UNAIR NEWS – The Student Executive Board (BEM) Faculty of Humanities Universitas Airlangga (FIB UNAIR) successfully held a webinar series entitled Mental Health Talk with a Creative Counselor on Monday, October 18, 2021. The webinar as part of the Humanities Eternity Festival (HUMANIFEST) discussed mental health issues in adolescents.
Prof. Dr. Purnawan Basundoro S.S., M. Hum, Dean of FIB UNAIR, officially opened the webinar. In his remarks, he revealed that mental health issues have been quite interesting to discuss since the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in general, mental health has become a problem in this modern era.
“When life becomes more modern, there are so many demands and work pressures. As a result, many mental problems emerge. Therefore, please discuss as well as possible with the presenters tonight because the theme is closely related to our lives,” said the Professor born in Banjarnegara.
The webinar presented an expert speaker in the field of mental health counseling, Hasan Askari, the counselor and CEO of Ace Human Resources. Hasan said that living with an unhealthy mentality makes people feel more negative emotions rather than positive emotions.
“If you are mentally unhealthy, you will find it difficult to feel happy, enthusiastic, hopeful, and so on. You will often feel negative things like sadness,” said Hasan, who is also a mental health content creator on YouTube and Instagram platforms.
He further explained that self-diagnosing should not be done because it will make a person free from his responsibility to improve himself. Someone who often does self-diagnosing will make himself experience mood swings (changes in mood, ed) frequently. He also forces people around him to understand him, ignoring his emotional condition, which needs to be fixed first.
“People who have mood swings often admit that they have a mental disorder, but they actually don’t. In other words, he will not improve himself to change his mood swing,” said Hasan, who is a bachelor of Psychology, Universitas Surabaya.
Hasan explained that the human brain has three major parts: the reptilian brain, which functions to survive, the limbic system to regulate mood, and the neocortex, which functions to think (intellectual intelligence). The three parts of the brain work together in the process of stress.
Furthermore, he said that many young people, such as students, were affected by mental disorders, especially during the pandemic. Students often experience loneliness, post-traumatic stress disorder, frustration, heartbreak, and a quarter-life crisis. According to him, four things can improve mental health.
Stand up straight by pulling your shoulders back
Hasan argued that the body, feelings, and thoughts would influence each other. A bent posture will make it easier for feelings and thoughts to experience negative things.
“Walking upright is a person’s attitude to be ready to face life’s problems,” he said.
Frequent socialization and direct interaction
The decline in Covid-19 cases can be used to increase socialization with friends face-to-face because social contacts cannot be replaced with digital contacts.
“Meet and laugh with your friends, but keep paying attention to the health protocols,” he said.
Learn to be assertive
Assertiveness is the attitude of being able to communicate honestly and firmly by still respecting and caring for the feelings of others. Therefore, be brave to refuse other people’s requests if you do not want to do it.
“If you often say ‘yes,’ but your heart says no, it means you are betraying yourself,” he said.
Do exercise at home
Exercise is known to elevate your mood due to an increase in the levels of endorphins. Indirectly, it can make a person avoid stress and other mental health problems.
“If you can exercise at home, do it. Or just do light exercise,” he said.
At the end of the event, Hasan emphasized that we should immediately go to an expert such as a psychologist or psychiatrist to avoid self-diagnosing. It can cause unnecessary worries and tend to take the wrong treatment.
“Don’t hesitate to go to a professional. Normalize going to a psychologist or a psychiatrist so that you avoid misdiagnosis,” he concluded.
Author: Adelya Salsabila Putri
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
