(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Mental health has to do with much more than just the absence of a mental disorder; it is also a state of well-being, or in other words, it describes your mental state-how you cope with the everyday stresses of life, and if you are able to remain productive and contribute positively to your community. It’s a dynamic state of being, in that it can change from day to day. Mental wellbeing can be improved through the use of both conventional and natural therapies. Let’s take a look at some of those approaches.
Conventional Therapies
Widely used conventional therapies that can improve mental wellbeing include psychotherapy treatments and medications.
Psychotherapy: This therapeutic treatment technique explores thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in an attempt to improve an individual’s mental well-being, and includes psychodynamic therapy cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy, among other techniques.
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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: This form of therapy, according to Psychology Today, is intended to help treat problems and boosts happiness by modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts. Patients are guided into establishing new ways of thinking by focusing on both the “wrong” and “right” assumptions they create about themselves and even others. For example, it can help you to learn to love yourself if you have a negative self image.
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Psychodynamic Therapy: This therapy is an in-depth form of talk therapy, which focuses on the patient’s relationship with his/her external world. The goal of psychodynamic therapy is to help patients to understand and better cope with their feelings, like fear or anxiety, and improve their capacity for developing and maintaining more satisfying relationships.
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Exposure Therapy: According to the American Psychological Association, exposure therapy was developed to help people confront their fears and involves creating a safe environment in which to “expose” individuals to the feared objects, activities or situations to help minimize fear and decrease avoidance.
Medication
While medication does not cure any mental wellbeing issues, it has the potential to help with the management of symptoms. Some medications used to improve mental wellbeing includes:
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Antipsychotic are used to help limit or, in some instances, eliminate hearing unwanted voices or the manifestation of fearful thoughts.
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Antidepressants help reduce feelings of sadness, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and improves depressed mood.
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Mood stabilizers help to treat mood swings and prevent the extreme of highs (mania) and lows (depression) and help to prevent moods from interfering with different areas of a person’s life, like work.
Natural Therapies
There are several natural therapies that can be used to improve mental wellbeing.
Meditation
Meditation focuses on both the physical and mental state of an individual, by calming the emotions and slowing the mind and breathing to heighten an individual’s sense of awareness and feeling. This relaxation technique can improve psychological stresses such as anxiety and depression.
Acupuncture
This therapy can improve wellbeing by stimulating the body’s healing processes. It helps to alleviate symptoms of stress and depression by stimulating the nervous system to produce endorphins, natural painkilling substances, and kick start the body’s natural ability to heal itself. This stimulation helps the body to control symptoms of anxiety and depression by balancing the parts of the brain that regulates emotion.
Massage Therapy
Massage therapy helps reduce stress and anxiety by decreasing your heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption and cortisol levels. Studies have also shown that massage therapy can improve both mood and sleep quality and has certain pleasure qualities that can help to improve self-esteem.
Mental wellbeing is an important aspect of overall personal health and can impact an individual’s life in a number of ways. If mental wellbeing is not at optimal levels, there are both conventional and natural therapies that can be used to restore balance. It is possible to be whole again with effective therapies