Let us get real and honest, most around us visit a doctor seeking help related to Mental Health and Behavioral health. It is just that people around us, especially here in India, it is not spoken as open as they should be.

This might include anxiety, depression, help in quitting substances, weight loss issues, or diabetes management. As the increasing number of these issues has led the way to offer more healthcare services to people who seek help.

As the title goes, this terms are used as common terms but as I read through many articles on these issues, I found a few main differences.

Let us describe behavioral health, it is the connection between health, well-being, and the behaviors of a person’s mind, body, and spirit. Our daily activity would fall under this category like exercising, our eating habits.

Around the ’80s behavioral health was completely referred to as behaviors that would prevent illness or which would promote health. Then in later times, behavioral health included issues that helped people to manage diseases. In recent times it did incorporate mental health as well. 

When we look at other definitions we would understand as a whole that behavioral health would refer to marriage, family counseling, psychiatric, and even to mental health as discussed in previous blog posts and it also includes the services provided by counselors, psychiatrists, and other social workers. Along with it, it also includes the prevention of substance use.

Mental Health and Behavioral Health:

Now, let us understand that the term behavioral health is used as an overall blanket for mental health as well. In a very simple sentence, behavioral health looks at a person’s impact on health both, mental and physical.

I would now talk about the simple example of how behavioral health is a little different from mental health.

Some of the behavioral health issues might not be necessary to fall under the mental health category. If a person is suffering from obesity, then the mental health professional would look at the factors that might have contributed to it. This is usually the primary effect of physical health and this particular behavioral health does not come under the mental health category.

But the mental health is included in both. Such as, a person who is having mental health issue could get benefit from a few principles of behavioral health. We can see examples around us, where a person who is dealing with mental health would have a positive change with the help of the family, community, or even just a single person. Sometimes all it takes is a change of thinking which would help people to deal better and cope with their mental health.

‘This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.’

This blog post is a part of CauseAChatter by BlogChatter

You can also check out my other posts from the same series:

What is Mental Health and how do we as society define it?

What is Behavioral Health