Lesson 2 Risk Factors
What can influence your mental health and wellbeing?
- Mental Health is not black and white
- There are so many factors that play into it
- Knowing what those factors look like can help us navigate the way we deal with things
- Loneliness causes mental and physical stress.
- Poor sleep also leads to less resilience.
- People without social contacts take less care of themselves. Lonely people are also more likely to suffer from depression, social anxiety and dementia.
- Several studies have shown that loneliness increases the likelihood of numerous diseases
In psychology, critical life events are incisive and stressful situations in people’s lives.
These critical life events are often associated with strong negative feelings such as fear, grief, loss, and despair, and these events can significantly change the life situation of the person affected.
Critical life events can trigger mental illnesses (e.g., depression, Post traumatic stress disorder – PTSD).
Psychological and genetic interactions
- Experts call this the psychobiological pre-disposition and mean by it a psychological and biological readiness for disease.
(drugs, alcohol, smoking)
- The use of the legal substances tobacco and alcohol continues to pose a particularly high health risk.
- Estimates from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study show that tobacco and alcohol use, along with hypertension, are among the top three risk factors for the development of disease worldwide.
- The results of the supplementary mental health survey conducted show that substance-related disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders among adults after anxiety and depressive disorders.
- If you can no longer do without drugs or other substances and are thus restricted in your thoughts and actions, you are said to be addicted.
Drugs for self-medication:
Illegal substances or abuse of prescribed medication may give an illusion of confidence and control, but eventually the long-term negative effects will catch up on you.
Source: Public Health England, (2016),” Mental health of children and young people in England”
- No health without mental health
There is good evidence that poor mental health and stress can lead to increases in a range of physical illnesses. These include coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. This can happen directly by mental distress affecting physiological vulnerability, but also indirectly by increasing the dependence upon negative lifestyle factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption. These are major social and workplace issues but also mean that there is a compelling business case to act now. –ENWHP