Mental and Emotional Health Chapter 7

Kinds of Emotions Being confused about new feelings is normal. Dealing with confusing feelings is part of a good mental health, which is the way people think about and respond to events in their lives. TEEN EMOTIONS: An emotion is a feeling produced in response to a life event. Emotions are caused by chemical changes in the brain that affect how the body feels. Both personality and experience influence a person’s emotional responses. Teens tend to be given more roles and responsibilities then they can handle and this can produce unwanted feelings and behaviors. Hormones play a big role in these feelings and behaviors, but most teens learn how to deal with these emotions in a healthy way.

Hormones What is a hormone? A chemical that helps control how the body grows and functions. These chemicals can affect the brain and sometimes cause mood swings. As a teen, you will experience these hormones very often. Learning how to control the emotions and reactions in a healthy way, makes getting through your teen years a lot easier.

From Sadness to Happiness - Feeling a range of emotions is part of a good emotional health. - Emotional health is the way a person experiences and deals with feelings. - All emotions are healthy, even sadness. - Sadness makes you realize what you had and/or helps you make changes that you might want to make to your future. - Being sad all the time where it interferes with relationships or responsibilities is unhealthy. Talk to someone. - Recognizing your emotions can help you deal with them.

Love and Hate The emotions that range from love to hate help us know how we feel about parts of our life. Love and like are different along with hate and dislike. The differences help us understand the things that are important to us. Prejudice can play a part in how you feel about someone or something. Avoid being prejudice by giving people or things a chance and then make our own thoughts and feelings.

Anger Anger is a strong disappointment and displeasure that forms when hopes are not met. If dealt with in a healthy way, it can be helpful. But if dealt in a unhealthy way, it can be harmful to yourself and others. Handling anger in a healthy way, requires you to know what is causing it and find out what the end goal is and if is able to be reached.

Physical Effects of Emotions During an emotional response, chemical changes in the brain cause changes in the body. These chemicals prepare the body to escape or defend itself. (fight or flight affect) They increase heart rate and breathing rates, and they prepare the muscles to react quickly. Try tricks that work for you to calm you body back down, before making any actions you might regret.

Lesson 3 Managing Your Emotions Dealing with unpleasant emotions Unpleasant emotions is normal, how you deal with them make them healthy or not Negative thinking is when you only think of the bad parts of the bad situation. Positive thinking is when you think of the good things in the bad situation. More positive thinking can help you resolve or get through the problem, but negative could become unhealthy.

Coping with stress Stress is the body’s response to new or unpleasant situations. Sigmund Freud called our response to stress defense mechanisms, which are the behaviors we use to deal with stress. Healthy defense mechanisms help us deal with emotions in a useful way. Defense mechanisms are unhealthy is they cause you to ignore your emotions or the issue that caused them. Devaluation is a defense mechanism in which someone transfers unpleasant feelings about a situation to specific people.

Finding your Triggers and Influences you can control A trigger is a person, situation, or event that influences emotions. Stay away from those triggers that are unpleasant and seek out those that make you feel good. Try to fill your life with people, activities and healthy habits. These will create a healthy and happy lifestyle.

Lesson 4 Mental Illness What is mental illness? A disorder that affects a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors Nobody knows what causes the changes in brain chemistry that lead to mental illness. Medicines can help treat mental illness by balancing the brain’s chemistry.

Depression A mood disorder in which a person is extremely sad and hopeless for a long period of time. People who have depression can become sad and hopeless for no reason. If you or someone you know is depressed, you should find help right away. The most dangerous part od depression is possibility of suicide.

Bipolar Mood Disorder A mood disorder in which a person had depression sometimes and mania other times. Commonly know as manic depression. Mania is an excited mood that is associated with excessive energy or irritation. People with this disorder break from reality and may hallucinate or hear and see things that aren’t there. Schizophrenia A mental disorder that affects thoughts and behaviors more than it affects moods. They might show little emotion. People with this disorder hallucinate and have delusions. This disorder can take over a person’s life, but with proper treatment it makes their life a lot more “normal”.

Anxiety Disorders Mental illnesses that cause extreme nervousness, worry or panic. Can be classified by how long the nervous feelings last and by what triggers the feelings. Feelings of anxiety that happen in brief spurts without a trigger or warning can be signs of panic disorder. These brief periods of extreme anxiety are called panic attacks. If panic attacks are triggered by certain situations, the attacks can be signs of a phobia. Phobia A Strong, abnormal fear of something. These phobias can lead to panic attacks and OCD OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder, where a person repeats a behaviors in response to these phobias (thoughts).

Lesson 5 Getting Help Knowing when to get help: If unpleasant emotions last for a long time or happen often If unpleasant emotions frequently happen for no reason If your emotions interfere with relationships or responsibilities Friends and Family Talking to friends and family can help you because they care about you They can help you see things at different point of view.

Professionals: Sometimes talking to friends and family may no be enough to solve your problems. Try a professional A THERAPIST- trained to treat emotional problems by talking. A PSYCHIATRIST- medical doctors that understand how the brain and body affects emotions and behaviors. Can subscribe medicines Finding help for others: People do not always seek out help for their emotional problems. This could be because they are embarrassed or can handle the problem on their own. When a person has a mental illness, he or she may be unable to get help along. Letting a serious emotional problem or mental illness go untreated is very dangerous, by hurting themselves or someone else. If you believe someone needs help, help them and maybe save a life!