May is Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Month. Through media, local and national events, the hope is to reduce stigma about mental illness and promote well-being for children and adults. 

This year's theme is "Pathways to Wellness" — and calls attention to strategies and approaches that help  achieve wellness and good mental and physical health. Take a look at what wellness really is about:

• Wellness is essential to living a full and productive life. It’s about keeping healthy as well as getting healthy. 
• Wellness involves a set of skills and strategies that prevent the onset or shorten the duration of illness and promote recovery and well-being. 
• Wellness is more than an absence of disease. It involves complete general, mental and social well-being. 
• Steps that build and maintain well-being and help us all achieve wellness involve a balanced diet, regular exercise, enough sleep, a sense of self-worth, development of coping skills that promote resiliency, emotional awareness, and connections to family, friends and community.
• Just as we check our blood pressure and get cancer screenings, it’s a good idea to take a periodic reading of our emotional well-being.
• Fully embracing the concept of wellness not only improves health in the mind, body and spirit, but also maximizes one’s potential to lead a full and productive life. 
• Using strategies that promote resiliency and strengthen mental health and prevent mental health and substance use conditions lead to improved general health and a healthier society: greater academic achievement by our children, a more productive economy, and families that stay together.