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Mental wealth: managing your mental health budget
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Your mental health is like a wallet
This metaphor means seeing your mental health as a wallet: money comes in, money comes out. How much money is in there is how many adverse events you can go through while sustaining your mental health.
We usually only worry about our mental health during distressing events, and don't take into consideration the many daily events that empty our mental health wallet, often without us realizing it.
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Events that empty our mental health wallet
- The ways people are using social media has more of an impact on their mental health than just the frequency and duration of their use.
- Microaggressions and discrimination.
- Urban life: urbanites are 21% more likely to have anxiety disorders and 39% more likely to have mood disorders.
- Financial worries have been linked to mental health issues among university students, and about half of people in problem debt.
- Lack of sleep, a poor diet and alcohol consumption.
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Investing in mental health
- Journaling has many science-based benefits. It can be used to reduce your anxiety or process traumatic events.
- Exercise is powerful medicine. Whenever you are feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed, try to go for a short run to clear your head.
- Talking it out. Not expressing your feelings will not help you process them. And talking about your emotions is not about receiving advice. Instead, it’s about having someone to share what you are going through.
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How to be a mental health ally
- Educate yourself. Read about mental health, common adverse events impacting people’s mental health, and the different realities faced by different populations when it comes to mental health.
- Listen without judgement. Validate the person’s experience. Do not jump to giving advice. Offer them a space to share.
- Be mindful of your language. Avoid vocabulary such as “crazy” or “insane” which may dehumanise the person you are trying to help.
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Mental Health In Today’s World
In an increasingly complex and competitive globalized environment, the growth curve of mental illness is a serious concern, with statistics showing that 800,000 people commit suicide per year, and ...
Mental Health At The Workplace
Mental disorders that are unchecked and untreated in employees(and their family) often lead to reduced productivity, increase in workplace accidents, with a majority of the employees suffering from decreased concentration at work.
Treating mental health is not a big investment and employers can be the facilitators to reverse the grim scenario.
Employer Actions To Treat Mental Illness
- Becoming aware of the workplace environment and the policies that might adversely impact the employees.
- Learn from leaders and engage in employee wellbeing.
- Follow other companies who have taken necessary steps to curb mental health issues at the workplace.
- Understand the unique needs and opportunities of your workforce to develop tailored policies.
- Take practical steps like initiating training programs and facilitating the various workplace wellbeing strategies.
- Many workers have a stigma attached to seeking help for mental health problems and need to be educated about the process while making it frictionless.
- Remember that mental health is linked to everything, including physical and economic health.
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Depression as Chronic Sadness
Depression and mental illness are long associated with being sad and mentally ill people and those fighting mental disorders are judged by the misleading emotional states like happiness, which have...
Using Therapy
Many people believe therapy is something you need when you are not satisfied, happy or content with life.
Mental illnesses go far beyond being happy or sad, and many people that don't think they need therapy may, in fact, be in acute need of it.
Happy Pills
- It’s a myth that mental health and happiness mean the same thing.
- Happiness is just another emotional state, like sadness.
- Depression is portrayed as not being happy, which is untrue.
- The pill-popping generations label anti-depressant pills as Happy Pills, which is also misleading.
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Sugar creates intense cravings
Sugar activates the brain's reward system that releases feel-good hormones. Too much sugar too frequently will hijack this reward system and will cause a loss of control, cravings and increased tol...
Sugar slows the brain down
A diet high in sugar makes learning difficult by slowing the brain down. Overconsumption of sugar damages synaptic activity in the brain.
When you consume too much sugar, you could develop resistance to insulin, the hormone responsible for regulating the function of brain cells.
The sugar crash
When you eat too much sugar, your blood sugar levels peak and drop. This causes you to experience irritability, mood swings, brain fog, and fatigue. You may find yourself feeling anxious or depressed. Carb-laden foods create the same response.
Chronically high blood sugar levels are linked to inflammation in the brain, which may be a cause of depression.