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Mental Health Hacking

Goals of the Project

This page have for goal add miscellaneous information about mental health and “quench” myths and stigma about mental disorders.

What is Mental Health

Mental health refers to our cognitive, and/or emotional wellbeing - it is all about how we think, feel and behave. Mental health, if somebody has it, can also mean an absence of a mental disorder. Your mental health can affect your daily life, relationships and even your physical health. Mental health also includes a person's ability to enjoy life - to attain a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.

Chronic Stress

Chronic stress increases the risk of developing health problems including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and a weakened immune system. Chronic stress also affects a person’s mental health. Many studies show a correlation between stress and the development of mood disorders such as anxiety disorders and depression.According to the American Psychological Association’s latest stress survey, 66 percent of people regularly experience physical symptoms of stress, and 63 percent experience psychological symptoms.

Depression

Depression is a condition in which a person feels discouraged, sad, hopeless, unmotivated, or disinterested in life in general.

Psychotic disorders

People with psychotic disorders lose contact with reality and experience a range of extreme symptoms that usually includes:

Hallucinations hearing or seeing things that are not real, such as voices and Delusions believing things that are not true and between psychotic disorders include:

Schizophrenia

The term schizophrenia refers to a type of psychosis in which a person experiences some psychotic symptoms for at least six months, with a significant decline in the person’s ability to function. The symptoms and length of the illness vary from person to person.

Paranoid schizophrenia

Paranoid schizophrenia, or schizophrenia with paranoia as doctors now call it, is the most common example of this mental illness.People with paranoid delusions are unreasonably suspicious of others. This can make it hard for them to hold a job, run errands, have friendships, and even go to the doctor.Although it's a lifelong illness, you can take medicines and find help to stop symptoms or make them easier to live with.

Schizophreniform disorder

This type of psychosis is the same as schizophrenia except that the symptoms have lasted for less than six months. The illness may completely resolve or may persist and progress to other psychiatric diagnoses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder.

Schizoaffective disorder

During this type of psychosis, a person will experience symptoms of schizophrenia and symptoms of a mood disturbance, either at the same time or alternating over time.

Depression with psychotic features

Sometimes a person will experience a severe depression with symptoms of psychosis without the mania associated with bipolar disorder. This type of depression is referred to as a psychotic depression or depression with psychotic features.

Brief psychotic disorder

Sometimes symptoms of psychosis come on suddenly and, in some cases, are triggered in response to a major stress in the person’s life, such as a death in the family. This type of psychosis usually lasts less than a month.

Delusional disorder

This type of psychosis consists of very strong and fixed beliefs in things that are not true. Changes in perception, such as hallucinations, are not seen in this illness. A delusional disorder does not usually affect a person’s ability to function.

What schizophrenia is not

What schizophrenia is not. A popular misconception is that schizophrenia means a “split personality.” This is not true and does not describe the condition It is also thought that people with schizophrenia are violent. Just as some people without schizophrenia commit violent acts, the same is true of people with schizophrenia, but there is not an inevitable link. They are more likely to endanger themselves than others.Understanding a person with schizophrenia can help them to find a solution and to cope with the ways in which they are different.

The myth of schizophrenia

The myth of schizophrenia and violence, that people with schizophrenia are inherently violent, persists. Unfortunately, the news media and the entertainment industry must take considerable responsibility in the stigma schizophrenia patients and their families battle daily.
Studies show that people with drug and alcohol addictions, or even recreational users, are two times more likely to participate in acts of violence and crime than a typical person diagnosed with schizophrenia
People with schizophrenia are violent, People with schizophrenia are lazy or irresponsible, Schizophrenia is a character flaw or moral weakness., Poor parenting causes schizophrenia, Treatment won't work, Schizophrenia means split or multiple personality ………