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Lesson One - What is Mental Health?

Site: MoodleHUB.ca 🍁
Course: Mental Health & Wellness [1 cr] - AB Ed copy 1
Book: Lesson One - What is Mental Health?
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Sunday, 7 September 2025, 6:46 PM

Table of contents

Information


  • This lesson is designed to take approximately 1 hour.
  • You have the following tasks and assignments to complete in this lesson.
    • Read all Lesson 1 content, including videos, supplementary links, etc.
    • Lesson 1 Journal


Lesson Outcomes

  • Define mental health

Lesson 1 Introduction

What does Mental Health Mean?


Mental health can mean different things to different people. Some people might think of depression or anxiety, while others may think of schizophrenia. All of these are correct, but mental health is so much more. It is being proactive to stave off extreme stress, staying healthy, and creating a support network that you can turn to in times of need. It can be learning to live with a mental illness, or learning to support those around you that are living with a mental illness.

Everyone has mental health, regardless of whether or not they have a mental illness.

There are a variety of definitions of mental health depending on what organization you look at. For the purposes of this course, we will be using the Canadian Mental Health Association definition:

Mental health is knowing and accepting yourself, understanding what makes you happy, building meaningful relationships, coping with problems of day-to-day living, and maintaining a sense of humour. It also means striking a balance in all aspects of your life: social, physical, spiritual, economic, and mental. Mental health is [also] about coping with the challenges of life.
Courtesy of Canada.ca/Health, HBSC

Determinants of Mental Health


There are some aspects of your life that are good indicators of mental health (positive or negative). The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) lists three of the most important factors being:
 
  • social inclusion
  • freedom from discrimination and violence
  • access to economic resources
woman in black jacket and 4 dogs walking on dirt path
Pexels

Click each collapsible row for more information.

This means having some sort of network that you feel connected to. It can be made up of friends, family, trusted adults, or even pets. The more you feel connected or included with your network, the higher chance you have of being mentally healthy.
This factor means being free from any form of discrimination (for example: racism, sexism, ageism), as well as violence will help to increase your mental health. While it may seem as though this factor is not within your control, you do have the ability to choose what environments to spend your leisure time in, as well as who you spend your time with. These choices can have a significant impact on this factor.
While it has not been scientifically proven that money makes someone happy, there have been studies that hint that a moderate amount of income can help to improve mental health. Being able to have a choice because of less economic restraints allows for less stress.

Is Mental Health Constant?

Mental health is constantly changing. Life events, or things that happen in your life, are continually impacting your mental health. One of the most significant factors that affects your mental health is stress; both your personal and workplace or school stress. Lifestyle, genetics, exposure to poverty or trauma, unemployment, and economic hardship have also been shown to be connected to mental health.

When these factors really start to affect mental health is when there are more demands on a person than what they can cope with. The person may not have the proper resources or coping abilities for the particular demand being placed on them, making their stress levels increase and their mental health decrease.
Pixabay/ ADLC adapted