IT'S Mental Health Week, a good time to talk about the mental health first-aid course I enrolled in recently, to learn what to do when faced with people in depressive, psychotic or overly anxious states.
Among the 16 women and one man completing the course with me were singles, mothers, and grandmothers of all ages.
As the course progresses, (we attend one night a week for four weeks), stories are emerging of the extraordinarily challenging mental health experiences people have faced within their own families and communities.
What's surprised me most is what I've learnt about myself.
The anxiety test, for example, called the Goldberg Anxiety Scale, asks nine questions.
- Have you felt keyed up or on edge?
- Have you been worrying a lot?
- Have you been irritable?
- Have you had difficulty relaxing?
- Have you been sleeping poorly?
- Have you had backaches or neck aches?
- Have you had any of the following: trembling, tingling, dizzy spells, sweating, urinary frequency, diarrhoea?
- Have you been worried about your health?
- Have you had difficulty falling asleep?
Knock me down with a feather and cart me off to hospital, I'm clear on questions seven, eight and nine, but gee the rest ring pretty true.
Apparently about 12 per cent of adults get a score of eight or more (allocate one point for each yes) on this scale.
High scorers may have an anxiety disorder.
It's difficult to know whether Australians generally are laid back or not.
A 2007 national survey of mental health and wellbeing quoted in our mental health first-aid course handbook suggests that 17.9 per cent of female Australians and 10.8 per cent of male Australians aged 16-85 suffer from an anxiety disorder in any one year.
That means 82.1 per cent of women and 89.2 per cent of men are largely free of this burden. Phew!
Yet, other studies suggest we may not be so happy-go-lucky and that women suffer more from worry, anxiety or depression than men.
The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health, a 20-year study that began in 1995, has found that the most common claim on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for 30-35 year-old women is for anti-depressants.
Anxiety and depression are also the first or second leading causes of burden of disease for females aged up to 64 years, more than double for men.
BeyondBlue also claims that an estimated 15 per cent of Australian women suffer ante-natal and post-natal depression.
It makes sense, then, that encouraging people to take care of their mental health is gender-specific.
Yet, how should women and men take care of their mental health?
What's essential for keeping us ship- shape and warding off the blues?
Should I be sharing tea more often with friends? Taking up knitting? Or bushwalking? Or meditating?
Will a daily 5km walk and 100 sit-ups alone do it?
We can go to the gym or get a personal trainer to help us get physically fit, but where can we learn how to get mentally fit?
Do any such courses in mental fitness exist? And where can I find one that suits me?
Mental health first-aid teaches what to do in a mental health crisis.
Courses to teach us how to prevent such crises developing would be a great adjunct.
To find a mental health first-aid course near you, check the Mental Health First Aid website.
