sadly, many people also lost their jobs at this tough time. This caused people to get anxiety or anxious about the future. Since Covid-19 was such a stressful time this led to many people developing depression or anxiety.  

With phones and a fast-paced society, people feel more pressure to keep up with our new world. This causes many people to suffer from mental health issues. As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, it is difficult to deal with how fast everything is. We get fast gratification from social media we scroll through our feeds hoping to find satisfaction. Instead, we find ourselves anxious and sometimes depressed that we are not living our lives like the social media influencers. We talk to our friends online instead of in-person and while internet friends' fantastic way to meet new people it is also important to have friends to meet up with in person. When you meet with people in person it allows you to get out and away from your device which can help improve mental health. Another issue is how easy it is for people to edit their photos online, which is especially harmful to younger audiences. We view these beautiful photos of models on Instagram, wishing to look like them even though they may not even look like their photos. Editing is harmful to both viewers' and posters’ mental health since it is impossible to look the way of the edited photos. Photos of people that are edited can cause issues such as body dysmorphia or depression. I remembered when I was in middle school and high school wondering why I did not look as beautiful as these models online. Now I know that editing is a huge reason. Sadly, many people do not realize that the photos online are edited. People tend to want to look like what society deems as the beauty standard. With editing, the beauty standard has gotten more unrealistic to be almost impossible. This is detrimental to people’s mental health and can cause body dissatisfaction or dysmorphia. Some people may even try to achieve these standards with plastic surgery and even then, they may not even fit the beauty standard.  

Mental health is essential and knowing what can cause people to struggle with their mental health is also important. If we know what is causing the issue that someone has it is also easy to find a solution. Whether it is that the person may need therapy or medication, knowing the cause can help determine which one is needed to treat the issue. As stated, earlier social media affects people’s mental health because it is unrealistic, for example, Instagram influencers. Influencers on social media platforms tend to edit their photos which a lot of time is unknown to their audience. This can cause people, especially younger audiences to feel self-conscious in the way they look and even in worse case scenarios cause body dysmorphia. While the influencer may not think they are causing harm it is harmful to audiences when they do not know that a photo is edited and that it is not possible to look like the photo. To fix this problem influencers should disclose when they edit a photo that they post to prevent a negative impact on people’s mental health. It is also essential for us to talk about the effects of Covid-19 and lockdown on people’s mental health. This period was stressful and challenging for many people, which affected people’s mental health. If we do not address these issues that damage people’s mental health and fix them this can negatively affect our culture in the future.