Menstrual hygiene too and how it effects mental health

Menstrual hygiene too and how it effects mental health: 

Written by volunteer-coordinator Janyl Kenenbaeva 

First of all, let me introduce you what is “Menstrual Hygiene Taboo”

Menstrual hygiene taboos are social and cultural restrictions, beliefs, and practices that surround menstruation and affect the way menstruating individuals are treated and how they manage their menstrual hygiene. These taboos vary widely across different cultures and societies, and they can have significant negative consequences for the physical and emotional well-being of those who menstruate. Some common menstrual hygiene taboos and the reasons behind them include:

Menstruation as Impurity: In many cultures, menstruation is often viewed as impure or dirty. Menstruating individuals may be considered unclean and are sometimes excluded from participating in religious activities, entering certain places, or even cooking during their periods.

Silence and Secrecy: In some societies, menstruation is surrounded by a code of silence. Many individuals are discouraged from talking openly about menstruation, leading to a lack of information and misconceptions.

Restrictions on Activities: In some communities, menstruating individuals are restricted from engaging in certain activities, such as swimming, cooking, or participating in social events, due to the belief that their presence might contaminate these activities.

Isolation: In some cases, people who menstruate are isolated during their periods. They may be required to stay in separate huts or designated areas, away from their families, during their menstrual cycles.

Limited Access to Sanitary Products: In some areas, the lack of access to affordable and safe sanitary products can be a significant issue. This, in turn, can lead to unhygienic practices, such as using old rags or leaves, which can increase the risk of infections.

Stigma and Shame: The shame and stigma associated with menstruation can lead to negative psychological and emotional effects. Menstruating individuals may feel ashamed or embarrassed about their periods, which can affect their self-esteem and overall mental health.

Lack of Education: Due to taboos surrounding menstruation, many individuals receive little or no education about menstrual hygiene, proper sanitary product use, or menstrual health. This can lead to a lack of awareness and can result in harmful practices.

Addressing menstrual hygiene taboos is crucial for promoting gender equality, women's health, and well-being. Efforts are underway in many parts of the world to challenge these taboos and promote open discussions about menstruation. Organizations, activists, and governments are working to provide better education and access to sanitary products, as well as to challenge cultural norms that stigmatize menstruation. Breaking these taboos is essential for improving the lives and health of menstruating individuals and promoting gender equality.

So according to the text in has its own consequences.

The next thing that is going to be talked it is how does it effect on mental health

The societal menstrual hygiene taboos and the stigma surrounding menstruation can have a significant impact on the mental health of individuals who menstruate. Here's how these taboos can affect mental well-being:

Shame and Embarrassment: When menstruation is considered a taboo topic, individuals may feel ashamed or embarrassed about their periods. This can lead to feelings of self-consciousness and a desire to hide their menstrual cycle, even from close family and friends. This secrecy can contribute to a sense of isolation and emotional distress.

 

Low Self-Esteem: Menstrual stigma can erode self-esteem. When individuals are made to feel that a natural bodily function is dirty or impure, they may internalize these negative beliefs and perceive themselves as less valuable or worthy. This can have long-term effects on self-worth and self-confidence.

 

Anxiety and Stress: The fear of leakage or odor, especially in situations where individuals are discouraged from openly addressing menstruation, can lead to heightened anxiety and stress. Worrying about others discovering their period can be a constant source of anxiety, affecting mental health.

 

Social Isolation: In cultures where menstruating individuals are isolated or excluded during their periods, social isolation can be emotionally distressing. This separation from family and community can lead to feelings of loneliness, depression, and a lack of emotional support.

 

Limited Access to Education: Menstrual taboos often result in inadequate education about menstruation. This lack of knowledge can lead to confusion and fear regarding menstrual health and hygiene. Individuals may not know how to properly manage their periods or identify signs of potential health issues, which can lead to increased stress and anxiety.

 

Impact on Academic and Professional Life: For students and professionals, menstrual stigma can disrupt daily routines. The fear of leakage, the need to hide menstrual products, and dealing with pain and discomfort can impact one's ability to concentrate, participate, and excel in academic or workplace environments.

 

Reproductive Health Concerns: In some cases, the fear of discussing menstruation can prevent individuals from seeking medical advice when needed. Ignoring or neglecting reproductive health issues can lead to further mental distress and physical complications.

 

Addressing menstrual hygiene taboos and stigma is essential for promoting good mental health among individuals who menstruate. Education, open dialogue, and breaking the silence around menstruation can help reduce feelings of shame and isolation. Initiatives that provide access to affordable and safe sanitary products, promote menstrual hygiene education, and challenge harmful cultural norms are crucial for improving mental health outcomes and overall well-being for those who menstruate.

To sum up, we need to educate people and comfort girls to make them feel better and not embarrassed.

It will help them to go to school to ask for help they will not feel bad for just human-being .

As a volunteering organization we can say that our main mission is to make people happier and better , so we will do everything that we can do in order to complete our mission by helping and educating world about menstruation

We are “HEEALS” and we are always happy to offer our help to everyone. By donating you can help us make world different .

Email: communications@heeals.org

WhatsApp: +91-7982316660

 

 

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Mental Health Workshop Conducted In Schools In Gurgaon.

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The International Day of the Girl Child

 Invest in Girls' Rights: Our Leadership, Our Well-being

This year, at a time when we are seeing a range of movements and actions to curtail girls’ and women’s rights and roll back progress on gender equality, we see particularly harsh impacts on girls. From maternal health care and parenting support for adolescent mothers, to digital and life skills training; from comprehensive sexuality education to survivor support services and violence prevention programmes; there is an urgent need for increased attention and resourcing for the key areas that enable girls to realize their rights and achieve their full potential. 

Responding to girls’ calls for change, the global community must move beyond reaffirming commitments and invest boldly in the action needed to make that change. When we pay attention, we see that, already, many girls are championing solutions and change in their communities. The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.

Adolescent girls have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, not only during these critical formative years, but also as they mature into women. If effectively supported during the adolescent years, girls have the potential to change the world – both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow’s workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors, household heads, and political leaders. An investment in realizing the power of adolescent girls upholds their rights today and promises a more equitable and prosperous future, one in which half of humanity is an equal partner in solving the problems of climate change, political conflict, economic growth, disease prevention, and global sustainability. Girls are breaking boundaries and barriers posed by stereotypes and exclusion, including those directed at children with disabilities and those living in marginalized communities. As entrepreneurs, innovators and initiators of global movements, girls are creating a world that is relevant for them and future generations.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders in 2015, embody a roadmap for progress that is sustainable and leaves no one behind. Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is integral to each of the 17 goals. Only by ensuring the rights of women and girls across all the goals will we get to justice and inclusion, economies that work for all, and sustaining our shared environment now and for future generations.

Did you know?

·         Nearly 1 in 5 girls are still not completing lower-secondary and nearly 4 in 10 girls are not completing upper-secondary school today.

·         Around 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women do not use the internet in low-income countries, while their male peers are twice as likely to be online.

·         Globally, girls aged 5-14 spend 160 million more hours every day on unpaid care and domestic work than boys of the same age.

·         Adolescent girls continue to account for 3 in 4 new HIV infections among adolescents.

·         Nearly 1 in 4 married/partnered adolescent girls aged 15-19 have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 100 million girls were at risk of child marriage in the next decade. And now over the next ten years, up to 10 million more girls worldwide will be at risk of marrying as children because of the COVID-19 pandemic

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World Mental Health Day ! Talk about mental health and show everyone that mental health matters

Talk about mental health and show everyone that mental health matters

As the theme of World Mental Health Day highlights, ‘mental health is a universal human right’. Awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health.

World Mental Health Day 2023 is an opportunity for people and communities to unite behind the theme ‘Mental health is a universal human right” to improve knowledge, raise awareness and drive actions that promote and protect everyone’s mental health as a universal human right.

Mental health is a basic human right for all people. Everyone, whoever and wherever they are, has a right to the highest attainable standard of mental health. This includes the right to be protected from mental health risks, the right to available, accessible, acceptable, and good quality care, and the right to liberty, independence and inclusion in the community.

Good mental health is vital to our overall health and well-being. Yet one in eight people globally are living with mental health conditions, which can impact their physical health, their well-being, how they connect with others, and their livelihoods. Mental health conditions are also affecting an increasing number of adolescents and young people.  

Having a mental health condition should never be a reason to deprive a person of their human rights or to exclude them from decisions about their own health. Yet all over the world, people with mental health conditions continue to experience a wide range of human rights violations. Many are excluded from community life and discriminated against, while many more cannot access the mental health care they need or can only access care that violates their human rights. 

Source : WHO 

HEEALS is continues to work to ensure mental health is valued, promoted, and protected, and that urgent action is taken so that everyone can exercise their human rights and access the quality mental health care they need. Join the World Mental Health Day 2023 campaign to learn more about your basic right to mental health as well as how to protect the rights of others.

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 NO ONE TALKS ABOUT TEACHERS MENTAL HEALTH !

By Sachin Solanki 

 

We are living in times when talking about mental health and its intersection with and influence on other forms of health is being normalized more than ever before. More and more people are coming out with their stories and experiences, making discussions around mental health more stigma-free. From celebrities to house-helps, mental health leaves no one. Yet, it is only unfortunate that we don’t talk enough about the mental health of people whom society depends so much on- about people who build lives through sharing and creating knowledge and these people are none other than our teachers.

 

What’s troubling them?

 

Teaching can be both a rewarding and a gruelling profession. The sense of satisfaction and fulfilment that comes through the dissemination of knowledge and ideas can be an enriching and illuminating feeling.

 

But teaching can also be a field filled with challenges and hurdles. Rigorous and exhausting schedules, requirement of tailored and student-specific approaches and pressure from various actors like parents, school authorities and sometimes even the government can act as major obstacles in making teaching a safe and fulfilling profession.

 

This profession demands a continuous shift in how we organize and share ideas. And no ideas can be shared to the last mile if it’s not well-cooked in the first few steps. It is precisely for this reason we believe that the mental health of teachers and people involved in the education system is a sine qua non for a healthy learning atmosphere.

 

Another obstacle is the lack of adequate infrastructure and tools to share knowledge. This can become a frustrating and demoralizing exercise, more so at the ground level where things get more complicated by the intersection of factors like caste, class and affordability. And together such factors can discourage and undermine the teachers’ confidence and ability to create better learning spaces. Last but not least, teachers in public and state-aided schools carryadded responsibilities and duties of contributing to other assignments other than teaching. Being available even on offdays to contribute to non-teaching duties is explainable and justifiable in the short run but can be deleterious in the long game. While private schools with better funds at their disposal have the wherewithal to provide teacher-friendly spaces and flexible working environments, it’s the non-private institutions that suffer the most.

 

What we must do?

 

It is no exaggeration that such setbacks can truly disincentivize young people from choosing teaching as a profession and owing to this, more often than not, teaching in our part of the world becomes a last refuge for people against unemployment and not a first choice. This also tampers their performance, thereby creating vicious cycles of poor results.

 

Efforts must be made to organize counselling sessions for teachers where they can express not just their grievances but also their doubts and fears. For this, we need a network of dedicated safe spaces consisting oflocal NGOs and mental health experts. We also need to configure how we view efficiency and hard work. Long working hours do not necessarily mean better outcomes. It can very well turn into disasters and senseless labour.

 

Efforts are required to make working hours and schedules more teacher-friendly with adequate time for leisure and relaxation. At HEEALS, we believe that proper mental health cannot be looked at in a separate silo. It must be seen as one ingredient of a larger system.

 

Mental health’s intersection with physical, social personal and sexual health should also be explored more to provide better results. Creating helplines and safe avenues for discussions and individual expressions can be good baby steps but we will eventually need more.

 

Ministry of Education provides psychosocial support through its MANODARPAN initiative to deliberate on mental health issues of both the teachers and students. Similar initiatives need to be multiplied with support of local institutions and communities which can participate in unleashing a social transformation.

 

Last but not least, what we need in the end is a shift in attitude where teaching as a profession must be treated with respect and thoughtfulness because teachers are also human beings and their emotional well-being matters because without teachers there are no students.

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Negative Impact of Taboos on Mental Health

Negative Impact of Taboos on Mental Health

By Saniya Islam 

Walking into your house at the ripe age of eight throwing the shiny new ball your friend had just bought you, enamored with how it bounced and tossed up in the air until - Crack! The mirror reflects back at you in its shattered pieces, your mother close behind yelling, “You better wish away the 7 years of bad luck you’ve doomed to yourself,” unleashing anxiety across your body for the next three weeks. 

This is the effect of baseless taboos and superstitions; the issue, however, extends beyond shattered mirrors and knocking on wood. Superstitions are most harmful in the space of periods, an area in which many women and impressionable girls are uneducated. But why? 

Despite their seemingly harmless intention, period taboos are often the only true advice or education that women in underdeveloped countries - like India - receive to guide them through menstrual cycles. This unproven folklore, however, creates fear mongering around periods. 

There are a myriad of superstitions passed around the world that create unnecessary rules for women. In India, for example, there is a superstition that whilst on your period one cannot enter a kitchen or cook for anyone else according to Hello Clue. The consequence of this rumor is that women are taught that they are dirty and disgusting for their period - furthering menstrual health into an unmentionable and disgraceful topic. 

Consequently, the confidence of women is tattered by period myths as is that of young girls. Period superstitions establish a stigma around periods and those who have them. When on one’s period, girls feel ashamed to be in their own bodies because societal taboos tell them to ‘wash your hair’ or ‘not pray’, as though it is an infectious disease rather than a normal bodily function. 

Once disgusted by periods, girls are thereby told to be disgusted with themselves and the body that contributes to such a process. Through low self-esteem comes low-confidence, growing into many mental health issues in the process. 

Women deserve to be reminded that their period is a normal process and one that should not be frowned upon or that they should be judged for. They deserve more than unsupported rumors and hostility toward their bodily functions. Girls deserve not to fear that if they are on their period without a matchbox in their pocket, evil will come to them. They deserve to be educated, to be heard, and to be met with information about their menstrual cycle that will help them manage it and continue with their lives rather than living in isolation and fear constantly. 

By educating women and abolishing these superstitions from their mind, they can live with knowledge and comfort whilst on their period. These are the standards that we should hold menstrual education toward. This is the standard that HEEALS NGO holds itself to when educating young girls on their periods in order to protect them from period anxiety and allow them to reestablish their confidence. By getting rid of period myths, we allow women to accept themselves and their womanhood. To contribute to the cause of revoking rumors and replacing them with facts, donate to HEEALS today. 

 

Sources: 

https://helloclue.com/articles/culture/36-superstitions-about-periods-from-around-world

Be A Part Of Our International Internship /Volunteering/Volunteer travel program At HEEALS Please Contact Us At : communications@heeals.org Please Come Join Us!

Facebook Page : https://www.facebook.com/Heeals/ 

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Instagram: @heealsindia

We Request To All The People To Help and Support Our Work .

Please Donate / Support Us In Anyway You Can. Spread Share Support #HEEALS Donation Details Are Below:

DONATORS LOCATED IN INDIA 

Account Number: 002101200566 Bank: ICICI Address: ICICI, Gurgaon Branch Sco-18 & 19 Sector -14, Huda Shopping Center. Gurgaon -122001 RTGS/NEFT IFSC CODE: ICIC0000021

INTERNATIONAL DONATORS Please email: communications@heeals.org Forward this message to your contacts to help this campaign reach its goal! 

Thank You!