Well-Being and Mental Health

Well-Being and Mental Health

• Well-being is a state of feeling comfortable, healthy, and happy, with mental health being a component of it
• Mental health includes psychological, emotional, and social aspects influencing thinking, feeling, and behaving, and it enables people to realize their potential, cope with stress, and be productive
• Mental health can thus be compared to physical health
• Good physical health signifies well-functioning body and organ systems
• Good mental and emotional health signifies well-functioning mental and emotional systems which allows a person manage stresses

Well Being

• Well-being is similar to physical fitness
• Physical fitness: Being physically fit allows you to get the most out of your body's capabilities
• A high level of well-being means living well, doing meaningful things, and working towards life goals

Historical Origins

• Aristotle linked happiness with eudaimonia: the idea of flourishing rather than just being happy
• Some religions and cultures have historically contributed to injustice such as sexism and homophobia
• Isolation, marginalisation, and oppression have impacted particular people and communities
• Balance and harmony with self and environment is important in Buddhism
• Wellness is linked to relationships with the land and community members in African traditions, particularly the Ubuntu philosophy, which emphasizes growth in connection with others
• Some religions have historically perpetuated injustice

Components of Well-Being

• Mental health includes good psychological, emotional, and social functioning, going beyond just the absence of mental illness
• Positive mental health: feeling happy with life, positive functioning, self-realization, and positive social value
• Positive mental health contributes to striving, potential, coping, relationships, and productivity
• Physical health involves proper body care for optimum functioning and prevention of disease, closely linked with mental health, and requires good sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mental health practices
• Current and past environments affect mental and physical health, so a supportive environment fosters social, emotional, physical safety and value
• Both the degree to which you achieve your potential and making a meaningful contribution to the world are factors that affect your mental health
• Includes feeling happy, secure, and confident, without excessive anxiety, sadness, or upset
• It is connected to the ability to regulate feelings across different challenges, experiences, and contexts
• Psychological health measures and regulates thinking and feelings, fostering self-reflection, problem-solving, emotion management, resilience, attentiveness
• Mental Health can be affected by social connectedness
• Social connectedness involves creating good relationships with others and behaving responsibly and acceptably, relying on empathy

Mental Health Spectrum

• Mental health exists on a spectrum, triangles are often used to show the proportion of individuals in the population likely to meet these thresholds

Disorders or Illness

• Refer to clinically diagnosed illnesses requiring evidence-based treatments from healthcare professionals
• Marked by significant symptoms that disturb thought, feeling, and perception, impacting daily functioning and causing distress and impairment, for example, generalized Anxiety Disorder or Major Depressive Disorder

Concerns or Problems

• Defined as persistent symptoms causing distress or difficulty, but not severe enough for a diagnosable condition
• Relate to new life events or stress, such as the death of a loved one or transition to university

Symptoms

• Experiences associated with distress, situational rather than indicative of a disorder
• Anxiety: over-worry, difficulty relaxing, heart racing
• Mood: feeling sad, negative thoughts, low energy
• Symptoms subside when stressors or disappointment resolves but may indicate underlying concerns if they persist

Well

• Being mentally well means feeling content, capable, and happy
• Stress and disappointment are normal, but manageable with short-lived discomfort
• A healthy lifestyle, good coping mechanisms, and supportive relationships help maintain health and resilience

Student Mental Health

• Mental health influences the university experience
• More students are seeking mental health support while experiencing barriers and difficulties in accessing it
• Over 25% of Canadian post-secondary students reported being diagnosed or treated for a mental health condition within a year of starting university such as 46% depression and 65% anxiety
• WHO surveys across 19 colleges in 8 countries indicated that one third of first-year college students tested positive for a mental disorder related to anxiety, mood, and substance use
• Demand for student mental health resources and support increased before the pandemic, coinciding with the number of declared mental health-related disabilities

The need for university mental health services at such a high rate may be cause by:

• Transition to university occurs when the brain is still developing
• Adult mental illnesses commonly emerge in adolescence and early adulthood, with 75% starting before age 25
• University presents a transition period with new academic, financial, and social stressors plus new routines, friends, and living arrangements
• The brain is vulnerable due to ongoing growth and sensitivity to stressors like poor sleep, drugs, and alcohol
• Resources to support student mental health are limited, with universities historically providing short-term counseling that does not meet students' needs
• Reduces stigma around mental health, and facilitates an increasing number of students reporting problems and seeking care which indicates anti-stigma campaigns are effective
• Still stigma exists. As it diminishes, an increasing number of students are disclosing mental health concerns.
• Only one-third of students entering university with a mental health condition intend to disclose it

Research Goal

• To improve your mental health literacy and encourage positive lifestyle changes
• Improve understanding of shared and unique student experiences affecting mental health
• The university experience
• Academic outcomes

Understanding Well-being and Mental Health

• Well-being and mental health involve achieving positive states, and can be understood in terms of goals such as cultural, social or academic
• Four main factors impact mental health such as, realizing your potential, emotional health, psychological health, and social connectedness
• These factors influence your ability to achieve goals during your educational career, and improving mental health correlates with better academic results
• Mental health influences your daily life, and effects your motivation to start your day, and energy to complete tasks
• Good cognition is required in decision-making, learning, and comprehension
• Self-Efficacy: The extent to which someone believes in their ability to achieve certain outcomes.
• Students with a high sense of being able to succeed at their goals and generally cope with the challenges they find at university

Considerations include when considering talking about mental health:

• Managing Stressful Situations. The ability to manage stressful circumstances can be associated with other areas of your mental health
• How do you manage stressful situations? What helps you to cope when feeling stressed?
• Sense of Belongingness: contributes to a pro-social dimension of feeling part of a learning community, and collaborating with others on a university journey

Risk Factors

• Linked to a higher likelihood of a negative outcome such as biological, psychological, or sociological
• Not getting enough sleep
• Using recreational drugs
• Not having a reliable support network
• Having a prior history of a mental condition
• Any culture in which your identity or experience is seen as other
• Overthinking and avoiding tackling problems

Protective Factors

• Lowers the likelihood of negative outcomes and reduce the impact of a risk factor
• Having a reliable support network of friends or family
• Developing a good study-life balance
• A healthy sleep schedule
• Feeling included
• Positive thinking, journaling, or talking to a friend

Stressor

• Any person, place, or situation that causes a state of psychological strain or tension, and considered stress. Stress is considered a psychological response to a stressor
• An upcoming midterms or final exam
• Relationship problems
• Resilience: If an individual learns to effectively manage their stressors, they develop resilience
• Resilience is being able to adjust, adapt, overcome, and cope with a disappointment, stressor, threat, or adverse event

Signs and Symptoms

• If the individual does not adapt, they can develop signs and symptoms
• Signs and symptoms refer to observable (signs) or experienced (symptoms) indicators of being under stress
• Indicators which either distress the individual or impairs their ability to function emotionally, socially, or academically.
• Signs and symptoms can signal the emergence of an illness or problem or they may be circumstantial or short-lived

Determinants of Mental Health

• Historical Perspectives on Mental Disorders

Psychodynamic Model

• Developed by Sigmund Freud late 19th century
• Psychological forces and distress from the conscious interpretation mask their true unconscious origin
• However, not strong evidence that treatment based on this model is helpful

Behavioral Model

• Based in learning theories
• Pavlov in the 1920's, Watson in the 1930's and Skinner in the 1950's
• Explains how you behave day-to-day is “conditioned” (learned) due to the reinforcement you receive for your actions
• More likely to do things that have positive consequences and less likely to do things with negative consequences
• Anxiety disorders, maladaptive learning has taken place and a harmless stimulus has become linked to extreme fear.
• Depression, the short term benefit of avoiding things when you feel low, tired, and stressed has become outweighed by the reduction in positive experiences

Biopsychosocial Model

• George L. Engel introduced the Biopsychosocial Model in 1977
• Biological, psychological, and social factors, as contributors to mental illness that are key to the model
• Modern uses of this model often emphasize that these three factors are not always equal in their role

Osler Medical Humanist Model

• Alternative to the rigid application of the biopsychosocial model.
• Take the whole individual person into account when assessing for a diagnosis and developing a treatment plan- holistic approach incorproating all relevant medical/biological social, and psychological aspects

Medical/Disease Model

• The Medical/Disease Model draws from Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates
• Emil Kraeplin, credited the founder of modern psychiatry, believed psychiatric illness were diseases caused by biological/genetic malfunction
• Problems of mental functioning from a disease perspective with a biological basis at the core with somatic treatment such as medication and brain stimulation

Cognitive Model

• Abraham, Seligman, Teasdales (1978), Beck et al (1983), and Brown & Harris (1978) are notable contributors to the cognitive model
• Mental disorders are the result of errors in thinking or biases
• The errors or distortions in thought process can cause upset and mental disorders
• Making negative interpretations of situations, recalling negative memories, and focusing on negative information can all contribute to increased anxiety and depression
• Unhelpful thinking involves repeated dwelling, overthinking, and worry about what didn't go right or what could go wrong in the future

Cognitive Behvaioural Model

• This merges the cognitive model and the behavior model became Cognitive Behaviour CBT is a widely used therapy protocol
• It Includes identifying and correcting errors and biases in thinking, anxiety and depressive disorders
• Also includes a behavioral component, including changing maladaptive behaviour and learning new beahvioural responses

Pathways to Mental Illness and Mental Health Problems

• Understanding models of how mental problems and mental illnesses develop to assist helping with prevention
• Good models of mental health problems and mental illness include a variety of interacting factors

Recondisering Risk Factors

• Risk factors in terms of genetics and the environment, and how the two interact with each other

Stress Diathesis Model

• Schizophrenia is thought to have a relatively strong genetic component
• The majority of children with a parent with Schizophrenia will not develop this disorder

Three S’ - Stress, Sleep, and Self-Regulation

• Many factors influence an individual's well-being, mental health, and resilience Stress, sleep, and self-regulation which are important and interconnected determinants of mental health, resilience at uninersity and in life

Stress

• Stress can be adaptive
• Stress is adaptive and helps keep you safe
• Eustress commonly referred to as “good” stress are also important for being successful in day-to-day activities

Exam Stress

• Can motivate you to spend more time studying
• Increased feelings may in return increase your happiness with the effective use of time

Financial Stress

• Stress associated with finances can motivate you to avoid over-spending so that you have enough money to pay for important things like rent
• Can improve your self-esteem and feeling of competence
• Motivates you to meet new friends and make new associations is Social Stress
• Adaptive vs. Problematic Stress: The inverted U theory illustrates the relation between pressure and performance
• Results in boredom and weak performance is Low Pressure

Pressure

• Increase to increased attention and interest
• Can improve performance up to a certain point, is referred as the optimal performance point
• High Anxiety is associated with impaired performance and distress as when stress becomes too high performance decreases

Responding to stress: Thinking

• Focusing on the negatives, overthinking problems, and worry can exacerbate and prolong stress

Acting

• Being proactive and tackling problems head-on tends to be more helpful than avoiding them and putting them off
• Flow Theory and Absorption: Optimal state of performing for you that is the sweet spot between boredom and anxiety, and when you were caught up in what you were doing and lost your sense of self or lost track of time

Flow states are powerful for counteracting worry and stress

• Many people find physical activities and being in nature absorbing: Lose yourself in Flow State

Flow States

• Focus on the process rather than the outcome, removing distraction
• Is when activity has clear goals and immediate continuous feedback

Real life situations that impact one coping with stress

• Often involves Maladaptive ways that shift them from helpful to harmful

Real life situations that impact stress

• Sleep is a state of the mind and body characterized by altered or reduced consciousness

Health

• Health related to good quality sleep is essential to your survival and plays a crucial role in both physical and mental health
• Mental health are interconnected and linked to your sleep and well-being

Self-Regulation

• Refers to control over behaviour, thoughts, and emotion which can interact with each other
• Sleep and exercise helps both emotionally and physically so include these in your routine

Stress, sleep, and self-regulation interconnection

• Stress, sleep, and self-regulation can contribute to your resilience decrease with limited well-being
• The complex and bidirectional relationships are to manage stress with self-well-being

Ways to manage stress

• Make healthy choices and develop healthy coping mechanisms to help manage stress and support your mental health and overall well-being
• Schedule yourself is key! and how you cope and what emotional reactions you have to what happens to you
• Appropriate duration and quality of your sleep is a foundation

Mechanisms Behind the Three S's: Biology Summary

• Simplified Biology of the Body's Stress Response (Adrenal Gland)
• Endocrine gland located above the kidney which produces hormones that help regulate a number of bodily function
• Cortisol, considered a major hormonal mediator of the stress response is included

Small portion of the brain; Hypothalamus

• Controls the release of hormones from the pituitary gland and links the endocrine system to the nervous system

Pituitary Gland

• Pea-sized gland attached to the base of the brain
• plays a major role in growth and development and controls the functioning of the other endocrine glands

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal

• Stress or sudden threat of embarrassment and/or fear triggers the release of corticotropin-releasing hormone from the hypothalamus
• The adrenal activity can help handle stressful situations

Finally the glucocorticoid hormone cortisol is secreted from the adrenal gland as the is known for its end product The large amount of cortisol produced will ultimately stop more from being released

Psychological Factors that Influence your response to stress

• Your thoughts, bodily sensations, feelings, and behaviours all can interact

Social Actors and Stress

• Experience depending social and environmental factors will vary from person to person

Stress

• Arises From Factors such as: Early history of trauma or neglect
• People feel more reduced stress from a supportive social network

Perfectionism and Self-Criticism

• Self-Criticism and unrealistic expectations
• The tendency to find things challenging, to make mistakes and get things wrong

Ways of Tackling Perfectionism

• Remind yourself of your successes and focus on strengths
• Practive Good enough
• Be je;pful to tackle perfectionism and self-criticism

Allostatic Load

• Chronic/and or overwhelming stress can influence your mental and physical equilibrium
• Exists responding to a challenge or stressor by triggering various biological and chemical processes to maintain balance
• The wear-and-tear results the body and brain that results from chronic or overwhelming stress through equilibrium

Symptoms of Overwhelming stress can occur through

• Changes in: Cognitive, Emotional, Physical, Behavioural

Understand the impacts of students through

• Student Story Lily as an case

Different brain types require sleep such as

• Brain areas and structures for sleep, including the hypothalamus
• The arousal of the body, whether stimulated There are two types of sleep non rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep

If One Does Not Sleep The Consequences Are

• Reduced: Benefits of: Cognitive, Emotional, Physical, Behavioral

Rhythms

• Rhythms which form naturally are our biological clock

Importance

• The impacts of the Three S's on Well-Being, Mental Health, and Academic Performance include difficulty maintaining a balanced routine for bodily processes

To resolve or help these impacts here some tips

• Reduce: Worry
• Improve: The Routine

Strategies through

• Maintain Self-Regulation and consistent and balanced routine

The Module aims to teach through summaries Stress is a normal part of life and can help you learn to develop through resiliency, but stress should not dominate

• A healthy and active lifestyle is Balanced

Drugs, and Mental Health

• The brain undergoes an intense period of development between the ages of 16 to 25 is The Emerging Adult Brain The types of the nervous system consists of

1. Brain and spinal cord
2. all the nerve fibers outside of the brain

Synaptic transmission

• Neurons are the functional unit of the brain and are capable of generating and transmitting electrical signals

The structures of the signals through Neurons are divided through these factors

• Dendrites are the Projections of a neuron that receive signals from other neurons
• Axon: The projection of a neuron that conducts electrical impulses away
• Action Potentials are what these electrical impulses are known as
• Myelin Sheath provides a layer of insulation and Synapse (also called the neuronal junction) for more brain function

The brain is divided into four lobes divided among the brain sections - the parietal that carries our temperature,

• Responsible for higher-level cognitive control is Frontal Brain
• Processes of all information is parietal Lobe
• Primarily responsible for vision is Occipital

The brain mainly undergoes major development in early adulthood - the frontal part of the frontal lobe, The frontal Lobe

• Structure: The structure is divided via white matter and grey matter

During Early adulthood there is increased or peaking developing areas within areas such as: Synaptic Pruning, increased myelination and increase connectivity

• The misuse of the brain and it's structure through alcohol can be detrimental and cause problems!*

Emerging Adulthood Brain

• Misuse, and Disorder can all fall along a spectrum

• Can contribute to:

1. the development of and worsening of mental health problems including such as psychosis
2. can alter: Brain Functions how you think perceive

Cognitive Alterations

• Cognitive Alterations through sustained attention and distraction can arise with limited functions can occur through stimulant medication
• Regular cannabis use and alcohol misuse is linked to an effect on motivation , learning, and motivation, due to "amotivational factors"

Misuse Summary of Effects

• Most originate after starting university, with alcohol being the most misused substance
• It Affects and Functions neural processes
• Causes the lowering of inhibitions

The consumption of these effects

• Causes Excess consumption in the blood linked to biological levels of dopamine and can lead to death
• Decreaes quality of Sleep

Cannabinoids, which act on receptors all over the body have: normal level of promote levels of normal function

• The endocannabunoid system and is involved in actions such as appetite and more

Common problems with with misuse is linked to

• Is linked with regular use, an increased risk of new mental conditions such a:
• decreased cognitive and efficiency- such memory reduction.
• regular use, cannabis has persistent effects

Cannibus can reduce:

the risk of increasing physical disease such cardiovascular conditions, lung problems, and possibly some forms of cancer

• (is the second-most has therapeutic benefits including:the effect of pain)

Stimulants such as caffeine can act as a drug can have both + and - implications

• Stimulants act on receptors in the brain to block the the release of neurotransmitters
• increase levels of dopamine

Guidelines through research have shown that caffeine can increase: well-being, happiness, energy, alertness, and sociability at a certain amount

• Stimulants is linked in with this study. In this research the potential Harms include: risk behaviours and agitation can occur with stimulants.

Hallucinogenics cause feeling such as:

a relaxation

• It can also cause you to Alter your perception and hallucinations

MDMA

• Use predicts lasting changes, affecting reward functions
• Can experience feelings of pleasure, emotional warmth, and distored time Dopamine, MDMA can create:
• Irritable moods
• aggression
• memory deficits

A harmful mindset.

• Cocaine: A stimulat that is addictive and results the following - a: flood of dopamine in the brain is a very addictive stimulat

Myths and Misunderstanding about Drug Use

Binge Drinking that has major implications

Binge: is the Minority: with harmful affects being more vulernable regular - use/ Is that

Misconeptions - There is insuffienct evidence through this method to treat:

• Lack studies
• stimulus cannot aid symptoms: Stimulat and cognitive cannbiabinoids can lead to:

1. brain dysfunction
2. affect reward processing

Substance disorders are clinically the most impaired. A common fact

Substance Can lead the Onset of mental problems

1. The brian: is susceptible to: a critical development , associated with problems
2. to - increased will can increase. is: cannabis

Frequency, the Risk, Age:

• Family is high risk - People with family are in an already state"

One Should Know

• Reduce: Reduce, Reduce - and avoid the potential for misue and or reduce the risk for mental effects
• Avoid and find the products where the balance effects

How to notice Warning Signs?

Is by not:

1. Shifts:
2. In Activity + Social
3. in sleep - withDrawing

The biggest key:

Be Mindful on:

• the - has found he and be.
• Doctors + Mood found to the: