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UNIT 1: Mental, Emotional, and Social Health

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Lesson 1: Characteristics of a Healthy Person 4 Learning Targets 4 Health Check 4 Learn about It! 6 Check Your Understanding 10 Health Care 11

Lesson 2: Ways to Develop and Nurture One's Mental Health 13 Learning Targets 13 Health Check 13 Learn about It! 15 Check Your Understanding 20 Health Care 21

Lesson 3: Ways to Stay Emotionally Healthy 23 Learning Targets 23 Health Check 23 Learn about It! 25 Check Your Understanding 29 Health Care 30

Pro-health Challenge 31

Self-Check 33

Bibliography 35

Glossary 35

1 Copyright © 2018 Quipper Limited

GRADE 5

UNIT 1 Mental, Emotional, and Social Health

Fig. 1. Mental health.

Photo from pixabay.com

Introduction The state of mental being in a person is very important. It allows people to think properly and responds appropriately to the conditions of its surroundings. Several factors affect the mental health being of a person. The changes in hormones, the state of its society, and even other physiological conditions can alter the mental well being of an individual. Awareness about the current mental status of a person is essential as it can affect the total health of the individuals. This chapter aims to provide a better understanding of the characteristics of a mentally, emotionally, and socially equipped individuals. And also, enumerate some ways on how to maintain proper mental health being. Students are expected to have a better understanding of their individuality by knowing the appropriate ways to take care of themselves.


Lesson 1: Characteristics of a Healthy Person Learning Targets

In this lesson, you should be able to: ● describe a mentally, emotionally and socially healthy person.

Health Check

How Do You Express Your Emotions?

Most people are not aware of their ways of expressing their thoughts and emotions. Try to reflect and think how do you normally express and handle different emotion. Materials:

● a printed copy of the provided table ● pencil

Procedure:

1. Complete the table provided below by enumerating your ways or mannerisms whenever you experience each given emotion.

2. After completing the column for the ways and mannerisms, try to finish the other column, by providing the different ideas on how you handle emotions. Enumerating things that you usually do to control the outburst of your emotion during the given scenario.

3. After completing the table, form a group discussion and try to compare your answer with your classmates. This is to know whether your ways of handling and coping up with emotions is the same as other individuals.


Table 1. Handling and coping up with emotions.

Emotion Handling Emotions Coping mechanism to control emotions

Anger

Happiness

Loneliness

Sorrow

Excitement

Guide Questions:

1. Do you think it is important to express all your emotions? Why? 2. Do you share the same mechanism on handling and coping up with emotion as the

rest of your classmates? 3. Do you think each person has its unique way of handling emotions? Why? 4. Why is it important for people to be aware of how they handle emotions?


Learn about It!

Mental health refers to the state of physical and mental well-being of an individual. A healthy individual is capable of realizing its potential and can easily cope up with the usual stresses in life, by being able to work productively and make a contribution to the community despite the problems. Most of the time, mental health can be associated with emotion. Emotion is the conscious experience of an individual that comes with extreme mental activity. Emotion can result in a degree of pleasure or displeasure. The emotion of an individual can be easily reflected based on its mood, personality, disposition towards doing things, and motivation to accomplish some tasks. In this lesson, the different characteristics of a healthy person shall be discussed. A healthy person is not only restricted to the absence of any physical diseases or sickness. Health is the overall state of the physical, mental and social status of an individual. Overall, a healthy individual is capable of maintaining good condition regarding the seven important aspects of the society that includes: emotional, spiritual, physical, academic, social, environmental, and financial well being. Common indications of being a healthy individual shall be enumerated in this lesson.

Fig. 2 Seven dimensions of wellness.


Characteristics of a Healthy Person Capability to hold several emotions in mind at the same time. Some situations require individual to handle different emotions at the same time. The capability of the person to treat various forms of emotions to make a decision can be highly related to his or her status. This situation pushes the mind to polarize things into opposites to settle on a clear solution applied to different areas of life. The person’s ability to see and distinguish gray areas indicates that the person is on its optimum mental health. This is especially true during highly stressful situations like money, job, or health concerns. A person who is capable of coping up with this situation through his or her defense mechanism remains to have balanced mental health.

Fig. 3 Defense mechanism over stress.

Emotion Management Emotion management is one thing, and communication is another aspect. These two things are difficult skills to acquire and master. The combination of the two can be hard to handle for an individual. Being able to manage anger or pain and explaining how you feel can be a good sign of a healthy individual. These two are essential in maintaining good mental health. Inability to acquire these traits can make severe problems for an individual.


Self-Awareness A person who knows him or herself is a healthy individual. The ability to fully understand your character, habits, and attitude is a significant component of a healthy individual. A healthy individual is well aware of the things that he or she is doing based on self-perspective and principles. Once a person acquires the ability to be self-aware, it can be easier to understand and predict things that he or she can be capable of doing. Self-Confidence Self-confidence is an important component of health. Confidence allows an individual to be happy by just being his or herself. A person who has self-confidence is capable of supporting itself in case of difficult situations. It also allows the person to believe on him or herself despite the presence of doubts. Healthy Physical Body A healthy person has good physical body condition. It does not necessarily mean that he or she must have huge body muscle to be healthy. A healthy person rarely gets sick and have a strong immune system. With regular exercise, healthy diet, and taking of supplements like vitamins and minerals, a person can remain physically fit and avoid health problems. A healthy body allows the brain to function properly and regulate body processes.


Fig. 4 Healthy diet and exercise.


Check Your Understanding

A. Write the word true if the given statement is correct, otherwise, write the word false.

1. Mental health only involves emotion. 2. Mental health can reflect a person’s ability to function. 3. Mental health can be affected by people in your surroundings. 4. Mental health only affects the brain. 5. Mental health is important to be monitored in an individual.


B. Put a check (✓) if the given item is an indication of a healthy individual and

cross (x) if it indicates bad health condition.

1. Ability to handle emotions. 2. Ability to control feelings while communicating. 3. Ability to communicate his or her feelings. 4. Having a very short temper. 5. Inability to handle stress.

Health Care

Word Game

Now that you are already familiar with the characteristics of a person with healthy well being. Try yourself if you fully understand the aspects of mental health. Materials:

● pen ● paper

Procedure:

1. Classify each word below whether it belongs to the maintenance of good or bad mental health.

2. Write each word on the provided table. 3. Once done with the classification, try to discuss to class the basis for your

classification.


Table 2. Things related to good and bad mental health.

Good Mental Health Poor Mental Health

Guide Questions: Briefly answer each question for the activity wrap-up assessment.

1. What is your basis for classifying each word? 2. Do you think mental health is highly dependent on your perspective about yourself? 3. Do you think people around you can easily affect your mental health? 4. Why is it important for people to be familiar with mental health?


Lesson 2: Ways to Develop and Nurture One's Mental Health

Learning Targets

In this lesson, you should be able to: ● suggest ways to develop and maintain one’s mental and emotional health.

Health Check

Importance of Good Childhood in Mental Health

Childhood is one of the most important parts of a human’s life as it shapes different aspects of an individual. What are the factors of your childhood that you think affects your current mental health status? Materials:

● bond paper ● pencil

Procedure:

1. In class, try to form a group discussion about your experience during your childhood. 2. Try to enumerate different events in your childhood that you think is important in

shaping your current mental health. 3. Summarize the group discussion by completing the table provided below.


Table. 3 Aspects of Childhood Affecting Mental Health.

Aspect of Childhood that affects Mental Health

Effects of Mental Health

Guide Questions:

1. Why do you think childhood experiences are important in shaping your current mental health?

2. How can childhood memories affect mental health? 3. Who are the individuals that can highly affect your mental health well being?


Learn about It!

Over millions of individuals are living with mental health issues. Most people are obsessed with taking care of the body but lack awareness when it comes to the maintenance of brain health. A lot of people put less attention to brain health until they are forced to consider mental health issues. The brain is crucial in regulating several processes in the body. This lesson focuses on enumerating things that can be done to maintain stable mental health. Ways to Nurture Mental Health Laugh more often As most people are saying, laughter is among the best forms of medicine. A lot of evidence proved that laughter could improve health status in several ways. Laughter can lighten someone’s mood, relieve tension, and improve cognitive function of the brain. Laughter is so powerful that it can alter a person’s outlook in life. Other evidence also shows that it can make a person be more creative and resourceful. Laughing together with our friends and family can make a lot of difference in maintaining your mental health.

Fig. 6 Laughter with friends.



Exercise Regular exercise can improve not only your physical well being but also your mental health. Exercise is good for mental health as it tries to increase the blood flow and allow sufficient oxygen supply for the brain and other parts of the body. Also, regular exercise can stimulate the body to be more active and release hormones that can help improve emotions and lighten the tension in a person’s feeling. Be Grateful Gratitude is good for our mental health. Being grateful for all the things that happen in your life can teach a person how to be contented with what is present in his or her life. Gratitude has the power to discipline a person’s thoughts and redirects attention to good things. Being grateful can reduce depression, envy, and frustrations in life. Gratitude can change mindsets of different individual and to remain positive at all times. Maintain Spiritual Connection Being part of a large community of spiritual believer can be healthful in maintaining good mental health. Being open in prayers allow people to express themselves and adequately identify their struggles in life. Prayer in community together with other people can strengthen the sense of support and connection in an individual’s relationship with other people. This open relationship with other people is good for mental health as it provides an outlet for the stress and problems that one experience.

Fig. 7 Spiritual connection through praying.



Balanced Diet Balance diet is one important factor in maintaining a healthy body. A balanced diet is good as it allows all the needed nutrients needed by the body to be available. This is especially true for the needs of the brain to function properly. Without the lack of food and nutrients, the mind may not be able to meet its predetermined function. More and more pieces of evidence are showing that malnutrition can be linked to mental health problems. Sleep well Sleep and mental health are highly related to one another. Mental health problems can disrupt sleep patterns, while sleep problems can cause mental health dysfunction. It is imperative that an individual must maintain at least 8 hours of sleep a day to allow the brain to have enough rest. Sleep is vital to those people who struggle with their mental health. Sleep disruptions are good indicators of a mental health problem or any of a host of other health issues.

Fig. 8 Importance of sleep in children.



Avoid substance abuse Many people with mental health problems find solutions in the form of substance abuse. The use of gateway and illegal substances can lead to substance abuse and addiction, which is itself considered as a disorder. For people who are in need of emotional or mental relief, drugs and alcohol can be an easy solution. These substances can provide little emotional pleasure and help the individual to forget problems, but it will only last for several minutes or hours. Substance abuse can cause more mental health complications. Several cases of substance abuse and addiction are from young individuals.

Fig. 9 Illegal drugs.



Check Your Understanding

A. Write the word true if the given statement is correct, otherwise, write the word false.

1. Substance addiction is a mental health problem 2. Abusive use of substances is not good for mental health. 3. The brain needs sleep for rest. 4. A balanced diet has nothing to do with mental health. 5. People, surrounding an individual, play an important role in maintaining good

mental health.


B. Put a check (✓) if the given item must be done to maintain good mental health and cross (x) if it must be avoided.

1. Getting proper sleep 2. Balanced diet 3. Regular exercise 4. Communicating with other people 5. Isolating yourself from other people

Health Care

Reflecting Your Ways

Now that you are aware of the things that must be done to nurture a healthy mental being, try to reflect your habits that can contribute to good mental health. Materials:

● pen ● pencil

Procedure:

1. As guided by the table, try to identify things that you are doing to improve your mental health status.

2. On the other column, try to explain how these habits you are doing can help improve your mental state.

3. Discuss your answer in class and see if your classmates have similar ways of improving their mental health.


Table 4. Things you are doing to maintain mental health.

Aspect of Mental Health Activity you are doing to maintain this aspect

How your activities can improve mental health

Social connection

Body activity

Stress management

Brain health

Guide Questions:

1. Based on the table, what are the things you have been doing before that can help improve your mental health?

2. What are the other things that you want to explore to improve your mental health? Why?

3. Why is it important to nurture the mental health of an individual? 4. Are you the only one who can contribute to your own mental health wealth being?


Lesson 3: Ways to Stay Emotionally Healthy Learning Targets

In this lesson, you should be able to: ● suggest ways to develop and maintain one’s mental and emotional health.

Health Check

Basic Emotions

Not most people are aware of how to accurately identify their emotions. Try to illustrate your understanding of the basic emotions by acting it out in class. Materials:

● bond paper ● pencil

Procedure:

1. Using the descriptions of the basic emotions provided below, try to pick one emotion that you want to act out.

2. Try to make simple features or facial expression that can reflect the emotion you picked.

3. In front of the class, try to describe the emotion that you picked by acting it out using the movements and expressions you have listed.

4. See if your classmates can guess the emotion you picked based on your illustration.


Basic Emotions

Guide Questions:

1. Are you familiar with all of the basic emotions? 2. Have you experienced feeling these emotions before? Were you able to identify it

immediately? 3. Do you think it is important for people to understand their emotions? Why?


Learn about It!

Emotion is a conscious experience that requires intense mental activity that can result in certain pleasure or displeasure in an individual. Most of the time, it is highly connected to the mood, personality, disposition, and motivation of the person. This lesson focuses on discussing the components of emotions and to enumerate things that can be done to improve emotional health among individuals. Students are expected to have a better understanding of their feelings and to know how to properly manage it in case of difficult times or stress. Components of Emotion Emotion has five important elements. This components coordinately work together to let people experience a particular feeling. These components provide an idea of how it is conceived and executed to allow continuous expression of emotion in an individual.

● Cognitive appraisal - A component that evaluates events and objects. This is the part

where a person starts to observe possible stimulus from the surroundings that can cause a response from him or her.

● Bodily symptoms - This refers to the preliminary body changes that happen in preparation for expression of emotion. It can be a change in hormone level that helps in regulating emotion in humans.

● Action tendencies - A motivational component created due to the bodily symptoms and still part of the preparation and direction of responses.

● Expression - This component refers to the actual facial and vocal expression of emotion that can be accompanied by reactions and intentions of bursting the response through movement of the body parts.

● Feelings - A subjective experience that serves as the result of the emotional state or expression of a certain emotion.


Fig. 12 Components of emotion

Ways to Maintain Good emotional Health Expand Your Support System It is very important that a person should make a support system in the form of family and friends. These people are the ones that will help an individual to know him or herself better. At the same time, these people are the ones who are willing to listen to the person in cases that there is a need to express a specific emotion. People who tend to keep their feelings to themselves may exhibit problems in emotional health. Regular Exercise Regular exercise is good to make sure that the body is active. Exercise requires the body to be more active and create hormones that can affect the emotions of a person. Exercise works well for people who have mild or moderate depression and don't need to be on medication. The evidence is also saying that exercise is an excellent way to lessen anxiety since the body will be more focused on moving and let the brain avoid thinking problems and other things.


Form a New Hobby Everyone should have at least one hobby. Things that keep people busy can help avoid anxiety and overthinking. At the same time, hobbies can stimulate the brain to always work and solve different problems connected to the things that a person like doing. Hobbies may come in the form of sports, meeting new people, gardening, sewing, or anything that will distract the person and help him or her forget the problems in life. Balanced Diet A balanced diet is a very important thing to have good emotional health. Nutrition provides the needed nutrients of the body. People who are always hungry may exhibit different moods. At the same time, one must avoid excessive alcohol intake. Alcohol can temporarily reduce stress, but excessive consumption must be avoided. Alcohol drinks like the beer can contribute to weight gain so maintaining a healthy weight is important. Effective Time Management Effective time management is important in reducing stress in an individual. People who can manage their time properly can avoid the feeling of being pressed by deadlines at work or in school. Moreover, as a person cross off the tasks in their to-do list, they may feel a sense of accomplishment which will help reduce stress. Enough Sleep People who lack sleep often express different moods. Lack of sleep may trigger anger and shorter patience towards things. A person should have at least eight hours of sleep a day. Also, sleep is helpful in maintaining regular hormone secretion in the body that is highly related to emotions. Aside from emotional health benefit, sleep is also essential to allow the body to function properly and let the brain rest for a certain period and consolidate memories from the previous experiences that day.


Check Your Understanding A. Write the word true if the given statement is correct, otherwise, write the word

false.

1. Emotion is not related to mental health 2. Emotion cannot be easily affected by people around you. 3. Family plays a vital role in maintaining emotional health. 4. Having a lot of friends is good for emotional health. 5. Emotion can be control by hormones.

B. Put a check (✓) if the given item is a component of emotion and cross (x) if it

is not related at all.

1. Cognitive appraisal 2. Bodily symptoms 3. Action tendency 4. Feelings 5. Expression


Health Care

Making Your Own Emoji

Emojis are illustrated expression that are widely used in the internet to express emotions. Try to create your own emoji to represent your current feelings. Materials:

● pen ● paper ● coloring materials

Procedure:

1. In class, try to create an illustrated emoji to represent your current emotion. 2. Make sure that the emoji can perfectly depict the emotion that you want to convey. 3. After finishing your work, try to present it in class and explain more details of the

illustration. Guide Questions:

1. Do you think it is important for people to understand their own emotions? Why? 2. What are the possible consequences of poor emotional health? 3. What are the factors affecting poor emotional health? 4. What are the things that you can do to express your emotions effectively?


Pro-health Challenge

Express Your Emotion Through Arts

In class, try to identify the dominant emotion that you currently feel. After determining your feelings, try to express it through art. Try to make a poster and draw anything that could help you show your emotion. After doing your poster, present your work in class and explain how to interpret your work and how it is related to your emotions.

Criteria Beginning (0-12 points)

Developing (13-16 points)

Accomplished (17-20 points)

Score

Content (Focus on details/events are clearly evident; it is clearly related to the topic.)

Content is incomplete and not organized

Content is complete but not organized

Content is complete and organized

Creativity (artistic output)

No creativity and rushed output

Minimal creativity and effort in the output

Well creative and much effort exerted in the output

Language (spelling, mechanics, grammar, and usage)

Communication skill needs improvement

Intermediate communication skill

Good communication skill

Key Guide Question

Why is it important to be aware of mental health?


Reflective Questions

Briefly answer each question.

1. What is mental health? 2. Why it is important for people to be aware of their mental health? 3. What are the benefits of taking care of your mental health? 4. Why is mental health crucial in maintaining the functionality of a person? 5. Do you think you are effective in controlling your emotions? Why?


Self-Check

Skills

I think I need more time and

assistance.

I have a minimal understanding of it.

I am confident that I can do this with ease.

Enumerate characteristics of a mentally, emotionally and socially healthy person.

Describe ways to develop and maintain one’s mental and emotional health.

Reflect

I find __________________________ the most interesting because ______________________. I got ____ checks because _______________________________________________________. I need to improve on _______________________because _____________________________. I need to practice _________________________ because _____________________________. I plan to _____________________________________________________________________ .


Wrap Up

Factors Affecting Mental Health


Bibliography

Botkin, Daniel B., and Edward Keller. 2011. Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet:

John Wiley and Sons Inc. Cunningham, William P., and Mary Ann Cunningham. 2010. Environmental Science: A Global

Concern: McGraw Hill. Gega, Peter C. and Peters, Joseph M. 1998. Concepts and Experiences in Elementary School

Science. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., U.S. Handwerker, Mark J. 2004. Science Essentials Elementary Level. New York: Jossey-Bass Inc.,

U.S. Peters, Joseph M., and Stout, David L. 2011. Science in Elementary Edition, Methods,

Concepts, and Inquiries. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., U.S.

Glossary

Emotion The conscious experience of an individual that comes with

extreme mental activity.

Emotional health The state of having well and balanced regulation and expression of emotions and feelings.

Health The overall state of the physical, mental and social status of an individual.

Mental health The state of physical and mental well-being of an individual.


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