Mental health is an integral and essential component of health. The WHO constitution states: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." An important implication of this definition is that mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities.

Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

Mental health is fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, emote, interact with each other, earn a living and enjoy life. On this basis, the promotion, protection and restoration of mental health can be regarded as a vital concern of individuals, communities and societies throughout the world.

Determinants of mental health

Multiple social, psychological, and biological factors determine the level of mental health of a person at any point of time. For example, violence and persistent socio-economic pressures are recognized risks to mental health. The clearest evidence is associated with sexual violence.

Poor mental health is also associated with rapid social change, stressful work conditions, gender discrimination, social exclusion, unhealthy lifestyle, physical ill-health and human rights violations.

There are specific psychological and personality factors that make people vulnerable to mental health problems. Biological risks include genetic factors.

Mental health promotion and protection

Mental health promotion involves actions that improve psychological well-being.  This may involve creating an environment that supports mental health.

An environment that respects and protects basic civil, political, socio-economic and cultural rights is fundamental to mental health. Without the security and freedom provided by these rights, it is difficult to maintain a high level of mental health.

National mental health policies should be concerned both with mental disorders and, with broader issues that promote mental health. Mental health promotion should be mainstreamed into governmental and nongovernmental policies and programmes. In addition to the health sector, it is essential to involve the education, labour, justice, transport, environment, housing, and welfare sectors.

Specific ways to promote mental health include:

early childhood interventions (e.g. providing a stable environment that is sensitive to children’s health and nutritional needs, with protection from threats, opportunities for early learning, and interactions that are responsive, emotionally supportive and developmentally stimulating);

support to children (e.g. life skills programmes, child and youth development programmes);

socio-economic empowerment of women (e.g. improving access to education and microcredit schemes);

social support for elderly populations (e.g. befriending initiatives, community and day centres for the aged);

programmes targeted at vulnerable people, including minorities, indigenous people, migrants and people affected by conflicts and disasters (e.g. psycho-social interventions after disasters);

mental health promotional activities in schools (e.g. programmes involving supportive ecological changes in schools);

mental health interventions at work (e.g. stress prevention programmes);

housing policies (e.g. housing improvement);

·violence prevention programmes (e.g. reducing availability of alcohol and access to arms);

community development programmes (e.g. integrated rural development);

poverty reduction and social protection for the poor;

anti-discrimination laws and campaigns;

promotion of the rights, opportunities and care of individuals with mental disorders.

Mental health care and treatment

In the context of national efforts to develop and implement mental health policy, it is vital to not only protect and promote the mental well-being of its citizens, but also address the needs of persons with defined mental disorders.

Knowledge of what to do about the escalating burden of mental disorders has improved substantially over the past decade. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating both the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of key interventions for priority mental disorders in countries at different levels of economic development. Examples of interventions that are cost-effective, feasible, and affordable include:

treatment of depression with psychological treatment and, for moderate to severe cases, antidepressant medicines;

treatment of psychosis with antipsychotic medicines and psychosocial support;

taxation of alcoholic beverages and restriction of their availability and marketing.

A range of effective measures also exists for the prevention of suicide, prevention and treatment of mental disorders in children, prevention and treatment of dementia, and treatment of substance-use disorders. The mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) has produced evidence based guidance for non-specialists to enable them to better identify and manage a range of priority mental health conditions.

WHO response

WHO supports governments in the goal of strengthening and promoting mental health. WHO has evaluated evidence for promoting mental health and is working with governments to disseminate this information and to integrate effective strategies into policies and plans.

In 2013, the World Health Assembly approved a "Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan for 2013-2020". The Plan is a commitment by all WHO’s Member States to take specific actions to improve mental health and to contribute to the attainment of a set of global targets.

The Action Plan’s overall goal is to promote mental well-being, prevent mental disorders, provide care, enhance recovery, promote human rights and reduce the mortality, morbidity and disability for persons with mental disorders. It focuses on 4 key objectives to:

strengthen effective leadership and governance for mental health;

provide comprehensive, integrated and responsive mental health and social care services in community-based settings;

implement strategies for promotion and prevention in mental health; and

strengthen information systems, evidence and research for mental health.

Particular emphasis is given in the Action Plan to the protection and promotion of human rights, the strengthening and empowering of civil society and to the central place of community-based care.

In order to achieve its objectives, the Action Plan proposes and requires clear actions for governments, international partners and for WHO. Ministries of Health will need to take a leadership role, and WHO will work with them and with international and national partners, including civil society, to implement the plan. As there is no action that fits all countries, each government will need to adapt the Action Plan to its specific national circumstances

 Here are seven stages to discovering genuine romance: 

1. LOVE REQUIRES YOU TO REVEAL YOUR TRUE SELF TO ANOTHER 

The celebrated creator, C. S. Lewis, puts it best, "To adore at all is to be helpless. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and perhaps broken. On the off chance that you need to ensure keeping it unblemished you should offer it to nobody." Lewis is correct. What has intercourse so hard, and in some cases excruciating, is the weakness that consistently appears to go with it. 

"Genuine affection goes past the enthusiasm of sentiment and in any event, finding an accomplice for being hitched." 

We utilize the word love to portray a great deal of things. We love food. We love music. We love a decent joke and we love making some great memories. Utilizing affection to portray such basic things causes the word to appear to be somewhat more secure. It is sheltered in light of the fact that we are not uncovered. An incredible mug of espresso can't dismiss us. A melody from our preferred band doesn't leave us feeling futile. Yet, when we decide to impart our life to someone else, we unavoidably settle on a decision to get helpless. Lamentably, weakness leaves our protections down, and frequently we get injured. 

We as a whole know the inclination: dismissal, embarrassment, franticness. Holding nothing back from someone else, just to be dismissed, is one of the most difficult encounters throughout everyday life. It harms the most in light of the fact that in adoration we are generally helpless. It's more awful than physical agony since it shakes us at the center of our personality, our expectations, and our fantasies. Love surges us to the peak, and when lost, sends us pitching back to the valley beneath. We can't resist the opportunity to feel vacant. We really want to feel useless. We can't resist the opportunity to feel sad. 

2. Discovering TRUE LOVE CAN BE DIFFICULT 

The Bible has a momentous anecdote about a lady named Leah who found that discovering genuine affection was troublesome. Leah was the girl of a rich and manipulative man named Laban. Leah likewise had a sister named Rachel, one of the most lovely ladies in the entire district. Leah was portrayed as, "powerless in the eyes." We don't know precisely what that expression implies, however it isn't difficult to figure. Indeed, even without the one next to the other correlation with her excellent sister, Leah was not drawing a lot of consideration. 

At some point, Rachel was crowding the sheep when a youngster named Jacob went to the well. His excursion's motivation was to discover a spouse, so it didn't take him long to see lovely Rachel drawing closer. He turned away from the stone over the well and watered the sheep for her. Learning he was her dad's nephew, she ran home to reveal to Laban the news. As of now head-over-heels in affection, or call it all consuming, instant adoration in the event that you wish, Jacob remained on with Laban. When asked what his wages ought to be, he quickly requested to wed Rachel. Laban made Jacob an offer. "Work for me, seven years without pay, at that point I will give you my little girl." 

"What has intercourse so hard, and some of the time agonizing, is the weakness that consistently appears to go with it." 

It is beginning to seem like a sentimental story for the ages! Jacob was so frantically infatuated that he didn't spare a moment. Seven years he worked, each day zeroed in on his prize. One day he would at long last have the option to wed the lady he had always wanted, Rachel. The Bible records the occasion with the entirety of the verse we would anticipate from an extraordinary romantic tale. "Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they appeared to him however a couple of days in light of the affection he had for her." 

Following seven years of work, the big day at last showed up. The gathering probably been monstrous. At the point when night came, Jacob and his new lady of the hour, most likely wearing her wedding shroud, went into their tent. 

The following morning Jacob got up, the Bible says, "and view it was Leah!" Jacob had been deceived. Laban had turned his little girls on the wedding night and fooled Jacob into wedding his most seasoned, Leah. Why? Laban needed an additional seven years of free work before he would permit Jacob to really wed Rachel. Still frantically enamored with Rachel, Jacob concurs and works an additional seven years to wed this more youthful girl. 

We like the picture of Jacob! He was eager to submit himself to longer than a time of difficult work as a demonstration of affection for Rachel whom he viewed as his perfect partner. Like an extraordinary Shakespearian misfortune, we need frantically to locate that sort of adoration, as well. We need to realize that somebody would make such a penance for us. This declaration of adoration is the most profound desiring of our souls. In any case, permitting ourselves to be immediately stolen away in the rapture existing apart from everything else misses the genuine heart of the story for Leah. 

Leah had always been unable to draw a lot of consideration. She had consistently been a sad sentimental. Be that as it may, presently things were a lot of more awful. Leah was hitched to a man who never for a second adored her, and controlled by a dad as installment for help around the homestead. Leah was not adored by her better half, nor even her dad. She was utilized and disposed of. At the point when she was most weak she was dismissed. 

"Every one of us needs to figure out how to open up our souls and lives and realize that at that time of trustworthiness we will be acknowledged and not dismissed." 

What occurred next is unobtrusive, however significant for us to comprehend our own battle with affection and dismissal. In Leah's first century world, ladies thought profoundly about building a family, particularly having children, to which they could pass on their family name. A dad's proudest second was the introduction of his first child. Not long after being hitched, Jacob needed a child. Leah saw a chance! In the event that she could be the first to give Jacob a child, doubtlessly then he would adore and value her. Leah more likely than not been eager to discover she was pregnant, and considerably more energized when she brought forth the family's first child, Reuben. 

Leah trusted in her heart that God had favored her with this child so now her better half would at long last love her. Yet, not all that much. Leah brought forth a subsequent child, she named him Simeon. 

Again she trusted God had seen her dismissal. Presently, unquestionably her better half would adore her. In any case, not all that much. Leah had a third child, who she named Levi. She genuinely trusted that now her significant other would think about her and love her. However, once more, not all that much. 

Leah's story instructs us that discovering genuine affection is troublesome. Genuine romance goes past the energy of sentiment and in any event, finding an accomplice for being hitched. While sentiment and having our requirements met for arrangement and security are significant, there is more that we should find. 

3. YOUR NEED FOR TRUE LOVE REVEALS YOUR NEED TO BE LOVED UNCONDITIONALLY 

Leah's life was constrained by the expectation that she could by one way or another make herself adorable. She was urgent to figure out how to procure her significant other's consideration. Her wrecked heart and edginess to be cherished, show us a profoundly close to home truth about our own quest for genuine romance. We unavoidably all vibe the devastating load of attempting to gain it. 

Advertisers sell us that in the event that we were only somewhat more alluring, somewhat more slender, and somewhat better dressed, at that point somebody would at last pay heed and we would feel cherished. Yet, we don't. Culture constrains us to put aside our pedantic hesitance and rather part with our bodies; it guarantees us closeness prompts love. In any case, it doesn't. 

"Truly, genuine romance has never truly been about sentiment or enthusiasm by any stretch of the imagination. It is about truth and worth. It is about weakness and acknowledgment." 

The harder we attempt, the more edgy we become to locate the enchantment mixture. We accept that with the toxin tipped bolt of Cupid in our grasp, we need just hit our objective and watch as affection and closeness detonates into an energetic existence of certainty, satisfaction, and energy. In any case, that isn't reality. Thus, we wind up making due with watching it happen in motion pictures and dreaming about it in books. Our own experience feels more like creeping our way through the hills of the Sahara Desert, urgent to discover a desert garden with water. Exactly when we think we have at last discovered genuine affection, we are squashed with the truth that it was only a hallucination and we don't have anything to show for it. 

Leah encourages us understand that the vast majority of what we call love and our quest for it, is actually a frantic endeavor for proof that we are sufficiently important to be adored in any case. We need to feel like our life merits something to somebody. We are edgy to be referred to, as a body, yet as a spirit. We need to be defenseless and in that weakness to be acknowledged. We need to be cherished genuinely. 

This is the place we locate the extraordinary battle of searching for genuine affection. As one creator puts it, "To be adored yet not known is encouraging yet shallow. To be known and not adored is our biggest dread." Each of us needs to figure out how to open up our souls and lives and realize that at that time of genuineness we will be acknowledged and not dismissed.