Mental illness just so happens to be one of the most rapidly growing diseases in the United States. The government has even recognized it as an area of improvement in their Healthy People 2020 Report. Mental illness can refer to all sorts of things: anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder and the list just gets longer and longer. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, “in 2004, approximately 1 in 4 adults in the United States had a mental disorder in the past year--most commonly anxiety or depression--and 1 in 17 had a serious mental illness.”

Some of the biggest stressors that cause a mental illness are: stress, divorce, substance abuse, social expectations, pressures of school or work, loneliness, anxiety and many more things. So how can we go about decreasing these stressors? One thing is to talk about the issues and world mental health day helps that process.

Something that may be a little different or off the wall even to help combat the ever so increasing instances of mental illness would be mental health days. An employee or student would use these days when they can feel the pressure or stress getting to them. So they could take a mental health day (a day off) and use it to de-stress by exercising, meditation, relaxing, reading or doing what their heart desires in order to relieve stress. Is this a foolproof plan? Absolutely not! But it is a start to helping decrease the instances of mental illness. I know this would be extremely helpful for college students around the time of midterms or final exams. Maybe the students could take a mental health day the week prior to finals and just go relax and do something fun with nothing to worry about. Many may bring up the point of people using it just as a "lay around and be lazy" day. My response to that is well then let it happen, as long as the individual is not inducing any more stress on himself or herself then the day is serving its purpose. Some may say, well that’s what weekends are for. Not necessarily! Especially parents with children who have sporting events, academic events or other extracurricular activities don’t receive a break to just stop and enjoy themselves after a long workweek.

This topic has become dear to me after losing one of my best friends to suicide. Although I’m not sure what lead to his depression but I do know the amount of pressure he put on himself to perform well at work was immense. I know for a fact he could have used a day to just go and relax by himself. If you have some time, do your own research and learn about mental health. I encourage you to watch “Call Me Crazy: A Five Film,” as it tells the story of people with different mental illnesses. We need to continue to talk about the issues at hand and do things to stop compromised mental health. It's time to end the epidemic!