Why Mental Health?
According to the World Health Organization(WHO), many factors can damage people’s mental health, such as: great social changes, stressful work conditions, gender or race discrimination, social exclusion, violence, human rights violations and an unhealthy lifestyle.
“Mental Health and well-being are fundamental to our collective and individual ability to, as human beings, think, fell interact with each other and, make a living and seize life. It is only possible to be healthy if there is full physical, mental and social well-being”
— World Health Organization(WHO)
The number of people living with depression has raised 18% between 2005 and 2015. In absolute numbers, according to the WHO- World Health Organization, 322 million people live all across the world with that mental disorder; most of them are women.
In 2021, an analysis published by The Lancet stated that the COVID-19 pandemic led to stark rise in depressive and anxiety disorders globally, with women and younger people most affected. According to the WHO-World Health Organization, by 2030, depression will be the second highest cause of disease burden in middle-income countries and the third highest in low income countries. It will affect more people than any other illness including cancer and heart diseases. Besides that, depression will also be responsible for the highest economic and social government expenses, due to treatment costs and production losses.
In 2022, the top 10 Countries with the Highest Rates of Depression are:
#1: Ukraine — 6.3%
#2: United States — 5.9% (tie)
#3: Estonia — 5.9% (tie)
#4: Australia — 5.9% (tie)
#5: Brazil — 5.8%
#6: Greece — 5.7% (tie)
#7: Portugal — 5.7% (tie)
#8: Belarus — 5.6% (tie)
#9: Finland — 5.6% (tie)
#10: Lithuania — 5.6% (tie)
Depression hits 322 Million people worldwide(over 4% of the entire globe population), whereas 2.5 Billion people struggle with disorders related to anxiety. That’s one in every 3 people all around the world. In Brazil, founding home of The Frameboy Journey, 9,3% of the population suffers from anxiety which ranks us as the number one country in the world on that particular disorder. According to specialists, this scenario can be explained by social-economic factors such as poverty, unemployment; as well as environmental issues like the ones related to living in big overpopulated cities.
Alarming data confirm that our society, specialty the western world, is under emotional failure. That being said, it becomes essential to act at the whole health promotion- the balance between physical, mental and social health- focusing on the current symptom: the mental health.
In order to promote a social transformation in this scenario, we must strengthen and encourage socio-emotional abilities from basic education to big organizations. And why not at the metaverse? The development of socio-emotional competences enables not only a full learning but it also impacts well-being throughout a person’s entire life wether it is IRL or through avatars and digital communities. That’s because they encourage us to be more open to new experiences and as a result, we become more creative, self confident, cooperative and with consistent emotional reactions.
Based on what we shared, we can affirm that mental health prevention, protection and rehabilitation must become priorities to individuals, communities, organizations, institutions and, therefore, communities all over the metaverse.
🤔What about you? What have you been doing to take care of your mental health? Come share your experiences at http://discord.gg/NKpkvNV6gY
This content was possible thanks to the partnership between Frameboy and the Bem do Estar Institute, a brazilian non governmental organization focused on mental health awareness and support.
