Current Mental Health Issues

Improved Essays
There are plenty of mental health issues that can be addressed in a mental health group where teaching can be done to help patients learn and improve their quality of life. The mental health issue that we addressed in our group at Harding Hospital was geared towards nutrition and exercise. Healthy eating determines the nutrients that circulate in your system and affects the function of not only the body but the mind as well (Mental Health America 2010). Since there are many patients that come into Harding with altered mental function, teaching them about appropriate nutrition and healthy eating is important. According to Mental Health America (2010), certain nutrients patients consume can affect brain function; brain function is an issue with …show more content…
Research by Kilbourne et al. (2007), showed that having these types of behaviors can lead an individual to be diagnosed with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and many cardiovascular conditions. Even though healthy eating is an important aspect of mental health, it is not the only factor in improving quality of life. Physical activity doesn’t just increase ones socialization skills and self-confidence, but also makes the patient feel like he/she has control over his/her life again (Alexandratos, Barnett, & Thomas 2012). Research by Alexandratos, Barnett, and Thomas (2012) discusses the reason why exercise is so important with psychiatric patients is because with their diagnoses, they tend to have decreased fitness, and engage in health behaviors that are risky such as, partaking in drug use, alcohol use, and smoking. While exercise is vital in prevention of health issues, more importantly, it gives psychiatric patients something else to focus on, thus losing site of their symptoms that they may be experiencing, which can help improve their socialization skills (Alexandratos, Barnett, & Thomas …show more content…
Also, having the participants perform chair yoga was a great tool as it gave them an example of an exercise they could do that helped their stress levels decrease by relaxation. A major obstacle that we faced was encouraging members to be involved with the group. Something that we could do differently next time would be to ask more generalized questions to get participants involved to not only improve socialization skills but to get them to learn more about their nutrition and exercise habits. As the group leaders we collaborated very well for this project. Nicole lead the Nutrition part of the group and Brooke lead the Exercise portion of the group. Outside of the group, both Nicole and Brooke worked together to complete the handouts as well as this paper. More in-depth information can be found in the attached group

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