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90 CHAPTER 5 CHRONIC TTH ANALYSIS BY EMG AND GSR BIOFEEDBACK

5.1.4 MEANING OF MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health is a level of psychological well-being or having no mental illness. It is the “psychological
state of a person who is functioning at a mental satisfactory level of emotional and behavior adjust-
ment.” From the perspective of Positive Psychology, mental health may include an individual’s ability
to enjoy life activities and efforts to achieve psychological flexibilities.
According to WHO, mental health includes “subjective well-being, perceived self efficacy, auton-
omy, competence, intergenerational dependence and self-actualization of one’s intellectual and emo-
tional potential among others.”
WHO further states that the mental health of an individual is dependent upon the realization of their
capabilities, ability to cope with stress in life, productive work, and contribution to their community.
However, cultural differences and subjective assessment theories affect how “mental health” is
defined.

5.1.5 DEFINITIONS
"Mental health represents those insights and behaviors that determine an individual’s overall level of
personal effectiveness, success, happiness, and excellence of functioning as a person."
Mental health also includes an individual’s capability to enjoy life—to attain an equilibrium be-
tween life activities and efforts to achieve psychological flexibility. Mental health is described as “be-
havioral and emotional normality is the non-presence of a mental illness or behavioral disorder, a state
of psychological healthy being in which an individual has obtained a satisfactory integration of one’s
instinctual drives acceptable to both oneself and one’s social environment; an appropriate balance of
love, work, and leisure pursuits.”—[Medilexicon’s medical dictionary]. “A person’s overall emotional
and psychological condition.”
Mental health is a broad term. Some use it as a simple adjective to describe our brain’s health.
Others use it more broadly to indicate our psychological state. Still others will add emotion into the
definition. I believe a good definition includes all of the above factors.

Mental health describes our social, emotional, and psychological condition all encapsulated into one

Mental health, just like our physical health, operates on a continuum. Mental health is not just about the
nonpresence of mental illness. It is defined as the situation of well-being in one’s own capability, being
able to cope with normal stresses of life, able to work productively, and able to make a contribution to
his or her community.
Mental ill health refers to the kind of common mental health problems that we can all experience in
certain stressful circumstances, e.g., poor concentration, mood swings, and sleep disturbances, etc.
Such problems are usually of a temporary nature, are relieved once the demands of a particular
situation are removed, and generally respond to support and reassurance. Every one of us has suffered
from a mental health problem but it doesn’t mean that one is always mentally ill. Being mentally ill
restricts our capabilities as human beings and may lead to more serious problems.
Mental illness can be defined as the experience of severe and distressing psychological symptoms to
the extent that normal functioning is seriously impaired. Examples of such symptoms include: anxiety,
depressed mood, obsessive thinking, delusions, and hallucinations.