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If a person who is diagnosed with depression or anxiety receives the right treatment and medication, they can still flourish. “They’ve still got this condition, but it’s under control,” she says. “So they can live thriving lives.”
Associate Professor Justine Gatt.
On the flip side, there are many people who are struggling, but do not have a severe mental health disorder, so they don’t receive help.
“There’s so much they could do to just improve their daily life and make them a bit more resilient, so that when the next stressful life event comes along, they can actually deal with it a bit better,” Gatt says.
Adolescence is a high-risk period for mental ill-health (rates of mental disorders are increasing among young Australians and affect two in five aged between 16 and 24), but is also a time they can cultivate skills towards a state of flourishing.
For this reason, Gatt and her team wanted to test the efficacy of a wellbeing tool they originally developed for adults in 2014.
Her previous research, looking at twins over 12 years found wellbeing is 48 per cent heritable.
There are many lifestyle factors which can mitigate the risk of depression.Credit: iStock
“You can identify specific genes separate to anxiety and depression symptoms,” she explains. But it also means that more than 50 per cent of our wellbeing comes down to environment.
By understanding the state of our mental wellbeing, as well as our mental health, we can intervene to bolster it, says Gatt, who is calling for wellbeing to become a standard part of mental health assessments and treatments.
Depending on the area or areas we are struggling, wellbeing might involve teaching strategies for maintaining composure under stress; teaching self-compassion and boundaries; understanding strengths and building skills around weaknesses for our sense of autonomy and confidence; and building in activities we find fun to enhance positivity.
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Improved wellbeing means we tend to make better choices around diet, exercise and sleep; all factors that affect mental health. “[It] also means you’re able to live a more productive and purposeful life,” Gatt adds. “You’re more content with your relationships, work and surroundings. That’s ultimately what we all want.”
Professor Ian Hickie, the co-director, Health and Policy and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sydney, says the findings are consistent with previous research.
“Wellbeing is not simply a manifestation of absence of ill-health; It’s a different thing, and can be achieved even when serious physical or mental illness is present,” says Hickie, who was not involved with the study.
“At a population level, it is important to recognise that we all need to focus on lifting our mental wellbeing (for its social, economic and health benefits) irrespective of whether we have experienced a discrete episode of mental illness.”
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