Did you know that when you take care of your mental health, you are not only helping yourself, you’re helping others too?
Research shows that your mental well-being can positively affect not only your friends, but even the friends of your friends, people you might never meet.
A large-scale study from Harvard and the University of California, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed that emotions like happiness spread through social networks up to three degrees of separation. That means when you feel better, your mood can influence your friend, your friend’s friend, and even their friend. In the same way that a smile can be contagious, emotional well-being ripples through our communities, shaping the social climate we live in.
We often think of mental health as something deeply private, and it is. It’s about our thoughts, our inner dialogue, and how we experience life. But it’s also something profoundly collective. Every interaction we have, every moment of kindness or calm, every act of listening or compassion, contributes to the shared emotional environment we all inhabit.
The ripple effect of well-being
This “ripple effect” of well-being is not just poetic, it’s biological and social. Studies in psychophysiology and psychology have shown that emotional states like gratitude, compassion, and joy activate the body’s parasympathetic nervous system, the “rest and restore” response that helps regulate heart rate, reduce inflammation, and strengthen resilience.
When we are physiologically regulated, our facial expressions, tone of voice, and presence signal safety and trust to others. This is especially powerful in families, workplaces, and schools, where emotional states are constantly exchanged. In short, your calm helps others feel calm.
So mental health promotion is not only about preventing illness, it’s about cultivating conditions where well-being spreads naturally. As the WHO states, “mental health is more than the absence of mental disorder. It is a state of well-being in which every individual realizes their potential, can cope with normal stresses of life, and can contribute to their community.”
From the individual to society
In the JA PreventNCD project, we are working to strengthen this very idea, that mental health promotion should be woven into the fabric of our policy environments, schools, workplaces, and communities. We aim to identify the criteria for mental health promotion: evidence-based, inclusive, and sustainable practices that nurture resilience from the ground up.
That means helping societies plant the right seeds, training professionals, embedding well-being tools into everyday systems, and ensuring that environments themselves support psychological health. When the ground is fertile, every new initiative, policy, and person has a greater chance to thrive.
This World Mental Health Day
This World Mental Health Day, let’s remember that mental health is not just a personal responsibility, it’s a shared human right and a shared opportunity. Each of us plays a part in creating the kind of emotional climate we wish to live in.
Start small. Breathe deeply. Reach out. Practice gratitude. Support a colleague. Your well-being may be the spark that lights a chain of well-being in others, perhaps even someone you’ll never meet.
Author: Sigrún Þóra Sveinsdóttir, PhD, specialist in mental health promotion