Mental Health and Illness

This chapter explains the mental-health, mental-illness continuum. It describes the key characteristics associated with various categories of mental disorders. The benefits of physical activity on quantity and quality of life for both physical and mental health concerns are well acknowledged and the ‘exercise as medicine’ concept has progressed rapidly, most notably in the domains of physical medicine. Mental disorders encompass a wide variety of signs, symptoms, experiences and disorders which are diagnosed by a medical professional and significantly interfere with an individual’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities. ‘Flourishing’ or complete mental health is to be filled with positive emotion and to be functioning well psychologically, emotionally and socially and is the opposite of those ‘languishing’ in life with low well-being. The growing costs and burden of disease associated with mental disorders, along with limitations in availability and cost effectiveness of optimal treatment, has turned a spotlight on the primary prevention of common mental illnesses.