World Mental Health Day 2025: When is early enough to nurture our Inner World?

To ask “When is early enough to take care for our inner world?” is to raise not just a practical concern, but a moral and existential one: at what moment should we begin caring for our inner lives with intention rather than reaction?

Too often, mental health issues are treated like a fire alarm, ignored until the room fills with smoke. However, research is clear. The earlier we act, the better the outcomes, neurologically, emotionally, and socially.  Around 75% of mental health disorders begin between ages 14 and 24, with half appearing before at the age of 14. This makes adolescence a critical window for intervention. Early intervention is therefore not optional; it is prevention backed by evidence.

Adolescence is a period of heightened neuroplasticity, where the vulnerability and opportunity for a person’s development coexist. The World Health Organization emphasizes that supporting mental health during this stage improves school achievement, relationships, and long-term wellbeing. Prevention though goes beyond clinics and diagnoses. Prevention has a cultural aspect which involves building emotional literacy, fostering open dialogue, and creating spaces where the young minds can explore their inner worlds rather than feel pressured to suppress them.

The InnerWorlds-A Videogame Journey Through Teen Depression and Social Pressures project, a European co-funded project under the ERASMUS+ programme,  directly addresses adolescent mental health by promoting social awareness and strengthening emotional resilience. Through participatory workshops, digital narratives, and an interactive videogame to be co-designed with adolescents, focuses on cultivating what researchers call social and emotional competence; a lifelong buffer against anxiety, depression, social pressures, alienation and loneliness.

Alongside the videogame, a Digital Handbook of Adolescence Mental Health has been developed to guide and support mental health professionals, clinicians, educators, parents, and youth workers with practical knowledge and strategies around adolescent mental health. The Handbook explains early signs of distress, common adolescent challenges, and protective habits, making prevention a shared responsibility across homes, schools, and local communities.

So, in a world where so much feels uncertain and at risk of falling apart, what remains for us to do to truly care for our inner world?

We can begin by speaking early and openly about emotions, treating them as a natural part of life rather than crises waiting to happen. We can weave mental health into our ways of learning, not only through clinical applications, but also through mental health literacy, play, connection and engagement; the very elements that shape how young people develop knowledges and skills around mental health. We can support initiatives like the InnerWorlds project, which approach mental health not as pathology to be treated but as an element to be nurtured. And we can design safe spaces in schools, in families, and even in our digital environments, where young minds can explore their inner lives without fear, judgment, or shame.

To rethink mental health is to resist the temptation to act only when suffering is visible. It is to imagine what joy and calmness might look like if we had started sooner, if well-being itself was our starting point. Science tells us that the brain in adolescence is plastic, impressionable, and full of possibility. Philosophy reminds us that care for our Inner World is the foundation of a good society. Together, they invite us to see prevention not as postponing illness, but as cultivating wisdom, grit, and connection.

For this year’s World Mental Health Day, the real question is not whether we should begin earlier, but why we would ever wait?!

Dr Markella Grigoriou, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology

Psychology Department,

University of Limassol, Cyprus / markella@uol.ac.cy

The ERASMUS+ project ‘‘InnerWorlds: A Videogame Journey Through Teen Depression and Social Pressures’’ is co-funded by the European Union. The consortium of the project is comprised by the Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (Spain – Project Leader), University of Limassol (Cyprus), InterAktion (Austria), Innovation Education Lab (Romania), the Centre of Social Services ‘‘Saint John the Merciful’’ (Cyprus) and Sembrem (Spain).

To learn more visit the project’s website: https://innerworlds.eu/