STRESSED OUT: WELLNESS INCLUDES HEALTHY MENTAL ATTITUDES

Wellness has become a watchword around kitchen tables and office break rooms.

Defined as the condition of good physical and mental health, it is ingrained in the national psyche as the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. Yet the tendency remains to regard mental issues as personal problems to be dealt with separately and, often, alone.

Such a division between mental health and physical health is manmade, according to Dr. K.P.S. Kamath, a psychiatrist in private practice in Cape Girardeau.

"The mind and body have been separated by man, and that has caused untold damage to millions of people," said Kamath, who through Kamath Stress Center subspecializes in stress, mood and anxiety disorders.

"The most important single thing to realize is that the mind and body are one unit," he asserts.

People who are experiencing good mental health, Kamath said, "are at peace with themselves and basically have a good sense of control over their lives."

Mentally healthy people tend to enjoy good physical health, too. "When you have peace of mind, all your body organs are functioning to the maximum efficiency and so they remain healthy," Kamath said.

The brain is like a computer center, Kamath explained, and as such the mind is constantly in touch with the body. Since the brain is connected to all body organs through nerves and hormones, he explained, "every single thing I think, whatever I experience, ultimately affects some part of my body."

Just as there are certain practices healthy people incorporate into their lifestyles in tending to their physical needs, there are mental needs that must be looked after, too.

Simply having someone to talk with, and then actually talking to that person about problems, is a big step in a healthy direction, according to John Cooley, a licensed counselor with Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau. "Having a support network, family and friends that you can rely on, that's a major factor" in staying mentally healthy, he said.

The value of communicating cannot be underestimated, Kamath says. "The most important single thing people have to learn to do to stay well in life is learn to express emotions," Kamath asserted.

Stress, however, can prey on sound mental health. Many of the diseases that befall humans are brought on by how stress is dealt with, said Kamath, citing such poor coping mechanisms as smoking, drinking, over-eating and drug abuse.

Having authored "How to Prevent Stress-related Illnesses," Kamath has written a second manuscript entitled, "How to Shrink Your Balloon and Shake Your Soda Bottle." In the latter, which he hopes to have published soon, Kamath uses a model incorporating a pump as well as a balloon attached to the opening of a soda bottle to illustrate how the mind copes with stress.

The pump, Kamath explains, represents life, which pumps painful emotions into the receiving mind, illustrated by the balloon. The soda bottle represents the hidden mind, where many people tend to bury their emotions for prolonged periods. Eventually those hidden emotions, Kamath explains, will erupt just like fizz from a soda bottle, causing the balloon -- or mind -- to become too full of painful emotions.

Expressing emotions, he explains, serves as a release valve, an outlet, for the pressures that build in the human mind.

According to Kamath, the four major stress symptoms are physical, emotional, mental and behavioral. Three primary ways of ridding oneself of stress symptoms, he said are: expressing emotions, solving problems, and by canceling out painful emotions through changing perception or perspective.

While stress is part of living but it's time to seek help "when it starts to become a problem, when stress gets to be so much that it's overwhelming and you don't feel like it's going to end," Cooley said.

"We take our antibiotics for flu, but when it comes to stress, anxiety or depression, lots of people don't do anything about it because we want to handle our problems on our own.

"There's a sense out there that if I can't handle my problems on my own then I'm somehow less of a person," he said.

That crippling stigma is absurd, he said, because mental health problems are very treatable. Besides, he noted, "It's always helpful to have an understanding ear to talk to."