Mental health has always been cast away when the general topic of health is spoken about. Some individuals believe that mental health isn't a priority over physical health. Throughout the years, this idea has been mostly sought to be true. That's why much of the argument today is that the only times we had heard about mental health were when things went to the extremes to explain the actions of criminals or cases of suicides.

More recently, though, the fight for more focus on mental health has been apprised. In December of 2016, the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, signed the 21st Century Cures Act which authorized almost $6.3 billion to fund research projects directly related to mental health and its treatments. Obama also declared May of 2016 National Mental Health Awareness month. Just these alone served to be great declarations of the importance of mental health.

However, there are still debates on key subjects on dealing with mental health in our society. One of which is whether educational institutions and workplaces should allow "mental health days"—where students and employees can take off days to recover and be stress-free for a little bit—to be considered as sick days. We all know how hard it can be to constantly be on "the top of your game" if you're not feeling it and being in a high volume environment can often make you feel worse at times.

According to the mental health research conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in four students have a diagnosable illness and 40 percent of them don't even try to seek help. This statistic is representative of how seriously we should be taking this issue. Issues with mental health often cause students to not be able to do their best work and foster unproductively.

The National Survey of Student Engagement's found that the average student spends about 17 hours each week preparing for classes. One can assume that the amount of stress upon schoolwork would affect a student's well-being and should be taken seriously when students express disarray when trying to keep up with multiple deadlines and other responsibilities surrounding everyday life.

These difficulties can be confronted with the availability for students to take a mental health day once in a while so that they can get back to doing their best and working towards their goals.

Here at Purdue, we have resources to support students who are struggling with mental health issues. I recommend if you ever need someone to talk to about how you're feeling please contact The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) or Purdue University Student Health (PUSH) that offer multiple ways for students to seek help on these problems.

If you are not a student at Purdue University, these types of resources are still available in other ways:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 1-800-273-8255

Mental Health Hotline: Call 1-866-294-0316

National Alliance on Mental Illness: Call 1-800-950-6064