Mental health (also called emotional health) is a part of your overall health and your life. We all have it, we all use it and we can all look after it. So what is emotional or mental health?

What it is

Mental or emotional health is something everybody has. It includes how people feel, think, behave and act.

Mental health includes:

• feeling good about yourself and your life
• being able to respond constructively to stress in your life
• being able to cope with things that come up in your life
• self-esteem or confidenc how you see yourself and your future.

Many people think mental health is about having something wrong with your brain. That it's about being "mental", "crazy" or having a "mental illness". Everybody has mental health, just like we all have physical health. You can do things to keep yourself healthy both mentally and physically. Mental illness is when your feelings, emotions or thinking become unwell.

Mental health is a part of your life that can get sick and it is something that you can help to make healthy and keep healthy!

Why you need it

What things affect your mental health?

• What stresses you out?
• What makes you feel proud of yourself?
• What makes you upset, sad, alone or depressed?
• What makes you feel relaxed and cool about everything?

 How does your mental health affect your day?

• How does stress affect your day?
• How does feeling good about yourself affect your day?
• How does it affect your life when you feel upset, sad, alone or depressed?
• How do you cope with everyday situations?

As you might have guessed by now, your state of mental health affects how you deal with the things you face everyday . For example you need your mental health to deal with:

• relationships - sexual relationships, your friends, mum and dad, uncle George…
• work - workload, difficult tasks, getting there in the first place, getting a job…
• school - homework, passing 
• money - bills, choosing what you do with it, working out how to get it...
• commitments - keeping your life balanced.

What else can you think of? Your mental health will have an impact on what you do, how you cope, how you react and what happens to you.

Where you get it

Wouldn't it be nice to go to the supermarket and buy yourself a packet of mental health? In reality, your mental health is affected by everything and everyone you have contact with. That means everything in your life can have a positive or negative affect on your mental health or emotional well being.

• Your social life - your friends, your family, the things you do and get into…

• The environment you live in - your home, your workplace….
• Your biological make-up - the way your body has been formed by your genetics…
• Psychology - the way your mind works, this can be partly traced to genetics and partly to your environment…
• Self care- the time you spend pampering or looking after yourself…