5 ways to help people with troubling mental health

 

How can we help people with troubling mental health?

It might not be easy for someone with severe mental problems, but it is possible to sort things out for someone going through some severe depression and anxiety.

1. Ask them out

You know someone has poor mental health; ask them out. Ask them what’s disturbing them while maintaining their comfort zone as much as possible. However, explaining your mental state is not that easy to talk out. 

    2. Share a relatable story to console them

         Go for a little practical approach and comfort them while relating any well-known personality’s mental health journey, if you know. Tell them how they overcame it and defeated it with their self-power.

    3. Enlighten them with some easy to do things

      Moreover, enlighten them with some easy-to-do things and indulge them in activities that can have their attention diverted for as long as possible. Make them realize how normal life is by talking about random everyday stuff.

     4. Listen to Them 

      One of the most crucial points is to listen. Listen to them regardless of how much they have to say or how illogical talk it may get. Just give them an ear for as long as they need. Let them burst out stuff so they might feel light.

     5. Expert Advice

     Lastly, if it is not as effective as you thought it would be, make them realize most casually that they need some expert’s advice and refer them to some well-known psychiatrist or any mental health foundation.

Relationships and mental health

A common misconception is when people only relate mental health with mental illness, whereas mental health is much more than depression, anxiety, and mental sickness. Mental health is very closely associated with relationships. Mental health also revolves around the well-being and positive state of mind of a human being, which is achieved through healthy relationships.

In support of the given statement, a widespread misinterpretation of the term ‘relationships’ is when relationships only refer to two individuals sharing bonds of love and intimate relation. However, relationships are much more than just this. Relationships like two friends, mother-daughter relations, colleagues sharing the bond of empathy, roommates are all a few examples of such bonds that we may develop and are so close to our heart that when it begins to fall apart, our mental health begins to deteriorate.

Can relations affect mental health?

Ups and downs can be observed in almost every relations. Any relation that a human associate closely with the heart ultimately hurts them when any challenging circumstances are made. The person begins to overthink, their appetite is affected, their sleeping routine gets upset, temporarily aggression can be built within a person, or the person is expected to react furiously to any stimuli.

How can healthy relationships improve mental health?

Research suggests that healthy, supportive, and long-lasting relations cause a person to live longer, healthier and happier. It has been observed that people with healthy relations have lower blood pressure, feel less anxious, are less vulnerable to complexes, and heal quicker than those with troubled relations.  

Engaging with people who listen to your talk with interest causes the person the release stress and helps them to process their emotional state. Similarly, having healthy and productive conversations with others lets the person live a meaningful life. Such positive relations are often why people get motivated to lead a well-balanced life.

Social relationships lead to mental illness

Social relations seem to connect with a person’s well-being closely. Having poor relations solely based on the social platform has long been a critical trigger for affecting mental health in the worst case possible. People tend to rely on connections they make through any social platform. When, due to some reason, they are to face social isolation, their mental health deteriorates to the extent that they no longer can survive without having to pay a visit to a psychologist every week or so. 

How to pursue and foster healthy relations?

Unhealthy relations can quickly trigger mental imbalance, which needs to be settled to live a relaxed, stress-free life. Therefore, it is essential to pursue relationships with food to the soul. To serve the purpose, it is essential to check on the loved ones to be aware of their well-being, make regular plans with family, go out with friends, and have enough time to spend with someone with whom you can speak your heart out.

Mental health has become a renowned treatable disease that needs to be catered to as soon as possible. The more it’s lingered on, the more severe it is expected to get. Work on maintaining healthy relations and connections with your loved ones and with people you encounter daily, be it your colleagues, classmates, boss, or friends.  

"Reading"-It's impact on our mental health!!

 Reading and its effect on mental health

Reading in my opinion is the most mysterious activity I’ve ever encountered.  While reading a thriller book we find ourselves imaging the whole scenes and also when reading fantasy novels, we can imagine things that don’t make any sense practically than how does our brain imagines those scenarios? How do we can see things in our mind that are not seen before? How can we humans imagine differently while reading the same book? The book can be a fantasy, love story, action story or even alien story we’ll still be able to imagine the scenes, characters and the voices too.

When I read books, I can hear the characters talking while reading their dialogues and even if I’m reading a life lesson book, I can still hear their voices. I imagine the characters, voices and the surroundings too. Once I was reading a book where the characters were visiting Turkey, and I who never went out of the city where I was born, can literally visualize Turkey, sitting in my sofa, eating snacks and having a warm cup of coffee. If the character is enjoying a view, a song or anything I enjoy with them too. Just like how we sometimes connect the vibes of a song and create the whole ambiance from it. This depends on how a writer executes their art too but have you ever thought of how despite being so normal we can visualize such extra ordinary things.

Reading is just an art which takes a visit of our brain and makes every part of our brain active. When we read something, our brain is fully active and focuses on the smallest details of the content we read. Our brain is active and focused during reading that it improves our brain power. Just like how after exercising our body becomes stronger, reading makes our brain stronger.

Reading takes you to another world

When we are reading our mind can only think of what we are reading. It takes all the focus from everything and diverts into reading. When I feel stressful or upset, I tend to read some good book that I’ve read 100 times before but I’ll still read again and my stress, mood swings and sadness just disappears and I find myself focused into that book or story. I find myself imagining the characters and even different imaginary worlds. That’s how impactful reading is. It takes to a whole new world tour by just sitting in your room.

Reading acts as therapeutic

Reading is an art that also is therapeutic for us. Having to focus on small details of writing is very healthy for our brain. We can emotionally feel what a book character says or feels. It also stimulates our emotions and we feel emotionally attached to the characters or books. Reading is a great catharsis for our emotions. For example, while reading Harry Potter, I was sobbing on the death of Professor Dumbledore it was the greatest shock for me and so upsetting that I was reading the scene at 3 am and I had to hide myself in my pillows so that my family can’t hear me crying just for a book character. For them it was just a character but for me he was PROFESOR DUMBLEDORE!!! How can I not cry for him who was with me for 6 books but now my favorite character was betrayed by his own ally (Well that’s how it seemed at that time).

Reading cures disorders too!!

It has been proved through scientific researches that reading proves beneficial for mental health issues and it improved people's mental health.  Active brain can avoid many diseases and specially at old age. An inactivity in brain increases the chances of people getting affected by diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia, so reading helps in keeping your mind active. In this era, where mental health issues are rising rapidly and we can’t even find the time to go for therapy, such simple activity of reading can help you a great deal. So get out of that procrastination mode and jump to good book your friend has been telling you to read since forever and its never too late to adopt a healthy hobby. Have good read!!

MUSIC IS DESTROYING MENTAL HEALTH ?

Technological development and excessive usage of mobile phones have lead the world towards countless mental illnesses beyond a person’s imagination. The transforming world at super-sonic pace and increased competitive behaviors among individuals with the want of more and more has lead a generation of youngsters more vulnerable to mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, hypertension and constant stress. A world formed within our mobile phones at just a single click away from us has left us comparing ourselves with everyone on social media and the hyper reality that it follows, leads the thought processes of a person towards something which becomes uncontrollable for them to take care of, if not identified by themselves and set limits to. No doubt, positive sides do beheld and outgrow various factors that have helped shape the world into the form it is right now, in many better ways, but the ultimate effect that everyone is bearing in form of mental health is something not to be ignored at all, let alone the stigma of talking about it. 

Excessive scrolling on social media, mobile addiction, repetitive behaviors, constant boredom and fatigue are the aspects that are usually focused upon by researchers when discussing the effects these terminologies have on our mental health. 

Meanwhile, talking about the effects music has on our mental health, we settle down and become less impulsive when we listen to music, which is due to the rhythmic and repeated elements of the song. Music is frequently used to match or alter our emotional state. While there are certain advantages to matching music to our mood, doing so can have the unintended consequence of keeping us in a sad, angry, or nervous state.

Whereas positive effects being discussed that the music has on our mental health include, reduction in stress, that is, the melodies that we listen to, with the frequency it is settled upon, different pitches affect our mood differently whereas mostly it has proven to be helpful in releasing stress for the listener. Secondly it elevates a person’s mood and motivation towards certain things, third, it is said to help improvise focus of a person, and also help in reducing anxious and depressive thoughts for a person. 

For most people, music is an important part of their daily lives. Be it their aily travelling, they listen to music to keep them going. Some people turn up a favorite playlist to keep them going during a workout, too. Many people even turn their music on even cooking, taking a shower, as well as while they wrap the laundry. 

For some people, music is a way to be creative, for others it's a way to relax, and for us, it can have a big impact on our mood. Music can make us dance, run faster, calm our minds, and make us remember things. Producing your own melodies, even if you just play a guitar or write lyrics to a song, proves beneficial in expressing and processing your feelings. How you feel is more important than how it sound. One thing to be mindful of is that no one has to listen to your music unless you want them to.

Emotional control is an important part of mental health. People who can't control their emotions are more likely to have psych mood disorders like distress. Medical practitioners know how powerful music can be when it comes to emotions. They can use music to help their clients improve their moods and even help relieve the symptoms of psychiatric mood disorders like depression. Besides, countless humans already hear music under their own to help them deal with their emotions. There isn't much information out there about how this kind of music listening affects their mental health, though. Brain imaging shows how people's brains respond to different types of music and how that affects how they control their emotions. In a study, it was found that men who use music to deal with negative emotions react badly to aggressive and sad music.

A STORY OF DEPRESSION- SUSHAN SINGH RAJPOOT

Depression, a word that has become one of the most commonly known mental illness around the globe, needs little or no introduction because of its abundant presence and the way almost every human being has to go through it. Depression is majorly said to happen when one starts perceiving cognitive distortions, relies upon past too much and starts thinking in a way that they find no escape from and feels like all doors have been closed upon them. There are many forms of depression, but dysthymia is one of the most common and most serious. It impacts how you feel, how you reckon, and how you behave. Luckily, it can also be fixed. Distress leaves you feeling sorrowful and lose interest in things you used to enjoy. This can cause a wide range of physical and emotional problems, and that it can make it hard for you to operate and live a normal life. It includes symptoms of sadistic mood, mood swings, loss of appetite which ultimately results in loss of weight, either feeling trouble sleeping or spending too much time sleeping, feeling exhausted, also including obvious physical effects as well such as shivering of hands, or feeling the urge to move around too much and not being able to sit still and concentrate, aspiring more social validation or acceptance and increased requirement of sense of belongingness, and in worst cases the suicidal thoughts. 

Talking about our concerned case, a renowned Indian celebrity named Sushant Singh Rajput, born and raised in India, had reportedly committed suicide in his apartment, aged 34. Major causes were reported as the experiences he had been facing at the time and that he was going through depression. Sushant Singh was one of the toppers of his board during his college says and had gotten acceptance into an engineering university on scholarship basis due to his phenomenal academic performance and had immense love for physics and inventions and graduated as the topper of his batch during his engineering degree. Sushant gained worldwide fame with his career as an actor for Bollywood industry. Depression can acquire any form and can occur due to any reason, even much bigger celebrities who have starred in Hollywood such as Jim Carrey also go through worst forms of depression. Regardless of a person’s social status, his income or any other metric of success, a person can become prone to depression where they get stuck upon certain aspect of life and find it hard to come out of those thoughts. Story of Sushant Singh alarms us about awareness of mental health and acceptance regarding talking about it that is direly needed which already is a stigma to talk about mental health. In a world of such rapid changes and growing number of innovations and with such hyper reality at one click’s distance has left most of people around the globe comparing themselves to other people who are super competitive and achievement oriented. These behaviours have left people emotionally distorted which further lead them into developing negative thoughts about life and ending up as getting depressed. A depressed person might seem like living a normal life and having a good time doing what they do in their regular routines, but have depressing thoughts in their solo time, which is the reason mental health advocates urge and campaign for the awareness of mental health so that people become aware of their surroundings and notice if their friend or peer is going through such thing and offer them a helping hand in order to ease their racing thought of depression. 

Sushant Singh was observed to live a normal life whereas reports say that he had been facing depression due to various unknown reasons. The death of young actor had become the talk of town ending up with people narrating different reasons for the cause of Sushant becoming depressed such as facing bullying in the industry and the decline of his career due to his personal conflicts with other industry dominant figures. The reasons yet are still unknown to the day as to what lead Sushant into depression and suicide but has become a lesson for us all to take care of the people around us and keep checking upon our friends and family if we notice any changes in their usual behaviours. 

Nostaligia - It's impact on mental health!!

 

Is nostalgia a neurological disorder or it is just a normal feeling or attachment with our past?

 

Sometimes somethings just remind us of the past. Things we used to be very attached in our past for instance music, a certain sound, event, etc. and then suddenly something reminds us of that attachment and we get a pleasure of enjoying that moment again. Sometimes it's pleasure and for some bad events in past, it becomes a cause of sorrow or even anxiety or depression. 

The sentiments you have about your past that gives you a pleasure in your present is called nostalgia.

Before the 17th century nostalgia was referred to as a neurological disorder. The word is combination of ancient Greek, "Nosos" means returning to home or native land and algos referred as pain or suffering. The reason behind it was that the soldiers longing to go to home, always having an urge to meet their families and remembering them was referred to as a bad sign of nostalgia. At that time many psychologists attributed that it is a sign of severe depression if someone is living in the past. 

 

Well, always living in a past can be red flag of depression but sometimes having an affectionate feeling for your past, Sharing or reliving your past is a healthy lifestyle. As after 19th and 20th century after many researches, researchers found that nostalgia is not a neurological disorder, but in fact it is a good way to deal with loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It was found that many almost everyone has this sentimentality with some events in past. While remembering about the good events and attachments in the past, one feels a pleasure and gives a feeling of having a continuity in life, reminding him/her of his/her roots. It gives a texture to life and strength to move on. It gives a will that the life had good events the problems were resolved so it gives a hope that everything can be solved. In fact, while sharing your nostalgic memories gives a kind of relief and attachments to others. Couples who share their thoughts and memories of their past tend to become closer. When you share your experiences with others, the other person understands you better and the bonding becomes more stronger eventually. It reduces stress and feeling of loneliness.

Experimenting if it’s true or not

To test whether it's true or not some researchers did a very interesting experiment. They made some people read about a very deadly disaster to study their behavior. Expectedly they were worried about the victims of disaster and their feeling of being alone so they became more nostalgic. The experiment was a success as they practiced some nostalgic activities or exercises and then they felt less depressed.

Memories can be also a mix of sorrow and joy

These exercises are not always Joyous and stress relieving. Sometimes some memories are not always content. Sometimes they are mix of both the sorrow and joy. We remember the good parts, good time and events spent with a particular person but when we remember that the particular person in no longer with you, it becomes painful to remember. As long as you face the truth and share more good side of your nostalgic attachment, nostalgia remains a healthy activity. But when you keep remembering and not sharing the bad sides of your past for example any trauma, any person you lost, or sometimes people overthink and try to feel and bring back the older themselves that doesn't feel any more in you as you evolve day by day, then nostalgia becomes a problem. This sense of loss of others or yourself causes anxiety and mental illness. But according to researches nostalgia is not the only or main cause of anxiety in such rare cases, there are many other factors involved for example any genetical disorder, any other mental or neurological disorder that has nothing to do with nostalgia.

The positive results of nostalgic exercises are way more than the negative ones that have been seen very rarely. And it is also not clear that the negative outcomes are even the result of nostalgia or not.

This means that we cannot relate nostalgia to home sickness as in early centuries it used to be referred as. In fact, it is a healthy activity to get a relief from stress or something disturbing you. But indulging too much in your past is also not good as you enjoy less in your present or your mental health gets affected if you keep remembering about past unhealthy events. So, conclusively Nostalgia is not a neurological disorder but if practiced occasionally in appropriate manner it can become a healthy activity to get rid of daily stress.