The Importance of a Yearly Mental Health Check
Updated: Feb 3
You are living your life and nothing major is wrong. You are generally happy and are not experiencing any mental health challenges. What is the purpose of meeting with a therapist? A growing intervention in the field is the Mental Health Check, this would be the mental health equivalent of a physical. It is recommended that you meet with your primary care doctor at least yearly to get a baseline of your physical health and to run tests with the intention of catching physical health issues as early as possible. It is equally as important to check your mental health. You commonly hear people say, “have you had your yearly physical?”. Maybe there will be a time where it is common place to hear, “have you had your yearly mental?”. Below are the top reasons to get your yearly mental health check:
1. Established care- develop an on-going relationship with a therapist who generally knows your mental health history so that if you have a mental health crisis, you do not have to start from scratch.
2. Preventative care- pro-active routines related to your mental health serve as a protective factor to prevent major mental health challenges. If you are mentally healthy and a major stressor comes into your life, you are better equipped to deal with this added stress.
3. Mental health is dynamic – mental health changes and sometimes changes quickly. In addition, our mental health can change with the seasons. It can quickly spiral to a point where we feel like we lose control.
4. You may not be as healthy as you think- this last one may seem harsh, but we often assess our mental health by comparing ourselves with those around us. If you are surrounded by people who are not mentally healthy, it may give you a false sense of your own mental health. Meeting with an unbiased professional to give you an honest assessment of your mental health can either validate your own assessment or provide insight into blind spots that you may have regarding your mental health.
Schedule your yearly mental health check-up today at www.inspirehealthandperformance.com