Every person needs to deal with mental health, and many underestimate how important maintaining a healthy mind is. Whether people are struggling or not, we must raise awareness on the significance of mental health.
The group of people most impacted by mental health struggles are students. Students are required to deal with academics, sports, any clubs or activities outside of school, college applications for high school students, along with other factors as well. All of these activities consume time and need commitment. Each one detracts more time from the other. With students having such little downtime and dealing with stress due to many commitments, it is crucial that they learn how to cope with mental health struggles, whether they are facing stress, anxiety, depression, or any other blockages.
The question remains: how does one nurture mental health, especially for high school students, the most impacted group?
The question remains: how does one nurture mental health, especially for high school students, the most impacted group? The Psychiatric Times, an online newspaper devoted to psychiatric studies, conducted a study and concluded that there are four pillars to maintaining a healthy mind. These four pillars are by no means difficult to do, do not require medication, and are all easy and simple things every student can do each day to reduce stress and improve life.
Students learn to implement these pillars into their daily life, as opposed to relying solely on medication to ease depression or anxiety. While it is true that medication can temporarily help, solely relying on it will not solve your problems. This is why it is crucial that students learn how to naturally cope with mental health as soon as possible.
The four pillars are healthy nutrition, getting sufficient sleep, exercise, and social interaction—all simple habits to get into that, over time, will heavily improve quality of life and create a healthy body and mind.
A healthy diet helps improve mental health. Nourishing yourself with the proper and sufficient nutrients allows your brain to function properly, which then allows the brain to make positive decisions. Improved quality of sleep and memory, reduced headaches, are several other positive outcomes. Foods that are rich in nutrients are the best foods to eat. Meat and eggs are good, as they are rich in protein. Carbs are needed to provide sugar, despite the popular belief that sugar is bad for the body. The brain needs sugar to perform at its maximum ability, but too much sugar can be bad, which is why it is important to know the balance between too much sugar and how much is good for you. Fish is another great food to eat, as it has been proven that eating fish improves brain capability and memory. As James Lake stated in The Psychiatric Times, “Individuals who have healthy diets tend to function better, feel better, and manage better in the face of stress.” Even such a small change in diet can lead to significant changes in the body and the mind.
The second pillar is sleep, and by having a healthy diet, the quality of sleep already improves. To have that feeling of having had “a good night’s rest,” one needs to have gone into deep sleep, which is a phase of sleep in which the body rests the most and is essential for well-being. Deep sleep can last around two hours and helps to strengthen memory and concentration. However, getting into the “deep sleep” phase requires a regular, consistent, and sufficient sleep schedule. As stated by Lake, “A consistent pattern of rest means a patient has enough time to get into deep sleep.”
Students should get into the habit of sleeping the suggested eight hours each night to allow them to consistently get into deep sleep. Other small actions that can help individuals obtain deep sleep include not falling asleep in front of a screen (like scrolling through TikTok until you fall asleep), not staying up late studying when you should be sleeping, not drinking alcohol before sleeping, and making sure to spend the night in a comfortable environment that will not create stress or worry while you try to sleep.
Sleep is perhaps most important for high school students. Students are the ones who need to be most attentive in school, students need a strong memory for studying, they need a long attention span in class, and they need to have rested bodies for sports. Conveniently enough, having a healthy sleep schedule is exactly what will help students with all of these things. As Lake stated, “Sleep is fundamental to those who are struggling with depression.” This idea extends to everyone, not only to those struggling.
The third pillar, regular exercise, is the most important regarding dopamine—the hormone released by the brain that gives the sense of “feeling good” and happiness. Many people who have depression, stress, and anxiety lack dopamine, causing them to be sad or unhappy. To solve this, many people resort to medications that will supply them with dopamine, hoping that these pills will help cure their mental instability. Taking medication alone may not do this and may only worsen matters as these people start to develop a dependency on medication. In contrast, physical exercise is a natural and pure way to obtain dopamine. When one lifts weights, goes on a run, or even simply takes a walk in nature, dopamine is released from the brain into the body, making them feel happier, better about themselves, and more positive.
Regular movement does not mean rigorous exercise for several hours a day. Regular exercise means small steps to keep yourself moving to ensure that you are getting the natural dopamine as opposed to lacking it and needing medication.
For high school students, this step should not be difficult to implement in their daily lives, as school offers several sports and activities for all students. In fact, most kids in school already do this, showing again that it is not difficult to maintain a healthy mind and body if one knows what steps to take. It is crucial that people are educated about mental health, as something as simple as joining an amateur sports team can ensure that your body stays in movement, eliminating the need for any unnecessary medications when you can obtain the same result naturally through exercise.
The problem comes in when students say that they are too overscheduled and have no time for sports. Not every high school student is an athlete, and there is no problem with that. It is also known that schools in the southeast Pennsylvania area, especially private schools like Haverford, are rigorous and demand a lot academically with many clubs and activities on top of the heavy study load.
This time crunch leads to the following questions: Should private schools put less emphasis on academics to allow students to have some breathing room? Should private schools be more aware of mental health, therefore introducing new mental health programs or hiring school psychologists? Maybe school work is too heavy, but that is up to each individual student to decide. What should be done in schools, on top of raising awareness for mental health, is teaching students time-management skills, which help to organize their time to effectively and efficiently do all that they need to do.
Although time management is not one of the four pillars of mental health, it certainly helps to minimize stress and eliminates the need to worry about being too cramped with activities or schoolwork.
Surprisingly, in high school, many students still are not proficient in time management, but learning it can be a game-changer, as it allows them to complete their duties without having to stress. Although time management is not one of the four pillars of mental health, it certainly helps to minimize stress and eliminates the need to worry about being too cramped with activities or schoolwork.
Moving on, the last of the four pillars is social interaction. Humans are social creatures: that is how humans were made and how they need to function. Cutting off from the outside world gives a feeling of loneliness, a low self-worth, low confidence, and no sense of belonging, all of which can lead to stress, anxiety, or depression. Socializing with others reverses the effects of being alone, which can be another way of naturally obtaining dopamine. There is a reason people say, “You can’t always keep your feelings to yourself,” or “Just let it all out.” Humans need to express themselves and need guidance from others to feel like they aren’t alone.
Coming back to high school, social interaction is the easiest of the four pillars to carry out in everyday life. Thinking back to the year 2020, when everyone was in lockdown, the effects of isolation became evident after a few weeks, and all agree that people were mentally more stable when the world was normal, when everyone was interacting with each other. Now, this lockdown example is extreme, but the idea is so important and fundamental in having good mental health.
In high schools today, students are so overwhelmed, and it is natural for them to be stressed or anxious about their high school life. This is why we must raise awareness about mental health and the ways to treat and properly address it.
By following the four pillars of good mental health—nutrition, sleep, exercise, and social interaction—people can improve their minds, bodies, and lives.
By following the four pillars of good mental health—nutrition, sleep, exercise, and social interaction—people can improve their minds, bodies, and lives. These methods of treating mental health can be most applicable to high school students because they are the ones struggling the most with these issues. Taking a few extra steps and sacrifices can help people drastically improve the state of their minds.
