The word mental wellbeing combines the word ‘mental’ – so to do with your mind – with the world ‘wellbeing’ – how well it is doing. However, when people think about their mental wellbeing, they often associate it, or conflate it, with their mood and happiness – how well they are feeling. But our mood or happiness is just one facet of our mental wellbeing. What’s more, when it comes to how well our mind is doing, it’s not just about how we are feeling, it also about how well we are functioning.
This more all-encompassing definition of mental wellbeing is captured nicely by the World Health Organization (WHO) who state ‘Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.’ In other words, our mental wellbeing covers everything from being able to form good relationships with others; being emotionally resilient; being able to focus and make good decisions to having good energy levels.
This is also reflected in how we measure mental wellbeing in the Global Mind Project. Rather than just asking people about how happy they feel, or how satisfied they are with life, we use a tool called the MHQ assessment which asks about 47 different elements of mental wellbeing, covering our social, emotional, cognitive and physical capabilities of mind. It was developed based on a thorough analysis of 126 existing assessments of mental health and wellbeing covering 10,000 questions, to include the symptoms of 10 different mental health disorders from depression to eating disorders to PTSD, as well as positive strengths and assets.
With the 47 elements assessed on a scale that reflects the impact of those capabilities to one’s life and ability to function, overall scores of mental wellbeing (MHQ scores) reflect functional productivity – the ability to get done the things you need to get done in a day. Overall, MHQ scores have a linear relationship to productive days such that the number of productive days increase or decrease equivalently as you move up or down the MHQ scale at any point.
Thus, the MHQ also serves as a proxy for functional capacity of a population and can be used to demonstrate the functional capacity of various populations from schools to companies, and countries.
Altogether, mental wellbeing as measured by the MHQ reflects the composite capability of mind that enables us to navigate life’s challenges and function productivity.
Our mental health and wellbeing is declining with each younger generation. This is a new phenomenon that has emerged in the past two decades and is more prominent in developed countries.
With an unparalleled global data acquisition and analytical infrastructure Sapien labs is at the forefront of tracking this decline, identifying its root causes and accelerating the path from data to insights to real-world action.
Sapien Labs is a 501(c) (3) not for profit organization founded in 2016 with a mission to understand and enable the human mind.
Our mission is motivated by:
Goals represent the cornerstone of hope theory as the endpoint to planned behavior. Goals that motivate behavior can exist in the short- or long-term, but must meet certain criteria: potentially attainable, clearly articulated, and measurable. Motivated behavior requires the capacity to identify one or more viable pathways to goal attainment.
Pathways represent a mental road map allowing us to consider multiple strategies that will lead to the desired outcome. Viable pathways are within the person’s capacity to pursue and are developed with a plan of success. In this manner, the hopeful people can identify potential barriers with workable solutions or possess the capacity to change to alternative pathways when needed. Hopeful people will generate multiple pathways toward their goal pursuits. Comparatively, lower hope people experience difficulty in managing barriers and in their ability to develop alternative pathways.
Agency represents the goal-directed motivational thinking for hope theory. Agency refers to the capacity to exert mental energy (willpower) to the pursuit of pathway. Hopeful individuals are able to exhibit self-control, regulating beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors during goal pursuits especially while experiencing stress and adversity.
We are interested in both the science and power of hope as a psychological strength especially among those experiencing trauma and adversity. Three questions guide our work:
The Future Me Worldview believes that there are two ways to engage with other people. We are either in separation or connection. This is how all things in the world really work and it is all based upon how a person views their own identity. If they are someone who lives out of their False Identity, then the conflict of the world will lead to internal conflict which manifests fear and continues to develop their False Identity.
Once people begin to learn how to shift into their True Identity, we begin to step into the connected world. The moment that happens, we can experience a new way to view others. This is a world that is full of abundance because you realize that you are now able to begin to solve real problems, not just win arguments. In our True Identity, we are free to be as creative as we were born to be.
Our True Identity is our gift to the world!
