ANGRY?

CMHA Mental Health Week

Good mental health isn’t about being happy all the time. In fact, a mentally healthy life includes the full range of human emotions—even the uncomfortable ones like sadness, fear and anger.

The theme of  Mental Health Week 2021 is understanding our emotions
Recognizing, labeling and accepting our feelings are all part of protecting and promoting good mental health for everyone.

• 1 in 5 Canadians experiences mental illness or a mental health issue in any given year, but 5 in 5 of us – that’s all of us – has mental health.
• Regardless of whether or not we have a mental illness, our mental health is something we can protect and nurture.
• Everyone deserves to feel well, and understanding our emotions is a part of feeling well.
• Emotional well-being includes recognizing what influences our emotions, discovering how our emotions affect the way we think or act, taking action when our emotional response isn’t helpful and learning to accept them.
• Emotional self-regulation, or the ability to label and shape your emotions, is a protective factor for good mental health.
• Feeling sad, angry and anxious at times is part of being human.
• Even if we try to push our difficult feelings down, they don’t go away.
• Focusing on intense emotions doesn’t makes them worse. In fact, one of the best ways to quiet our emotions is to give them a voice.
• Bottling up our emotions can make them grow or come out in other ways—not reacting to something negative that happens at work could end up making you more likely to yell at your children later, for example.
• If your emotions are overwhelming, persistent and/or are interfering with your daily functioning, it’s important to seek mental health support.