If you want to protect your mental health, it is important to understand the factors that impact your well-being. There are a lot of external factors like stress at work or difficult life events, which can make your mental health worse. There are also internal factors like the way that you manage your emotions and the coping strategies that you use. But have you considered the impact that your family history has?

Your family background has a big effect on your mental health, so you should give it some thought. These are some of the different ways that your family background dictates your mental health. 

Genetics

One of the biggest factors that influence your mental health is genetics. Your genes predetermine many things about you, including your susceptibility to mental health issues. It has been proven that certain kinds of mental illnesses are hereditary, so if someone in your family has had depression, schizophrenia, or an anxiety disorder, then you are more likely to develop such a condition than other people. Genetics also influence how susceptible you are to stress and how well you manage difficult situations, which can impact your mental and physical health. It’s worth asking your family whether there is a history of mental health problems in your family and if there is, you should be more vigilant.

Reactions To Stress

The way that we react to stress is something we learn from our parents when we are young. If you grow up in a household where your parents work themselves to the bone and never take time for self care, you are likely to do the same. If your parents always had a drastic reaction to difficult situations and they were unable to accept things and let them go, you’re more likely to hold on to stress too. So, the way that your family reacts to stress can increase your risk of developing mental health issues.

Self-Medicating

Another way that your family history affects your mental health is in the coping strategies you use to deal with stress and sadness. If you see your parents using alcohol to self-medicate when they are stressed or their mental health is suffering, you will take on the same behavior because that is the only coping strategy you have been taught. This can be dangerous because it means you are more likely to develop problems with alcohol, and self-medicating will make your mental health issues worse. If you are concerned about this already being a problem, consider visiting rehab for alcohol to deal with the issue before it gets out of hand. You also need to find other coping mechanisms to manage your mental health, like talking therapy, exercise, or meditation. 

Unhealthy Familial Relationships

Unhealthy familial relationships can put extra strain on your mental health. If you have parents who are constantly fighting, never sitting down to eat a meal together, or not engaging with their children, you can suffer. You learn how to deal with relationships from your parents, so it is important that they are healthy ones. If you don’t have any positive role models for healthy relationships in the family home, then you will be more likely to develop unhealthy relationship patterns with friends and partners too, and this will seriously impact your mental health. 

Understanding how your family background impacts your mental health will help you manage and improve your overall wellbeing.