Mental health is made up of the emotional, psychological, and social processes that human beings experience everyday and throughout their lifetime. 

 Mental health affects the way think, feel, act, relate, react to stressors, and the choices we make. How we show up and proceed through each day is largely dependent on the vibration of the thoughts and feelings that hold the majority of our unconscious attention. And most importantlyAs many things that mental health affects, there are exponentially more factors that affect and influence our mental health. 

 Things like a family history of mental illness has consistently been considered to be a strong indicator of individual mental illness risk over a lifetime. Biological factors such as chronic inflammation, unbalanced metabolism, hormonal imbalance, neurotransmitter imbalance, toxin accumulation, nutrient deficiencies, and sleep deprivation can all contribute to mental illness as well. 

 Trauma, be it psychological or emotional, seems to have the most profound effect on our mental health. Adverse childhood events, extremely stressful events, and emotional or mental strain can al create long lasting and debilitating negative effects on mental health. 

 When negative mental health factors pile up and start to affect our mental health, a variety of signs and symptoms will bubble to the surface. Early warning signs can help prevent problems from developing for many individuals. Mental illness signs and symptoms to be aware of include the following:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness recently released a new set of statistics in September 2019. The numbers are quite eye opening and shed light on the increasing burden of mental illness in the United States. 

Here are a few of the most eye opening statistics:

• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-34.
• 1 in 5 U.S. Adults experience mental illness each year.
• 1 in 25 U.S. Adults experience severe mental illness each year.
• 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year.

Annual prevalence of mental illness:

• 19.1% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2018 (47.6 million people). This represents 1 in 5 adults. 
• 4.6% of U.S. adults experienced serious mental illness in 2018 (11.4 million people). This represents 1 in 25 adults.
• 16.5% of U.S. youth aged 6-17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016 (7.7 million people).
• 3.7% of U.S. adults experienced a co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness in 2018 (9.2 million people).

Prevalence of treatment for mental illness in U.S. Populations:

• 43.3% of U.S. adults with mental illness received treatment in 2018. 
  
• 64.1% of U.S. adults with serious mental illness received treatment in 2018. 
• 50.6% of U.S. youth aged 6-17 with a mental health disorder received treatment in 2016.
  
• The average delay between onset of mental illness symptoms and treatment is 11 years.
  
• 11.3% of U.S. adults with mental illness had no insurance coverage in 2018. 
  
• 13.4% of U.S. adults with serious mental illness had no insurance coverage in 2018.
  
• 60% of U.S. counties do not have a single practicing psychiatrist.
  

Annual prevalence among U.S. adults, by condition:

• Anxiety Disorders: 19.1% (estimated 48 million people)
• Major Depressive Episode: 7.2% (17.7 million people) 
• 50.6% of U.S. youth aged 6-17 with a mental health disorder received treatment in 2016.
  
• Post traumatic Stress Disorder: 3.6% (estimated 9 million people) 
• Bipolar Disorder: 2.8% (estimated 7 million people) 
• Borderline Personality Disorder: 1.4% (estimated 3.5 million people) 
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: 1.2% (estimated 3 million people) 
  
• Schizophrenia: <1% (estimated 1.5 million people) 

These statistics bring some concerning points. Only about half of people with mental illness ever get treatment, and the time it takes them to get treatment for their mental illness is often 11 years after the onset of said illness. That leaves a lot of time for many aspects of their overall health to be negatively impacted.

Not only is a large portion of the U.S. population affected by mental illness, but it appears to affect younger populations more severely. Sadly, suicide is now the second leading cause of death in people between the ages of 10 to 34 years old, regardless of the awareness and communication around the issue.

Mental illness, as mentioned in the intro to mental health, can be debilitating and severely interfere with people's ability to live their life normally. When mental health suffers and individuals are no longer able to take care of themselves properly, other health conditions may begin to develop.

This occurs due to the fact that mental health has profound effects on processes throughout all our major organs. Specifically digestive health, cognitive performance, and physical performance. Long standing mental illness can often lead to serious health consequences such as cancer development, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

There is no denying that our mental health and processes affect affect our metabolism and biochemical reactions throughout the entirety of the body.

Ironically (or unironically), the aspects of our body affected by our mental health, also contribute a great deal of influence on mental health. We can plainly see this when we recognize that the body functions as a unified whole, not as isolated parts of a machine. This means that if we can take care of our body or our mind, then our minds and our bodies will thank each other in kind with vibrant health.

It may seem so simple when you get to the root of the issue, yet, for most individuals it is hard to establish the practices and habits in ones life that creates a continually healthy state. Eating a balanced diet to protect our digestive system, getting adequate amounts of exercise, ample time in nature with fresh air, and releasing trauma or stressor will do wonders for mental health. 

This can be a tall order, especially when we take a look at typical treatment options in the psychiatric world.

Mental illness is not just hard to diagnose and categorize, based on ever changing diagnostic criteria, but it is extremely difficult to treat effectively. 

The symptoms, origin, and development of mental illness varies greatly between individuals. There is not only childhood trauma, genetics, and biochemical imbalances that contribute to it but also social, economic, and environmental stressors that contribute and affect our overall mental health.

Clinically, this makes mental illness difficult to treat for many practitioners. More often than not it is difficult to effectively implement drastic changes in one's physical activity, diet, and social/emotional triggers. The fallback for most clinical cases of mental illness is, of course, prescription drugs in combination with psychotherapy or counseling.

Unfortunately, there is literally no magic pill for treatment of mental illness. Many of the prescription drugs used clinically lack proper information on how they affect mental health and their long term effects on health as most of the guiding clinical trials only last about 8 weeks. 

Here are some of the most common prescription drugs used for mental illness, with all information sourced from FDA guidance papers used for the official registration of these substances and a pharmaceutical substance: 

The 5 most common drugs for depression used are as follows :

Antidepressants are primarily selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), with the exception of Wellbutrin, which is an aminoketone antidepressant used to quit smoking. SSRI’s affects the amount of serotonin floating around in our central nervous system, science is not exactly sure how it affected depression. Side effects are often harsh and leave their clinical use questionable in younger population, especially as a first line treatment options.

Unfortunately they all share the same label warning of increasing suicidality along with other impacts on heart health, eye health, sleep, and interference with cognitive and mental performance. Most clinical trials only study these substances for up to 8 weeks leaving the long term effects of antidepressants understudied and misunderstood. Combined with the fact that antidepressants are hard to stop using, requiring tapered dosing, it creates a problematic yet dependent relationship with antidepressants that is hard to break for most individuals.

The 3 most common Anxiety medications :

Xanax and Ativan are both benzodiazepines (“benzos”), while Desyrel is an SSRI with much of the same characteristics of the drugs discussed above. The mechanism of action of benzodiazepines is not well understood and can lead to severe nervous system depression possibly causing respiratory depression, and death, especially with opioids. 

The 5 most common ADHD medications:

ADHD medications are typically stimulants that are well known and widely used. Amphetamines and centrally acting nervous system stimulants often breed dependence and will have long term ramifications for most individuals who being them at a young age. Stimulants are burdensome for the bodily systems and may cause cardiovascular disease, stroke, and even sudden death.

These relatively misunderstood prescriptions but vastly prescribed medications don't inspire much confidence. The trade off between treatment efficacy and serious side effects becomes a difficult choice for many physicians who may not be able to offer alternative forms of treatment approaches.

The fact that most antidepressant and anxiety medications come with explicit warning of increasing the risk of suicide make the use of these medication even more controversial. Suicidality is already the second leading cause of death among populations between 10 and 34 years old as mentioned earlier. Subjecting them to primary treatment that involves substances that may increase that risk, seems rather counter intuitive.