If you look up the definition of mental health online you are going to get some variation of the following: a person’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being. That sounds nice, but what does that actually mean? Keep in mind, that mental health is different from being mentally healthy. You can have poor mental health. Let’s break down the components of mental health and see what it really means:

Emotional well-being

Emotional well-being is a fancy way of asking, “how are you feeling today?” If you are exhibiting generally positive feelings, you are emotionally well. For example, happy is better than sad. Calm is better than angry. The better you feel, the better your emotional well-being. Your emotional well-being can be negative as well. We all know people who are depressed, anxious, or irritable. We would say these people are not doing emotionally well.

Psychological well-being

Psychological well-being has some overlap with emotional well-being and some people may even use them interchangeably. There are distinctions, however. Not all psychological problems have to do with emotions. Cognitive abilities, such as memory and information processing, are very important parts of mental health, but most would not associate them directly with emotions. Psychological health has to do with the overall performance of your mental faculties. You can feel good emotionally and still not be psychologically well. For instance, having a delusion that you are God may make you feel good, but it is not psychologically healthy.

Social well-being

Social well-being is a major part of mental health. An adequate social life is crucial for our mood and coping ability. Sharing a good time with others is usually preferable to doing something enjoyable by yourself.  This factor is partially responsible for the proliferation of social media and the multiplayer video game. There is an innate need in most people for social interaction. People that feel lonely are almost always unhappy emotionally. Even an introvert needs social interaction. They may not be as interested in social interaction as others but they still want it at times. In addition, where would you be if you had to deal with a serious problem all by yourself? Social support is one of the most important factors in how we deal with difficult situations. I have relied on my friends and family to prop me up through some pretty dark days.

Physical well-being

Let me add a component of mental health that you won’t often find on the internet: physical well-being. You may be asking, how is physical health part of mental health? My personal belief is that there are aspects of physical health which make up the foundation of mental health. Exercise, eating healthy, and sleep fuel emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Without them we can’t be mentally healthy. I call these three behaviors the Healthy Trinity and it is the subject of my next blog. I hope you read it.