The Director General of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Dr. Joseph Ochogwu has raise concern over report that about 970 million people are struggling with mental health worldwide and 284 million people contending with anxiety.
Speaking at the Health Talk session titled, “Mental Health/Emotional Intelligence,” Dr. Ochogwu urged staff of the Institute to take adequate care of their mental issues as individual well-being is key to productivity in the work place.
“We need that state of mental health balance to overcome challenges. Things are not getting easy now, we need unique kind of skill in balancing our individual well-being because if you don’t balance your individual well-being even your family well-being will suffer.”
The resource person of the programme and founder of Secure D Future International Initiative, Dr. Sa’adatu Adamu, also urged staff to take care of their health.
She noted that positive thinking reflect on the psychological being of an individual, adding that negative thoughts are dangerous to one’s wellbeing.
She also told the staff that it is important that one takes care of himself and controls what comes into his mind, adding that when one dwells too much on the negative, such person is taking a destructive part.
The expert noted that depression, one of the major metal health challenges affect so many people, advising the staff to fill their minds with positive thoughts at all time, in other to live above depression and other associated challenges.
She said that it is estimated that about 40.3 percent of people died worldwide because of mental health, adding that in this part of the world, “we are still struggling to understand mental health.”
Listing the negative effects associated with depression, Dr. Adamu said that the estimate of people going through mental health is higher in the country.
The mental health expert, who noted that things are difficult in the country, warned the staff not to allow their minds to dwell on what they couldn’t control, urging them to think positively and take things the way they are.
According to her, dwelling on what one can not control only makes things worse and at the end depression sets in.
She noted that the last stage of depression is when one begin to think of committing suicide, adding, “mental health is something everyone should pay attention to.”