What Are Nature and Nurture?
According to many theories studied, Nature is the hereditary genes a person gets from their parents or ancestors. Nurture, on the other hand, is governed by the circumstances or surroundings he grows.
How Does Nature Affect Mental Health?
Genes play an important role in the transmission of mental illness. Scientists have proved most mental disorders run in families and are inherited. Individuals with Mental disorders like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), in most cases, have a family history of the same. Not all mental disorders are inherited; that is where nurture plays a role.
How Does Nurture Affect Mental Health?
Nurture, which is a person's upbringing, surroundings, and life experiences, plays a very important role in how a person thinks. An individual who has seen or experienced scary accidents will fear driving a vehicle, or someone who has had a traumatic or abusive childhood is most likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. This individual has had a bad breakup or is heartbroken and many times ends up becoming an alcoholic. Many people are prone to substance abuse to overcome daily life stress. These are a few examples that indicate how important nurture is in shaping individuals' mental health.
Nature and nurture are two important pillars that affect mental health and are inseparable as they go hand in hand. Nurture can be controlled, whereas nature cannot be. As the genes or the DNA of a person that he is born with cannot be changed, nature is the permanent factor, whereas nurture can be altered as a person can be counseled, and surroundings can be modified so that the person overcomes mental health issues. Nature can affect nurture, but the other way around is impossible.
Let us understand this in detail by disintegrating small aspects that affect the result.
Nurture: What Are the Risk Factors?
Any person who has experienced bad life events is most likely to be affected by mental health issues. The severity of mental health issues is determined by the factors like duration, severity, and the impact that incident has on a person. Any person who has experienced abuse during childhood every single day growing up would have a long-lasting-trauma and fear; such situations can also alter the behavior and personality of an individual.
Trauma, stressful life events, emotional disturbance, substance abuse, and traumatic life experiences are the factors that play a very important role in governing the mental state of health a person would have as an adult.
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Trauma: Any physical, mental, or emotional trauma in childhood or during the teenage-like a scary accident, repeated abuse, or losing a loved one, has an impact on mental health when growing as an adult, as these incidences have an imprint on the brain.
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Stressful Life Events: These events can be parents fighting all the time, divorced parents, or disputes in the family.
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Emotional Disturbances: Friend circle or peers play an important role in growing up as a teenager if a person is bullied or does not have any friends can hurt adulthood.
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Substance Abuse: As always said, choosing your peers is important as it influences how you grow. Any person who has a friend circle that drinks or smokes and a person who does the same due to peer pressure are most likely to face mental health issues as a grown-up.
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Traumatic Life Experiences: It is one of the most important risk factors as it includes events like a bad breakup, molestation during childhood, losing a job, or losing a loved one. These events can have a long-lasting effect that leads to depression.
Nature: What Are the Risk Factors of Mental Health Problems?
Epigenetic regulation and genetic pleomorphism are the two factors that affect a person's mental health, as every individual has a different genetic makeup; every person has a different way of thinking and mental health. Genetic pleomorphism and environmental factors influence a person's mental health, and the degree of alteration in the genes determines the severity.
What Has a Greater Influence on Nature or Nurture?
According to studies, Nature has shown to have a greater impact in the long run comparatively. As nurture influences, multiple factors at once, nature, through influencing a single gene or a small DNA defect, can be more severe as treatment is difficult or impossible, and a person has to live with it throughout life. Hence it can be concluded that nature and nurture both affect the term and intensity of the disease, respectively.
Can an Individual Affected Be Treated?
Treating an individual with mental disorders requires medicinal supplements and extensive psychotherapy, irrespective of the root cause of the disorder. The variation in the treatment is just that natural disorders are treated symptomatically to prevent further complications and progression of the disorder, whereas in the case where a person is affected due to circumstances is treated by finding a root cause and altering the thought process and lifestyle modifications that help a person to lead a healthy and happy life.
Conclusion:
Nature and nurture are the two very important factors that affect a person's mental health. Nature here refers to a permanent genetic, mental disorder that is difficult to treat. In contrast, nurture refers to the circumstances or the life events that have caused trauma to cause mental health disorders, and treatment includes medicinal and psychological methods. The exact duration of the treatment is unpredictable and depends upon the severity and chronicity of the disorder.
