Understanding the Significance of Mental Health and Your Ability to Help Heal Your World

For far too long, mental health has been a taboo subject. And though the stigma is slowly dissipating, the significance of mental self-care is becoming more important.

The Prevalence

According to an investigation conducted by the World Health Organization, mental disorders affect an estimated 450 million people, and almost 1 million people die by their own hand every year. Furthermore, they expect the problem to worsen over the next 20 years.

As our population grows, this burden intensifies; our world is growing sick.

The Cure

This is not meant to serve as a message of doom, but rather as the motivation for change.

The cure is inside all of us- it incubates within you in the form of kindness, compassion, empathy, gratitude, love, knowledge, and all the traits conducive to a thriving society.

This encompasses the essence of Happytalism, the mentality that will heal the mind and the world - it fundamentally serves as a vaccine, by building immunity to negativity.

The Research

Peace, love, and happiness may sound hippie-ish. But don’t dismiss these qualities quite yet, because sound research also supports their significance.

Neuroscientist James Doty is no hippie. But his profound research, along with his personal past, concludes that the happytalist qualities, such as empathy and compassion, change the way we see the world.

Does seeing something differently actually heal it? When dealing with mental health, it does.  

Doty points out that situations happen with zero value; we assign it. A negative value adversely impacts us and those around us, while a positive value uplifts the same people. But we create the value either way. For instance, if a person hurts you, and you automatically label that action as bad, you create a negative ripple: your pain leads to anger, which leads to retaliation, which leads to more pain, and so on.

But, if you utilize your ability to empathize, you may find a reason for why they hurt you. If you stop the negative pattern by empathizing and understanding your aggressor's pain, you can assign a more constructive value to it, and then create a ripple of kindness and that positive effect continues to the external environment.

Moreover, forgiveness allows you to let go of the pain, a causative agent for many mental health conditions. When you heal, they begin to heal, and both of you are able to help others to do the same.

Expert Edward Diener expresses that research provides “almost no doubt” that happiness influences overall health. This is an incredibly strong testament to the importance of Happytalism, and to the power all humans hold to healing the world.

Administrating Happiness

It is so important to recognize this power inside of us, because knowing the cure and finding a way to administer it are two very separate elements.

When we inject the world with our happytalist outlook, we create a way to spread joy to everyone around us.

Economist Richard Layard states, “Happiness is merely an imaginary goal that gives us direction and purpose. Without recognizing this tendency in ourselves, we are prone to letting it trick us into making choices that don’t maximize happiness.” Thus stressing the importance in recognizing our ability to pass happiness along to others.

Improving the mental hygiene of our world is possible, if people choose to do so. The prevalence provides reason, the cure offers possibility, and administration depends solely on choice. The mental well-being of humanity depends greatly on the Happytalism that lies within each of us.