Mental Health Behavior

What is Mental Health Wellness?

Wellness is the everyday habit of working to have good health. Health includes both your body and your mind. Mental health is wellness of your mind. It helps you feel calm and safe in your life.

It affects how we think, feel, and act.
It helps shape how we handle stress.
It guides how we act with others and make choices.

You can practice mental wellness. You can set a goal to "live your best life" and get the most out of each day.

You can check in with yourself. How are you feeling?
You can work on your emotions and social skills. You can practice thinking calm thoughts.
You can practice habits that help you cope to face stresses of day-to-day life. Even when you feel well, you should practice your coping skills so you get good at them.
- You might pick listening to music, doing exercise, doing jigsaw puzzles or many other choices. Ask others for ideas.

Video

What is Mental Health?

Click on this video to learn more about mental health awareness.

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What is Mental Illness?

Sometimes things happen to us that make us feel bad. We can get stuck felling badly. We might not know why we feel that way. If these bad feelings continue day to day or grow, they be signs of mental illness.

We can feel angry, worried, sad, afraid or confused.
We might not know what to do.
We might act in ways that are not like our usual self.

We might be having trouble doing our usual daily tasks.
It might be hard to work or to be with other people.
The person or others near them may feel uncomfortable.

Many people have an experience with mental illness in their lives. It can last a short time or continue for longer. The most common types of mental illness are depression and anxiety.

Depression is a feeling of sadness and a loss of interest in your usual life that won't go away.

Anxiety is a feeling of fear or worry than won't go away and makes it hard to do your usual tasks.

Video

Taking Charge of my Health Care

Watch this helpful video by Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

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How can you get mental health services?

Ask at your primary care office first. They may have counselors and doctors who will prescribe medicine for mental illness. Others will send a referral to get you help from a specialist in mental health.

Some types of mental health specialist are LCSW, psychologists, psychiatrists, and behavior consultants.

Tap to flip the cards.

Licensed clinical social worker (LCSW)

A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) has master’s training in emotions and behavior.
They help people improve their lives by talking with them.

Psychologist (PhD)

A psychologist (PhD) is a type of doctor who studies how people think, feel, and behave.
They talk with people to figure out what they need.
They use therapy skills to help their patients feel better.
They do not prescribe medicine.

Tap to flip the cards.

Psychiatrist (MD or DO)

A psychiatrist (MD or DO) is a medical doctor who treats mental illness.
They figure out when a person has a mental illness.
They prescribe medicine for mental illness.

Behavior Consultant (BCBA)

A behavior consultant can also be called a behavior analyst.
They watch how a person behaves to help understand the problem.
They they help make the changes the person wants in their behavior.

It is very important to know that mental illness isn’t something that usually gets better quickly. You have to work at it. You have to work on your emotions and your behavior.

Remember that it may take some time to get to know a new counselor. You have to talk together. You have to build trust and honesty together.

The first visits are really the ‘get to know you’ meetings. You might not be able to decide if your counselor is helping you during the first three visits. You might need to give it more time.

You and your counselor should plan together tasks that you will work on after each visit. Make sure you know what to practice before you leave each visit. Sometimes it helps to write it down. (Mental Health Action Plan)

Most people say that it takes four or six visits to start to feel some improvement. Don’t give up too soon.

Sometimes you don’t have a good match with a counselor. It is okay to talk about that. You may decide it is a better idea to go to someone different for what you need. Don’t give up on the idea of counseling if it isn’t working with the first person you meet.

Sometimes your counselor may suggest that you come to a group session. This is another service that can really help a person with mental illness.

If your doctor prescribes a medicine, ask about how it will work. Many medicines take some time to start to make you feel better. Make sure you take it the way the doctor tells you to. Use a reminder system to help you. Don't give up too soon. Talk about any side effects that you may feel. Talk about how to decide if the side effect is likely to go away. Even if it stays, talk about if it might be worth it for your mental health to stay on the medicine even with a side effect. Ask about how long you might plan to be on the medicine. Ask about how to stop the medicine if there is a problem.

All behavior tells us something! People don't speak only with words. Sometimes people can have trouble using words to tell others how they feel or what they need. How people behave can give a lot of info. Sometimes people react to the world with behaviors that cause trouble.

Some types of trouble behaviors can be:

refusing to do something,

doing something that gets in the way,

yelling or running away

hurting others or things or even oneself.

A behavior consultant or analyst helps improve trouble behaviors. A consultant watches to look for patterns.

Does a behavior happen in more than one place? At home and at work or school?

Does it happen every day or on certain days? Is it getting worse or better?

Could the behavior be caused by a feeling in the person’s body? Are they having pain?

Is someone or something bothering them?

Are they have a strong emotion that is getting in the way?

Do they need or want something that they can’t get?

They look at the A-B-C s.

They help look at what happens before a behavior. This is the A for antecedent.

They look at what the person does. This is the B for behavior.

They watch what happens after a behavior. This is the C for consequence.

After watching, the consultant helps make a plan.

They can help work to avoid a bad behavior.

They can help practice a more useful response.

They can teach ways to make the change.

If you work with a behavioral consultant, you can think about behaviors that you might want to change. You can work with your team. You can work on you progress at home.

If you want to keep track of your progress, try using a chart or a calendar. Your behavior therapist may have a chart for you. Or you can try our form.

Our Form: Healthy Habits Action Plan

Glasgow's Anxiety Screener

Check out this easy read pdf of Glasgow's Anxiety Scale.

Glascow's depression scale

Check out this easy read pdf of Glasgow's Depression Scale.