Mental health
“How I handle pressure, uncertainty and what happens inside me.”
Mental health is part of resilience because it determines how we think, what we experience and how we respond to situations. It is not just about whether we have psychological difficulties or not. It is about how we function in everyday life and how we handle the pressure, uncertainty and changes that come with it.
When this dimension is in good shape, a person has perspective, can concentrate and responds appropriately to what is happening. They have the space to think, make decisions and act without being internally overwhelmed by emotions, tension or chaos.
Once mental health weakens, it shows up fairly quickly. A person holds their attention less well, comes under pressure more easily, reacts more irritably or conversely loses energy and motivation. Things they used to manage without much effort become demanding. Decision-making slows down or becomes complicated and the feeling grows that the situation is beyond their capacity.
“How I handle pressure, uncertainty and what happens inside me.”
What is important is that weakening usually does not happen suddenly. It develops gradually. Long-term stress, pressure, overload or the absence of space for rest and processing situations accumulate. A person keeps functioning, but with less capacity. What they used to handle calmly begins to exhaust them.
Mental health fundamentally affects how we perceive reality. Not just what is happening, but how we interpret it. When this dimension is in good shape, we can separate the important from the unimportant and respond appropriately. When it is weakened, situations can seem more complicated than they actually are, and reactions tend to be either exaggerated or suppressed.
This has a direct impact on everyday life. Not just on managing difficult situations, but on ordinary functioning too. How much inner calm we have. How quickly we become exhausted. How present we can be in relationships or in the things that matter to us.
This dimension is also strongly connected to other areas of resilience. Long-term fatigue or health problems weaken it. Weak relationships increase uncertainty. A lack of skills can increase stress. And conversely, weakened mental health makes physical self-care, decision-making and functioning in relationships harder.
What is specific here is that many people get used to functioning on the edge. They start to perceive long-term tension or overload as the norm. Short-term this can work, but gradually capacity decreases and getting back becomes harder.
Taking care of mental health is therefore not an extra, something we deal with only when there is a problem. It is ongoing work with how we live, how we handle our own energy, how we set boundaries and how we work with what we experience.
The goal is not to be without stress or always fine — that is not realistic. The goal is to have sufficient capacity to handle what comes, without losing the ability to function. Mental health is not a separate domain. It is one of the key components of resilience that influences how we experience situations, how we think about them and how we respond — in difficult moments and in ordinary everyday life alike.
Story from practice
When people talked about mental health, I imagined: anxiety, panic, depression, breakdown. I told myself that did not apply to me. I just think a lot, I am responsible and sometimes tired. Nothing more.
But one period something started happening that I could not name. In the evenings I would sit down on the sofa feeling like I was finally stopping. I turned on a series, picked up my phone just for a moment, and while doing that my head was running through lists: what I need to do tomorrow, what I did not get to today, who I still had not replied to. It looked like I was resting. In reality I was just sitting and thinking in circles.
I remember one particular evening. I was home alone, my husband away with friends in Egypt, the kids at the grandparents. The perfect time to recharge. I made tea, got into bed with a book I had wanted to read for a long time. After ten minutes I realised I had been reading the same page three times. Eyes moving along the lines, head somewhere else entirely. I put the book back on the bedside table, turned off the light and tried to fall asleep.
I lay in the dark listening to my own thoughts. Tossing and turning, changing position, checking the time on my phone. The more I told myself you need to sleep, tomorrow will be a hard day, the more awake my head became. At one, at two, at three. In the morning I got up feeling as if I had not slept at all.