Why Mental Health Must Be Taught to People at a Young Age?

Just as we take care of our bodies by eating healthy and exercising, we should take as much care and have regard for our minds. Taking care of our brain and mental health should be prioritized because no body shape, no person’s approval and nothing else in this world would make us feel better about ourselves if we don’t personally have peace of mind and feel at ease. 

Our thoughts shape the people we are today. What we see, read and watch affect the way we think and, ultimately, the way we feel about ourselves. Now, what if we experience some thoughts or physical or emotional symptoms that we cannot understand? How badly will this affect our mind if we don’t know what we are experiencing or thinking about? It would make us feel like there is something wrong with us, like we are sick or we are one of the unlucky ones who are labelled “crazy” by our society. However, we can refrain from all of that concurrent shame and uneasiness if we were properly taught about mental health. If we learn, especially at a young age, about mental health, its basis, its issues, its elements and everything that affects it, we would be able to deal with our thoughts in a much better way. If mental health was taken as seriously as mathematics and sciences are by schools’ educational curriculum, we would have learned all about the mental health issues that we are facing or might face throughout our lives. We would acknowledge whether we have an eating disorder, anxiety, depression or any other type of mental health issue. Education about mental health is particularly significant given the fact that mental health issues are quite common. As a matter of fact, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) states that one in four people will have a mental health issue at some point in their life (“One in four people”, 2001).

I underscore the importance of learning about mental health at a young age since I, personally, dealt with social anxiety all throughout my teenage years. Social anxiety had me believe there is something wrong with me. In addition, it has affected my personal relationships and had me dreading to take part of any social gathering. I felt like I was one bad seed among all the good kernels in a field. My thoughts took me to ugly places and got me thinking I was born sick. I did not even know what the word “anxiety” meant at the time. Even without knowing what I had back then, I decided to change this trait or “shyness” as some labeled it. I started taking baby steps to help me overcome my fear of being around and speaking up in front of people. It was difficult, but I managed to handle all the symptoms I constantly faced including pressure in my throat, heart racing and sweaty palms; I worked on myself and by myself to overcome it. 

 Comically, the first time I learned about social anxiety was from an Instagram post. I was going through my Instagram feed one day and I read a post explaining what it feels like to have social anxiety. As I read the post, many memories rushed in and I saw my teenage years flash in front of me. It was like someone went back in time, read my thoughts, saw the symptoms I had experienced and wrote them down in an Instagram post. Afterwards, I quickly became eager to learn more about social anxiety, so I researched about it. On a random day, I found out the reason behind all the confusion I have experienced as a teenager and what I had been suffering from.

Had I known back then that I had social anxiety, things would have been much easier and my teenage years would have gone much more smoothly. First of all, I would have understood that there is nothing wrong with me and that it is something I can work on. Second, I would have asked an expert to guide me on how to understand my thoughts and symptoms and help me ease my social anxiety. And finally, I would have been able to form better social relationships without feeling physically and mentally drained after every encounter with people. 

 So now please take a moment and think about the following questions:

How better would people with mental health issues feel if they were well-informed about their condition? 

How much more de-stigmatized would mental health issues be if we were taught about them from a young age?

And finally, how would anything we learn be useful if we don’t principally learn how to understand ourselves and what our thoughts mean?