How Do You Know If Your Mental Health Is Getting Worse?
Mental health can be defined as the emotional, psychological and social well-being of a person throughout their development.
It is one of the most important areas in the lives of human beings, since it conditions everything that person does throughout their existence, from their way of life, their making of vital decisions, to their performance both at personal and professional level.
Mental health problems can also have a great influence on each person who suffers from them, which is why it is so important to know. Identify and recognize the signs that our mental health is getting worse.
Signs to know if your mental health is getting worse
In order to help identify these types of problems, below we present a practical guide that will help us recognize the main symptoms associated with the most common mental health disorders.
1. Sleep problems
Healthy sleeping habits are very important to ensure both physical and mental health of people; That is why psychological alterations are very often related to difficulties falling asleep or getting restful sleep.
This difficulty in sleeping and resting during the night causes great discomfort the next day, since the affected person feels tired or fatigued during daylight hours and their abilities to carry out all those activities that they must face daily are impaired.
Alterations in mental health are also related to excessive sleep and cause many people to sleep an alarming number of hours and have a hard time getting out of bed, something very common in cases of depression.
2. Intrusive thoughts
Intrusive thoughts are those mental contents that generate states of discomfort, anguish or obsession and that deeply disturb the person who harbors them.
These thoughts are characterized by being very difficult to get out of our heads and they are typical of people with anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias or with cases of very high stress.
Harboring this type of unwanted negative thoughts on a regular basis is a sign of psychological disturbance and the person who suffers from them should consider going to a psychology professional as soon as possible.
3. Self-destructive behaviors
Having self-destructive behaviors is another unequivocal sign that we are facing a mental health problem and that it is necessary to address this problem with professional help as soon as possible.
This type of behavior They don’t have to be suicide attempts Rather, they are self-harming or clearly harmful actions in the medium and long term that people inflict on themselves to escape the discomfort or psychological pain they experience.
Some of these behaviors are usually cuts on the arms or wrists and any other type of self-inflicted painful stimulus to distract from psychological discomfort that is felt daily, a fact that works with a logic similar to that followed by drug addicts.
4. Problematic relationship with the mirror
Avoiding seeing one’s own reflection out of fear, shame or anguish at what we may find when looking in the mirror It is a clear sign that something is not going well with our mental health and is a trend closely related to eating disorders such as anorexia.
On the contrary, constantly going to the mirror to perform self-checking behaviors in search of imperfections in one’s own image is also a sign that tells us that we may have a self-acceptance problem with ourselves.
5. Tendency to blame yourself
People with low self-esteem have tendency to blame themselves for everything bad that happens to them and to have a very negative view of themselves both at a personal level and self-image as well as at the level of skills, competencies and intellectual level.
Being too demanding of oneself and constantly treating oneself badly is an alarm signal that should tell us that something is not going well with our mental health and that we should contact a specialized psychologist to overcome this problem.
6. Tendency towards hypochondria
The frequent and obsessive search for symptoms or signs of a possible physical or mental illness is known as hypochondria and at high levels it can significantly affect the mental health of those who suffer from it.
Obsession with one’s own health It leads many people to become excessively alarmed whenever they believe they have contracted a certain illness, a tendency that is related to states of anxiety, obsession and acute stress.
7. Feelings of guilt when eating
Eating disorders are usually related to a strong feeling of guilt after eating food. This It happens especially in cases of anorexia, bulimia and also in binge eating disorder.
In any case, this feeling of guilt, shame or discomfort after any meal is related to an alteration in the eating behavior and also the mental health of the person.
Related article: “Keys to understanding eating disorders”
Frequently avoid situations that are feared without them posing an objective danger It is associated with the appearance of some type of phobia or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In more serious cases, perceiving and imagining dangers that do not exist in reality can be related to serious alterations in mental and psychological health, such as personality disorders or schizophrenia.
9. Cognitive alterations
Cognitive alterations are those that affect people’s daily cognitive abilities and there are many alterations of this type that can indicate a worsening of mental health.
Some examples of this type of alterations can be reduced attention span or concentration, memory loss the inability to solve complex problems of all kinds or problems understanding complex or relational situations in daily life.
10. Very sudden mood changes
We can all have mood swings on certain days, but the fact that having a very oscillating and changing mood over the weeks or days It is often related to serious mental health problems.
These types of radical and random mood changes can be due to cases of bipolar disorder, drug use, post-traumatic stress, schizophrenia, psychotic breaks or neurodegenerative disorders.
