Most of us looked forward to putting 2020 to bed on New Year’s Eve, celebrating the end of one of the most globally challenging years in living history, and hoping for better times to come in 2021. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that COVID-19 didn’t take this as a hard deadline.
We do not need academic evidence to realise that COVID-19 isolation resulting from quarantine, community restrictions, and social distancing, is triggering mental health challenges.
Aristotle articulated the concept of persuasion more than 2000 years ago. He appreciated that no matter how knowledgeable or skilled someone is, it does them little good if they cannot convince others of their viewpoint.
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about maintaining our mental health in response to the unfolding coronavirus crisis and included a funny anecdote about my three-year-old son licking the shopping trolley as I searched various supermarkets for toilet paper.
While Mental Health Month is held in October every year, mental health is an ongoing issue, as is raising public awareness around these concerns. It's important to break down taboos and better enable people to access support as early as possible.
Adolescence and young adulthood are critical times for the development of mental health problems. Research has found that half of all lifetime mental health disorders emerge by age 14 and three-quarters by age 24, and can lead to impaired academic achievement, unemployment, poor social functioning and substance abuse.
