Being Mentally Healthy

Image by René Schindler

The three skills we have to help us function, which are the pillars of maintaining and sustaining mental health, are:

1.    The ability to adapt: the creative means by which we constantly adjust, modify, and make changes.

2.    The ability to imagine: to recreate sensory impressions and feelings in our minds in the absence of external stimuli.  To form images and ideas of things never perceived in reality.

3.    The ability to create meaning: purpose, or significance of something. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” F. Nietzsche, as quoted by V. Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

How does all this happen?

Our sensory system provides our brain and central nervous system with information about what is happening to us; internally and externally.

Our “primitive brain”, made up of the brainstem, limbic region, and the amygdala, is wired to interpret what we smell, taste, hear, see, touch, and more regarding safety and danger.  Our instinct for our physical survival is assessed, and the level of danger is determined. Then we choose our actions accordingly.  We can stay where we are and continue to do what we were doing in a calm and relaxed way, or respond to a perceived threat by taking action; fight, flight, or freeze. 

All vertebrates, of which we are one, along with Tetrapods, Birds, Sharks, and Reptiles, to name a few, react to stressful situations by releasing similar hormones to humans, such as adrenaline and glucocorticoids, which quickly raise the heart rate and energy levels. In this way, we are all similar in nature.

In a lecture titled "Stress, Health and Coping," Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, spoke at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said: "The stress response is incredibly ancient evolutionarily. Fish, birds and reptiles secrete the same stress hormones we do, yet their metabolism doesn't get messed up the way it does in people and other primates."

To understand why, he said, "just look at the dichotomy between what your body does during real stress--for example, something is intent on eating you and you're running for your life--versus what your body does when you're turning on the same stress response for months on end for purely psychosocial reasons."

The factor that differentiates us from other species, therefore, is meaning. What meaning we choose to give to an experience will determine whether we develop an ulcer or not.

In the short term, Sapolsky explained, stress hormones are "brilliantly adapted" to help you survive an unexpected threat. "You mobilize energy in your thigh muscles, you increase your blood pressure and you turn off everything that's not essential to surviving", he said. "You think more clearly, and certain aspects of learning and memory are enhanced. All of that is spectacularly adapted if you're dealing with an acute physical stressor--a real one. [But] if you turn on the stress response chronically for purely psychological reasons, you increase your risk of adult [illnesses.]”

Two key points addressed here are:

1.          The mind/body connection.

2.          What is real and what is experienced as real?

When there is a clear perception of a threat, we automatically engage in one of the three actions of flight, fight, or freeze. When the threat is resolved, we return to what we were doing before. Makes sense. Right? Sure, under normal circumstances. What if there is no sense of our being in control of what is taking place, and there is no immediate sense of return to normal? In other words, what if we don’t have control over “what’s next”? Whether we experience feeling in or “out of” control can become the measuring stick of our survival.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl

Only humans ask why.

All animals can respond to the questions:

•            What (identifying/recognizing) – was that sound?

•            Where (direction/location) – do I go for shelter?

•            When (time) – I have to go find a mate.

•            Who (other) – do I choose to fight?

•            Which (selection) – is my pack?

•            How (action) – will my cub get food?

Yet, only humans ask Why: Why was I born, why am I here, why did this happen to me, why do I feel this way? Humans are self-reflective. We form meaning.

According to James Joyce, an Irish novelist and poet, our objective reality is subjectively perceived. It is crucial, however, for us to come up with a common sense because we need to construct a common sense for our self-preservation.  The paradox is: as we fight to be independent beings, we are dependent on our community. This interplay between the self and the community is what inevitably holds us together.

The paradox continues: Meaning is not something to be found outside oneself, but rather something that must be created and discovered through one's own choices and actions.

Meaning is about understanding the past. We gather together as a community to hear the stories of resilience and overcoming our suffering. The human capacity for resilience under traumatic experiences is a life-saving one. And we hear of this resilience time and again.

Attitude counts.

The key to mental health is adapting the right attitude. Not a typo, I mean adapting, not adopting the right attitude. What enables us to adapt an attitude is the meaning we give to that attitude. When we simply adopt an attitude, it already comes with its own meaning.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

A way towards being mentally healthy.