7.3 - Healthy Mind

Meaning and Characteristics of a Healthy Mind

• The mind is the brain function related to consciousness, personality, thinking, memory, judgement, intellect and emotion.
• A healthy mind can reason and think, makes logical judgements before taking action, and displays positive behaviour, independence, care for others and responsibility.
• Characteristics:
  • can think and make judgements;
  • detects stimuli and responds accordingly;
  • recalls sad or happy past events;
  • dares to accept challenges;
  • differentiates right from wrong;
  • is responsible;
  • lives in peace and has a positive view of life;
  • is free from prejudice;
  • is open-minded and not emotional;
  • can reason.

Factors That Influence Mental Health

• Hormonal imbalance before or during the menstrual cycle, including premenstrual syndrome, and during menopause may cause headache, depression and irritability.
• Excessive alcohol consumption disrupts the ability to think, detect stimuli, reason and control emotions; drunkenness may cause aggression and endanger the person or others.
• Drug abuse may cause failure to fulfil responsibilities towards family, work or studies, and serious mental problems.
• Mental stress affects a healthy mind and must be managed.
• Injury to part of the brain caused by microorganism or pathogen infection, an accident or a tumour may cause loss of memory or intellectual ability and make a person easily influenced by emotions.
• Aging also influences mental health.

Importance of a Healthy Mind

• Every individual needs a healthy mind to fulfil responsibilities towards family, the workplace, society and the country.

Context	Importance
Family	Builds a happy family; enables wise decisions; produces a role model in the family.
Workplace	Forges good employee–employer relationships and relationships among colleagues; produces quality work; promotes discipline.
Society	Encourages positive thinking; enables constructive criticism to be handled well; allows a person to exchange ideas as a friend; helps people in need.
Country	Encourages religious and moral values and a healthy lifestyle; helps generate the country’s economy.