Although mental health is vital to a person’s overall well-being, it is under prioritized relative to physical health. Mental disorders are not merely character flaws; they mark a major impact on an individual’s daily functioning and productivity. According to WHO, approximately one-eighth of the world’s population has a mental disorder at some point in their life, indicating that a large number of people are struggling with this disorder? Mental disorders are not seen as signs of weakness and are classified as medical conditions, presenting a wide range of available support and treatments. This blog discusses the classifications, causes, and symptoms of mental disorders in order to raise awareness and assist in finding appropriate care options for individuals experiencing such psychiatric conditions.
What Are Mental Disorders?
Mental disorders are medical conditions identified by severe distress or impaired functioning as an impact of thinking, mood, and behaviors over time. As opposed to stress, typically caused by challenges like work deadlines, exams, or any disruptive changes happening in life, mental disorders are more chronic and affect different areas of daily life functioning. Through improving knowledge and early identification, individuals can prevent complications and get early medical support. Not all mental disorders are completely curable but a broader range of them are treatable.
Common Types of Mental Disorders
- Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are generally accrued with a sign of uncontrollable and persisting fear, worry or cognitive uneasiness that seriously impact daily life functioning. The areas of overlap between generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorders, and phobias are included in this domain.
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder: It is a chronic mental health condition, referred by signs of extreme psychological distress due to nervousness and worry. The symptoms may appear as Stiff muscles, increased heart rate, shortness of breath, restlessness, and fatigue etc. remaining for an extended duration.
- Panic Disorder – sudden, extreme fear (panic attack) episodes which may be accompanied by physical symptoms of anxiety like fast heartbeats, trouble breathing, and feeling dizzy.
- Mood Disorders
A mood disorder is primarily a mood-related problem. The most common types of mood disorders are: Depression—lasting sadness, indifference, tiredness, change in weight and sleeping patterns, trouble concentrating ; Bipolar Disorder – alternating periods of depression and manic or hypomanic episodes characterized by an excess of energy, impulsive behavior, and a willingness to take chances. All mood disorders affect both professional and personal life by impacting productivity, interactions with people, and how well one takes care of themselves. Even a person who has both a mood and an anxiety disorder will respond more effectively to intervention if they and those close to them receive an early diagnosis and treatment.
- Psychotic Disorders
Schizophrenia, a type of mental condition during which the patient experiences hallucinations, perceiving sounds or images that are not present, paranoia (groundless beliefs) and disorganized thoughts. All psychotic disorders limit the individual’s ability to correctly determine reality.
- Personality Disorders
It is as long-standing patterns in how someone thinks, feels, and acts—patterns that don’t really fit what’s considered normal in their culture. Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder are some of the common examples.
- Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are primary defined as unhealthy behaviors in eating patterns. They are categorized as:
- Anorexia nervosa- It refers to restricted eating behaviors.
- Bulimia nervosa- Varying episodes of eating heavily and compensating for it through purging or other methods to prevent excessive weight increase.
- Binge eating disorder: In this, someone eats large amounts of food but doesn’t try to compensate afterwards. These disorders aren’t just tough emotionally; they can seriously harm your physical health as a resulting effect.
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Attention deficit Disorder; These individuals experience ADHD as well as hyperactivity. They also show difficulty regulating their own behavior.
Disorder of the autism spectrum; these individuals’ exhibit deficits in their ability to relate to others socially, communicate with others and interact with others.
These individuals will benefit from interventions that are provided early in their lives and in an organized manner.
- Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
Patients shows a sign of feeling anxious due to their obsessive thoughts and engage in repetitive behaviours to attempt to reduce their anxiety.
There are also disorders related with body-image perception (disorder of body-image dysmorphic) and difficulty discarding possessions (disorder of hoarding). Both are characterised by the individuals suffering from mistaken beliefs about their bodies or the inability to discard items respectively.
Major Causes and Risk Factors
- Biological factors
Changes in the brain and hormone systems, as well as genetic predisposition, can create a more risk of having issues related to mental health. This is evident with people who have a family history of major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder as they can more easily develop these disorders.
- Environmental factors
Things such as trauma, abuse, neglect, and high-stress situations can create problems related to the mental. There is a high correlation between extreme adversity in childhood or stress that is prolonged in adulthood to problems such as different mood disorders, depression, or PTSD.
- Psychological factors
There are a lot of things in life that can affect a person, and these include personality, how they manage to deal with pressure, and especially the childhood phase. People may be more at risk of having mental health disorders if they lack the important quality of resilience and the ability to cope.
- Lifestyle and social influences
Poor mental health can be affected by such factors as low levels of physical activity, social isolation, poor diet, and the use of recreational drugs and alcohol. However through social support and the presence of healthy practices can reduce the risk and improve recovery.
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