The Importance of Mental Health Awareness

Mental illness can happen to anyone. It could happen to you, your family, or your neighbor. You most likely interact with someone struggling with mental health every day of your life. However, Over half (54.7%) of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 28 million individuals. That’s because of the stigma surrounding mental health. People are scared of being seen as “crazy.” This unfortunately results in people suffering for years, with some even committing suicide. That is why Hearts 4 Minds believes mental health awareness is crucial. By raising awareness and breaking the stigma, we can transform mental health and save lives.

What is Mental Health?

To increase mental health awareness, you must first understand what mental health is. Mental health refers to our psychological, social, and emotional well-being. It has a direct impact on how we feel, think, and act. Mental health conditions are known as mental illnesses. Mental illnesses hurt mental health and can cause excessive worry and fear, aggression, mood swings, and depression. 

Mental illness can happen to anyone, with 46% of adults experiencing a mental illness in their lifetime. These can range from anxiety disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Any of the disorders can worsen someone’s mental health and cause drastic changes in behavior.

Why is Awareness Important?

There are a multitude of misconceptions about mental health and mental illness, and raising mental health awareness helps combat those misconceptions. It helps better understanding as well as improve and increase access to healthcare. Mental health awareness ensures people realize the signs and symptoms of mental illness and brings a critical conversation to the forefront. The mental health stigma keeps those struggling in the shadows and silenced. Starting the conversation not only improves access to resources and care providers, it encourages people to speak out and ask for help when they need it.

How Hearts 4 Minds Helps

Hearts 4 Minds aims to increase mental health awareness and build healthy futures by breaking down the stigma of mental illness and ensuring people impacted get the help they need. We never want a family to lose a loved one simply because they didn’t know where to turn. Hearts 4 Minds strives to save lives through creating innovative programs and solutions to solve the most critical needs in our communities struggling with mental illness. By doing so, we help with stigma reduction, early identification, education, and facilitation of accessible treatment.

Hearts 4 Minds has multiple initiatives, all aiming to help those struggling with mental illness and their family and friends by promoting mental health awareness. Along with compiling multiple local and national resources in one place to remove barriers to access, our Murals with Meaning initiative uses art to enhance our community and interact with people where they live, work, and play. Another initiative is Messages with Heart, which shares positive messages on sticky notes in public places. We hope that someone suffering will find them and know that they are not alone. 

Hearts 4 Minds founder Sheryl Johnson takes a direct approach to increasing mental health awareness. She hosts mental health workshops and shares her story at schools, HOAs, clubs, and other events. Most recently, Sheryl became a certified QPR Institute-trained instructor. QPR (Question. Persuade. Refer) provides the knowledge needed to recognize signs of someone suffering and showcases the action steps you can take to offer hope and support and help prevent suicide. She teaches QPR to groups and classes, ensuring that everyone walks away with the ability to save a life.

What You Can Do

Although there has been progress made over the past few decades to break the stigma, there is still work to be done. That’s where you come in. Help Hearts 4 Minds alter how we look at mental health by promoting awareness. This can be done in many ways. You can research mental illness and increase your understanding of it. If you’ve struggled with mental health, sharing your story can also go a long way. Another way is by donating to Hearts 4 Minds, whether it is time or money. Anything you contribute goes towards our mission. Let’s break the stigma together!