Mental Wealth
jjbeshara.com
jjbeshara.com
From the outside, generally, stay away or just observe from far away:
- People who post political/religious/racial comments every 5 mins or so on social media, whether their view aligns with yours or not
- People who are too passionate about one thing
- People who don't keep their identity small in public, be it digital or real life
- People who have black and white thinking
- Social media
From the inside:
- Exercise (I do Karate)
- Have other creativity outlet (I do Aquascape, play electric guitar, bass, and sing, aside from programming)
- Read a lot various subjects, anything that spike your curiosity (I read programming books, theological books, finance, aquascaping, music, philosophy, economy)
- Have some other non thinking hobbies occasionally (I play games, go out with my spouse, watch movies)
- Help your communities (I am quite active to my church)
I still need to work on these:
- Eat healthier food
- Have more consistent sleep cycle
Generally if I have to sum it. Keep your public identity small, but keep your private identity large. You can definitely tell I grew up in Asia.
People who are passionate about something are generally interesting people. They know the obscure ins and outs of the thing they are passionate about. You can learn a lot from such people. At least, that's what I always felt.
OP is only talking about people who are too involved in what they are doing, and not people with a lot of passion, and so this having bad effects on their life with neglecting the other important part of their life.
If it’s to be work by being workalcolic, video games, music... and being so involved that kids, family, and friends are neglected. To education when they are in high school or college and playing video games which I did myself, and their future is neglected.
I also saw first hand parents loving so much their job and their career that they were neglecting their children to the point where their kids were starting to show warnings and sometimes alarming behaviors.
Also as a side note we can be strongly passionate because of something outside being really negative in our lives so our hobby or anything is our way to escape that and do something for ourselves. Now that can be good. But. We should remind ourselves in this case that the long term solution will be to address the problem first hand and not to escape it even more, if it’s to hobbies, work, or anything.
Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity".
I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.
For everyone that you care about and if your care is reciprocated, I think no matter how small you try to keep your identity, they'll just still be enamored by it.
I myself try to generally keep my identity small, both in public/digital space and within my friends, but yeah my friend can't help but still know who I really am, what food that I like, what music that I like, just as I can't help but to know who they really are. It is the result of close proximity in relationship. But this results in more organic and more understanding. My friends don't judge me purely black and white, and I don't judge them purely black and white either.
Care to refine your position?
> Make people mad at you for existing.
You brought this up, not the commenter.
Commenter: > Don't tell people anything about your private life, your politics, your religion, etc
Does not say to keep a specific belief private, but in general practice. This helps avoid conflict with people who disagree, as well as deter people looking for a point to drag you down for.
And the above quote is when it comes to personal branding in a business - I believe I don't need to elaborate on why you shouldn't talk politics with a client, as well as keep your personal life separate from business.
The latter half of the comment reveals that that they simply prefer to keep their personal details to themself. To do so digitally makes sense, considering how often it is for people's data to be sold. In-person, the commenter does not practice this extremely because their friends inevitably get to know them better, and the commenter gets to know said friends.
If anything, why don't you elaborate on your interpretation?
So, go back to the original topic. The topic is about you wanting to keep your mental health/wealth, sanity, inner peace. In this case, you want to avoid trouble as much as possible. People will bother you for everything, anything. You want to minimize this. In Asia, we prefer to keep the harmony, so to speak. Not saying it is perfect, no system or worldview in this world is perfect. Trade-offs everywhere. When you want to keep the harmony, then individual and group rights already take the second place compared to the majority.
In case you want to challenge the default status quo, the mainstream, then you can no longer keep your mental health healthy. It is already a warfare in your mind. It is a trade off. No war can be won without price. By going against the default status quo, you already signed yourself up to the battlefield, starting from your mind, and then, your body. For people who are oppressed, they never had peace from the start anywhere anytime, so asking this question for them is already a privilege, because they are already at war.
But the topic here is not about that, but about keeping your mental health/wealth. Mental health and wealth is like peace, it is a luxury. Those who have the chance to read the article above and relate to it, are living in luxury already. Peace after all, is the privilege of the victors.
It is indeed true, that when you choose to fight the status quo (which there are many valid reasons to do), it makes it much more difficult to keep constant mental peace.
Don't tweet about your hemorroids.
https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
Having a large and visible private identity has a cost, and I think that post does a great job at illustrating it.
I think as a general principle it's probably good to minimize your public-facing identity, however, the reductionism and broad generalization make this argument much weaker and misses the point about why people get so upset about identity.
Sleep, Diet, Exercise, Stress Management, Exogenous Compounds (from coffee to melatonin to Prozac, and anything in between)
These are certainly important factors, and I think we need to look much more broadly at underlying factors than just these (or just drugs).
I've been reading about mental health issues for years with my own ups and downs, and the best book I've read on this topic so far is Lost Connections by Johann Hari.
In the book he describes the ways modern life has disconnected us from a lot of what humans find meaningful, and given that it's not surprising that rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed. For me, learning what those underlying causes are has meant I could start making a conscious effort to address them in my own life. It's a lot of work, but it's been far more effective than just trying to make myself feel better by improving my mood with exercise, sleep etc.
I think as a society we've become so good at dealing with symptoms, but we're afraid to spend the time to look deeply and investigate causes. Politicians think that riots are the problem and if they stop the riots with force the problem goes away. But riots are just a symptom of a sick system.
Yeah. See Yvain's excellent review of "Empire of the Summer Moon":
All of the white people who joined Indian tribes loved it and refused to go back to white civilization. All the Indians who joined white civilization hated it and did everything they could to go back to their previous tribal lives.
There was much to like about tribal life. The men had no jobs except to occasionally hunt some buffalo and if they felt courageous to go to war. The women did have jobs like cooking and preparing buffalo, but they still seemed to be getting off easy compared to the white pioneer women or, for that matter, women today. The whole culture was nomadic, basically riding horses wherever they wanted through the vast open plains without any property or buildings or walls. And everyone was amazingly good at what they did; the Comanche men were probably the best archers and horsemen in the history of history, and even women and children had wilderness survival and tracking skills that put even the best white frontiersmen to shame. It sounds like a life of leisure, strong traditions, excellence, and enjoyment of nature, and it doesn't surprise me that people liked it better than the awful white frontier life of backbreaking farming and endless religious sermons.
Whites who met Comanches would almost universally rave about how imposing and noble and healthy and self-collected and alive they seemed; there aren't too many records of what the Comanches thought of white people, but the few there are suggest they basically viewed us as pathetic and stunted and defective.
https://www.gwern.net/docs/history/2012-11-13-yvain-bookrevi...
Sounds like someone drank the "Noble savage" koolaid in writing that.
Disagree, "civilized" societies have vast surpluses of the resources needed for survival (Level 1 and 2 of Maslows Hierarchy) compared to tribal societies, although those resources may not be distributed properly -- which is indicative of that which we truly lack: community belongingness and love (Level 3 of Maslows Hierarchy).
Until a century ago, frequent crop failures, disease, and other ailments were a hallmark of sedentary societies.
"Civilized" societies use far less land per person to produce food.
This is just racism in a different form.
No the system and other systemic or social problems are just a excuse.
Riots, at least those in recent events are an example of contagious social behavior. That is evidenced by the fact that the blamed issues have been known problems for longer than two weeks with people actively working for years to raise awareness of them. If other people are so passionate about these social problems that they are drawn to riot then where was this passion more than two weeks ago? Why suddenly congregate into emotional hysteria, especially since other people have been actively addressing these concerns for years, when the problems of complaint are preexisting and were clearly previously known to these congregants?
As someone who is black and impacted by these recent events - think of them as a giant pouring of gasoline on an already present fire. People are grieving pain that has been present for years. People grieve in different ways. I don't agree with using violence, looting, rioting as a means of grieving, yet I can fully understand why others have taken that route. The riots are in fact a symptom...not an excuse. It's a fact. Slavery was a "well known problem", but it took the Civil War to see the Emancipation Proclamation come into fruition.
Getting rid of racism in America's systems and in individuals is going to take a lot of effort along with moments like this where everyone is reminded of exactly how much progress is left.
I stumbled on an interesting phrase for the looting: "looters are not protestors, and protestors are not looters." Some may even distinguish protesters from rioters. Indeed, there are black people still peacefully protesting, even against the use of uncontrolled destruction. It doesn't make sense for people (of different races) to destroy and at the same time rake the reputation of black people through the mud for a moment of... satisfaction (?) without care for the people - even black people - who will be suffer for it.
But I am certain that whoever, regardless of race, is stealing from some designer store does not give a flying fuck about the movement - at least when compared to their greed. BLM is not about the use of slave labor predominant in the clothing industry.
The reason why recognizing group dynamics is important is because it can serve as a means to deprive individual liberty.
In the case of the protests I expect people are turning out for at least a few different reasons:
* this is an issue they are concerned about, and now there seems to be sufficient attention on it to actually cause change;
* this is an issue they are concerned about, and they have nothing else to do given the coronavirus lockdown;
* they're bored and it could be fun;
* it could be an opportunity to cause destruction (videos suggest a number of police see the protests in this light).
In terms of protests and riots being a symptom of a sick system, that is absolutely the case. History has many examples of change that was only brought about by the large scale demonstrations (e.g. women's suffrage, civil rights). In a better system this would not be required. Effecting change that is not in the interests of the ruling class is incredibly difficult in most of our democracies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_(belief_revisio...
I guess I'm not totally sure what point you're trying to make, what's your theory exactly?
People are coalescing into groups more so for non cognitive behaviors than for deliberate premeditated concerns but when confronted by that reasoning deflect. When confronted they don’t deny it or excuse it but instead argue defense of positions that were never in question.
There are few things more loaded with terrible, horrifying historical imagery in America than a white police officer lynching a black man.
And I promise you, the significance of this horrific imagery was not lost on a single black American.
Might be that they were busy working/worrying about corona? Busy making a living? Being under circumstances that were already straining the limits, but not straining enough to actually riot?
Via anger, sadness, depression - whatever?
As an Army guy with a family embarking on his fifth overseas deployment spontaneous bursts of rage are frowned upon. I don’t do that. I have gotten comfortable to sparse, tiny, lonely living conditions and learned to regulate my mental health according to the expectations at hand.
> the progress just isn't quick enough
I suspect the majority of people engaging in riots, and possibly the protests as well, have provided little to no participation of any kind towards these social concerns before two weeks ago, and if that is true the speed of progress is irrelevant.
The thing about counterinsurgency is that shooting insurgents makes more insurgents. Especially the indiscriminate use of "non lethal" rounds to cause severe and permanent injuries: shooting people, including reporters and medics, in the face with rubber bullets. Every act of filmed violence (e.g. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1268759072876224514 ) makes the situation worse.
And the two feed off each other. The overseas wars return to domestic strife. A historical example: https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1267539424549769219
According to the definitions though it is not an insurgency. An insurgency is violent opposed to a non-violent rebellion. Most peaceful protesters appear to disavow violent rioters.
I suspect their point was that quoted line. I didn’t miss it so much as I just didn’t comment on it when the rest of the comment is just such nonsense.
And I've read enough history to wonder why and how the black population has suffered so much injustice for so long. You ask "why now" and you question their motives. But the only explanation I could come up with - for why they suffered in silence for the last few decades - was that the enemy was too formidable. Yet there is a breaking point, and George Floyd probably was it. I'm not hopeful that there will be any change though. On the contrary the American system will make black people pay, in a long, insidious, and institutional manner.
> It is not about you, but about the historical imperialism America
This host nation invited American presence as a partner.
Would there be riots right now had Floyd not been killed? Have you even seen a riot started out of nothing? Just for fun?
I doesn't change the original point that if a politician's first goal is to stop the riots, it's only to cover a symptom while the real problem is not fixed. And it's a matter of time before everything starts over again.
It's a pretty well-known phenomenon. You hold a sports riot when your team wins, not when it loses.
Seen any riots in Iraq? What did you think the Arab Spring was?
(Conversely I suspect the people in the protests are almost certainly all politically engaged and at least vote. The previous political engagement of BLM has not achieved anywhere near the same results as the protests have. The protests appear to be the only way to get police charged for murder even when there is clear video evidence.)
Do you see how superficial this appears?
In case you didn't know, BLM has been around for a long time and NAACP has been around even longer. The issue of systemic violence against minorities has also been an issue in the American social scene for at least the last 100 years.
People are coalescing into groups more so for non cognitive behaviors than for deliberate premeditated concerns but when confronted by that reasoning deflect. When confronted they don’t deny it or excuse it but instead argue defense of positions that were never in question.
> Do you see how superficial this appears?
Good. That is my point. If you find the subjects that people are protesting about concerning and important you should very much care whether outside observers see something sincere or superficial.
The rest of your comment I agree with 100% and have been repeating this numerous times without directly specifying organizations by name.
I also believe rioting is contagious. But that doesn't mean it doesn't require justification. Otherwise, wouldn't we see riots totally disconnected from any justification? But few people, when they see vandalism and don't agree with the cause, won't join in. Not enough to spark a riot.
>Why suddenly congregate into emotional hysteria, especially since other people have been actively addressing these concerns for years, when the problems of complaint are preexisting and were clearly previously known to these congregants?
There have been protests, lawsuits, smaller violent reactions, and other riots for decades. It doesn't seem sudden to me.
Sensitive people like you make me sad. [from your own bio]
To me labelling people who collectively rise up against systemic domination as 'emotional hysteria' is just the epitome of cruelty.
#blacklivesmatter
[EDIT] to put it another way, there's a cost to political action. That a lot of people might see that cost WRT anti-police-brutality protests as lower, and the benefit it yields higher, this week than they did two weeks ago, and so be willing to participate, is not "emotional hysteria". Not that nothing that could be described as that has been involved at any point in the process, but that seems reductionist to the point of being very wrong as a characterization for the overall movement.
Of course, if you're saying society at large is irrational I pretty much agree... but within the context of social expectation, I'd say it's pretty rational to compute that your contribution is more likely to land once a movement has already started. If anything, those who first begin the movement are the most irrational (since the likelihood of success is much lower compared to the personal cost to the individual).
In other words: if you live in an irrational system, the only way to be rational is to behave irrationally.
EDIT: Italicizing.
Same with calling protestors "irrational" -- maybe to your point of view, they are but this is not an objective statement by any definition of the word.
Sure, but that's not what I described.
I am not sure why that word comes across as offensive given that people were rioting. I can’t think of any better example of a sudden burst of excess emotion.
Also meditation was for me a pretty good mood improver, but it's more recently helped me uncover some painful thoughts and surface emotions that I'd essentially avoided without realising it.
Lastly, the value of exploring all these things with a therapist can't be overstated, if you have the privilege to afford it.
For a long time I had many small and (apparently) inconsequential triggers which brought up past anxieties, or memories of the awkward and the nervous. Previously, I would remember such event and feel a brief stab of shame, etc. and then throw the memory back into the recesses of the mind to come back again whenever it felt like tormenting me. So a few a months ago I started catching these repressive thoughts - delibrately pulling them back after discarding them - and analysing them. I quickly realised that I had been letting them hassle me without giving them adequate thought as to why.
I think this is also relevant to some of the other comments about proactivity in challanging mental illnesses (not that I am qualified, or that it really covers anything or everything), in that the plunge into the icy and dark waters maybe harder to handle than the swim.
I have come to realize that I have a lot of weird trust issues that stem from my desire to be perceived in a given way. Further analysis has helped me realize I want to be perceived that way because it's a defense mechanism for me - by being seen as the person who can fix anything, I feel better about things I can't control like pandemics and unrest. For me this also ties into how I self perceive my own value - being useful gives me value. This then begs the question of why I feel such a strong need to be externally validated...
And obviously your particulars are different but the goal is to open the dust covers and understand what is driving and controlling the mental machine.
Generally the situation doesn't warrant shame, and there's underlying reasons for you feeling the shame about that situation. You can learn a lot about yourself from those.
A good friend can do the same thing, but even with the best of intentions not everyone knows how to non-judgmentally help you address issues without unintentionally causing more shame. Sometimes the reasons we keep these thoughts to ourselves is because we shared them in the past and were hurt by the response.
I took a somewhat lower salary so I can have a lower commute. My commute currently is 5min drive (never), 20min metro, 60min walk, or 15min leisurely cycling. I usually choose the walk or bike, unless it is raining. I have not driven even once to work in 2.5yrs.
Similarly, i "traded" money for beauty -- an apartment on the bike trail. I'm paying about $150/mo more but my daily commute is now 95% through the forest on a bike trail. The commute has almost no traffic. I either think, listen to audiobooks, or catch up with my mom on the phone during commutes. Sometimes I try to just relax with the goal of Shinrin-yoku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy
I realize this isnt possible for everyone. It may not even be possible for me long-term -- how often do you get an office and apartment along a wooded bike trail? In my case, I did take a hit on level/salary to achieve this (temporarily?) I was previously a startup CTO and usually get headhunter messages for CTO jobs (20-30 person companies) and FAANG jobs, etc. I generally cant explain it but I'm just taking a breather for myself. I still work hard now, but my daily time on the trails are sacrosanct.
It seems like another world given previous jobs (trading floor in NYC, management consultant with global travel, startup CTO with overseas sales/operations.) But I'm so happy I tried this out and continue to keep with it, despite the many seemingly better opportunities out there.
The sad thing is these geographical situations are not usually available with the types of jobs i'd like, or I'd try to have both! Before, I could have done the same thing, say, at Central Park or Hyde Park -- but -- lets be honest and ask whether it happens or not? It rarely did for me outside weekends. Now, I "force" myself to do this twice a day.
If fixing your mental health was simple then it wouldn't be such a prevalent problem.
To be fair to your point though the article does say we should shift our thinking on mental health to the same perceptions granted towards physical health. That should mean the mental health evaluation equivalent of a physical every four years. That is absolutely beneficial to everybody because even perfectly healthy people get regular physicals even when they are perfectly healthy.
The fallacy hidden in the article is that each of us is completely in control over our physical and mental well-being. That your well being isn't an inevitability but a choice. If it's a choice, then this implies that making the right choices is 100% your own responsibility.
Sure, the author does raise a number of fair points about mental healthcare and how some good daily habits affect your own well being.
But then the author completely misses the mark in the conclusion.
No two human lives are the same. Everyone's experience is uniquely different and shaped by an infinite number of events and circumstances past, present and future. Most of which humans don't even get to control directly. The idea of controlling your life and the optimistic view that one is able to mould it towards an ideal stems in Modernistic tradition.
Human minds are doing poorly at self diagnosing, while it's very hard for others to spot the signs of mental health issues. Mental health is also deeply woven into the identity and the personality of individuals. Personal struggles are very much part of being an individual.
Rather then pandering "we should invest in our mental wealth" or even "we should go for a yearly mental health check up", start by sitting down and listening compassionately to those around you first, without offering any practical solutions. If someone lost a loved one, they don't want to hear "maybe you should see a therapist" right off the bat, they are addressing you directly, and they hope you're just willing to listen and acknowledging their pain and not much more.
If someone states they suffer depression, anxiety or PTSD, rather then arguing semantics, the more important questions to ask would be: Am I listening to this person, what are they trying to say and do I understand what they are saying?
Finally, statements that start with "we should..." without backing up their claim, tend to rustle my Jimmies. Who's this "we" anyway? And why am I being dragged into the argument from the outset?
This is nonsense. The author makes no such argument, you're just projecting it onto him.
"Here are some things you can do to proactively manage your mental health, rather than ignoring it until you have a crisis" is in no way putting 100% of the responsibility on the individual.
Of course not. Your dentist does understand the difference between what you can do and can't do. But context matters. And I'd venture your insurance may hold a different idea about personal responsibility.
The same applies to a self-described silicon valley angel investor, founder, podcaster, author and general start-up helper who writes about "investing in mental wealth".
The problem is that the implication of articles like this one is that if you don't do those things any resulting mental health problems are your own fault. It reinforces the awful reasoning stupid people use like "Oh, you didn't exercise or get good sleep? No wonder you're depressed then! It's your own fault."
My original comment intended to discuss mental health by pointing out that the author skipped several fundamental aspects and instead packaged general advice points and tried to sell it as "investing in mental wealth".
My criticism is that the article could have said:
Here's some great basic overall advice that helps you day-to-day. But let's acknowledge that mental health isn't shaped in a vacuum. Environmental and societal issues do have a big impact on the experience of individuals. And unless there's an honest debate about that, many people will keep on struggling.
Equally, it's perfectly valid to talk about preventative dental care. But let's also acknowledge that dental health doesn't exist in a void and that it is very much tied into one's socio-economic place in society, and the affordances that allow one to maintain their dental health in the first place.
> And these are creating the current environment where we can explore these topics in the abstract collectively — or the acute symptoms we are feeling with loved ones and therapists alike with more positive encouragement from others than ever before, and that helps us zoom in on our individual underlying root causes… and for better or worse, it seems more and more clear that optimal mental health is an individual sport.
Full, hard stop there. Mental health being an individual sport? No. Not by a long shot.
Sure, our own human experience is utterly individual. That is, nobody can feel what you as an individual feel. Barring telepathy, it's not possible to get to the bottom of what someone else is going through. That doesn't mean that your mental health is shaped in a vacuum nor that you are managing your own mental health entirely solo at the end of the day.
Your mental health is tied into your circumstances, your past, your upbringing, the people you met, your current family situation, job, culture, religion, politics, financial situation and so on and so on. How you feel right now is the net result of infinite external and internal factors tying into each other balancing out what goes on in your subconscious.
> Progress is being made, but we have a long way to go in continued open, public dialogue and destigmatization of these common ailments. So when you get a chance to talk about your direct or indirect experience with a mental illness, seize the opportunity to talk about it openly. There’s never been more receptivity to open dialogue than now.
This is true. And those are first steps.But that's not nearly enough. My gripe with the article is that it only lightly brushes the topic of discussing underlying root causes.
For instance, PTSD caused by domestic or child abuse. Sure, you can openly talk about coping with PTSD, have group sessions or do an awareness campaign, but actually creating a socio-economic and judicial environment in which abuse within large communities can be addressed and prevent through strong ties and support networks? It's not exactly like the ball gets pushed forward on this front in a way that a tangible impact has been made, right? If anything, modern life very much puts the focus on the individual with all the unintentional downsides that this brings.
Moreover, this the article simply moves into the opposite direction.
> It goes from a lens of “fixing” to “investing” — in other words, instead of fixing something that is by implication broken, it’s investing in its durability to withstand the wear and tear that comes with modern life. And this begins well before the internal or external life-interrupting event itself (in fact, that is the whole point).
I read this as: there's somehow a way to build "mental credit" that you can expend when you fall on hard times. Yet, the author disregards individual social and economic background, personality traits, and so on.
As I said, sure, to an extent managing stress and sleep are things you do to maintain your own well being... in the present moment. I'd feel down as well if I eat unhealthy, don't get enough sleep and just don't manage the basics in my life properly in general.
But they aren't a silver bullet that solves anxiety and depression caused by losing your job and your house in a pandemic. Neither does a strict and health-focussed training inoculates soldiers against the horrors of the battlefield. The numbers on mental health issues and suicide in veterans serve as a stark reminder here. And they sure aren't a golden hammer that does away with anxiety and depression in teenagers caused by peer pressure or meeting the high expectations by parents and guardians.
> For example, instead of just thinking about fixing an acute financial problem like personal debt, wiser heads are thinking about investing in the optimal outcome with almost every economic decision; financial freedom.
> Instead of fixing a mental illness when it comes across your path, it’s investing in the optimal goal with daily and weekly habits beginning as a teenager; mental freedom. After all, optimal outcomes are planned years and decades in advance. We have this understanding in other investments in our lives… financial, career, relationships, acquired skills, hobbies, etc, and we’re starting to have that with regards to mental health, and I want to further encourage that with the concept of mental wealth.
Okay. This is where the article devolves in pandering. What is this "optimal goal" exactly? What are "optimal outcomes" here? And why is mental health a separate item on the list between "financial career" and "relationships"?
In my opinion, the author does nothing more then dumbing the concept down. Sure, maybe you don't read in his writings that mental health is 100% the responsibility of the individual. But I'd wager that a sizeable part of his audience would be most willing to believe this, for the simple reason that it's far easier to accept simple solutions then deal with the murkiness and complexity of human minds.
Finally, I made the effort to construct a criticism and all you give me is a "you're just projecting"? Please. You'll have to do better then that.
So much of mental health advice can be boiled down to "you must adapt to your environment, and if you can't, then your struggles are your fault for failing to adapt." The burden falls on the individual, but not on the systems they live in. The context surrounding a person is rarely acknowledged, and is often treated as an invisible normal.
But, it's not always reasonable to expect someone to adapt. Change takes a hell of a lot of effort! And, as you've pointed out, there are factors that could make it hard or impossible for someone to change. Asking someone to adapt themselves to fit rigid expectations and norms might erase parts of their identity in the process, too. Is that a sacrifice worth making?
That's why I advocate for adapting the environment to the person whenever possible. Providing accommodations, addressing the root causes of stress, and carving out little spaces of safety and comfort. And, if it's not possible, then I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes things are just shitty. Sometimes your mental health is fucked, and there's not much you could have done to avoid it. That helps stop me from falling into a guilt spiral where I blame myself and get even more anxious/depressed.
But, overall, these days my mental health is so much more community-oriented than it was before. IMO, people deserve to live in better conditions, and shouldn't carry the burden of making that happen entirely on their own.
Okay, that's your view. I've taken control in the areas listed, I pay attention to what I'm doing, I'm journaling, noticing what improves my well-being and it's been a great journey that is helping me with my depression tendencies. I am proud to feel that I now have control to go to sleep over Youtube rabbit holes till the sun comes up, etc. etc. I am moulding myself and it's largely thanks to helpful material that doesn't just say you are good as you are, keep being a slob who never exercises, procrastinates eternally, etc. Keeping my wakeup time constant and going running first thing in the morning has helped me a ton. The exercise and the regular wake up makes me sleepy in the evening, I don't need coffee in the morning etc. Things do work.
> Human minds are doing poorly at self diagnosing, while it's very hard for others to spot the signs of mental health issues. Mental health is also deeply woven into the identity and the personality of individuals. Personal struggles are very much part of being an individual.
I don't want my struggles with my sleep schedule to be part of being an individual. Nor do I want my gaming addiction to define myself. Nor my anxieties.
You don't realize that this attitude of "anything goes", "you are okay", "no lifestyle can be ever better than any other" can give people the idea that there is nothing for them to do. That things will necessarily stay the same until some big social revolution comes sometime in a few... decades?
People can take action here and now however small. The feeling of a bit of control and agency can do wonders and can snowball into great things.
The simplistic version of this is telling a depressed person they should "lighten up." But such a person may not have the resources to just change their mood on a whim, and when they also realize this and internalize it, they may become defensive. If they are unable to follow this "simple advice" to just become "okay" again in the context of society at large, their reaction could only reinforce those self-destructive thoughts. Because I am unable to just do these simple things, then what is my value in life, and so on.
There can be a meta to this mentality. A lot of such people could be well aware they are not okay, and still not have any intention to get better, for a variety of reasons. The assumption is that every person wants to act for their own benefit. There are some people who only want to act for their own detriment. Someone defensive enough could just twist the words of "you could do better," which are completely well-intended, into meaning "but I'm failing to, and that is my fault, and that means I am not good enough for you." They can just believe the helper thinks less of them because they just can't do what they say, and ignore anything they say to the contrary, to make a point. And that is what is defined as "success" for them - proving that they are not good enough to the people that want them to improve, through their own actions. So with that mindset it is an endless negative feedback loop that will frustrate everyone trying to genuinely help the person, until they all give up or nothing ever improves and then said person is left alone with their own thoughts. And then anything could happen.
But that is not to say that it's the same with anyone who is genuinely willing to listen and take advice to heart. You can choose to say "yes, and here are the steps I'll take to get to 'okay'". It's just that not all people are open to advice, and sometimes the only way to make those people listen is to pay other people to force their own worldviews on them (therapists), "for their own good," like a parent would to a naive child who refuses to listen.
And in the end, some people still cannot be changed.
Someone suffering depression, anxiety or any mental health issue rarely follows rational logic in their thinking about themselves or the world. That's what makes it so hard on their support network. It's not something you solve by readily giving particular advice.
Therapists usually don't force their views on their patients either. On the contrary. My therapist explained to me that they simply listen and act as a mirror who reflects without judging on what's being said in a session. They act like a guide you're free to follow. A good therapist is able to establish a bond of trust.
Even so, therapy isn't a magic bullet either. Plenty of patients drop out after a few sessions because they fail to connect with their therapist. This isn't a bad thing in itself: it's better to find someone with whom you do connect. Paradoxically, therapy failing is just as often validating that confirmation bias mental health patients have about therapy.
For sure. I think of it more as something that gets stored in the back of the mind, so it can be recalled when the person is ready. That may come in 1 year, in 3 years, in 10 years or never.
Making someone want to do stuff is futile. Just like it is futile to make yourself want stuff. It has to come from the inside (and what's "inside" gets there over a long time from the outside). And for every such blog post there may be someone out there who goes: I've been hearing this stuff for so long now, you know what, I'm gonna actually try it and will wake up at a regular time for the next 7 days and will do a short morning exercise. Now how and why someone will get in this receptive phase is a mystery. But it happens and when it does, it's good to have good advice material out there, because people may google for this kind of stuff. You decide you want to fix some of your issues, and by the "grace of god" you feel like you can take a step towards this for some reason so you google tips for your situation and then you may actually do it.
Now, will everyone do it reliably just because they read a blog post? Of course not. But it's better than just leaving it all to only pills and doctors (note: of course take your meds) and not telling people anything about what they could do right now based on evidence. The body is a machine that reacts to what you put into it and how you treat it. It's not a mystery and just hearing this or knowing this CAN (in some cases, not all) help people gain a bit of control and see that even if they cannot control much, they can move their body parts and can at least a little bit move in the direction that they want to go towards. Little by little.
If you think all it takes is willpower and you force and force till you break down and conclude that you're just worthless, then you're doing it wrong. There is a sense in which self-improvement as a concept is bullshit, in the sense that Alan Watts expresses here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlNVQ-_y4-0
Ultimately nothing is "deeply broken" in some metaphysical sense in this universe. When we say something is "bad" it just a shorthand to mean we don't want it to be like that. It isn't bad deep down in the fabric of the physical universe. The universe is very aloof and unresponsive and ignorant of what we want or not. It's not trying to spite you when you fail, it just doesn't know what the hell we want from it. When my shoes get dirty, it's not because the world has decided to spite me and make me angry. Reality has no concept of "dirt", it doesn't know that I didn't intentionally scoop up the dirt with my shoes while walking. It's the same mechanism that we sometimes use to intentionally get sticky materials onto a surface. The way to communicate what you want from reality is through action, because that's the language that reality speaks.
The whole self-improvement business has to be done in an intricate balance between taking it playfully and taking it seriously. This is really hard to express properly in a comment. Ultimately you will always have something else to desire, something else to work towards, nothing will be ultimately and finally satisfactory unless you also work on your mindset.
But there are better and worse states of being in some sense. Having anxiety, depression, insomnia, brain fog, addiction, obesity etc. is in some very real sense worse than being fit and in a good mood by default. With the caveats above.
Making people want something is almost impossible. Nobody could ever make me exercise a few years ago. It was just not part of my identity. I thought the gym was for just for loud tough gym bros on steroids looking to get more one night stands. Blog posts and articles like this slowly accumulate in the back of one's mind. And when shit gets really rough and you by yourself come to the realization that you will now do something. Not because you have to or it's your duty or because anything, but you just know that you will now do something because you know things are not going well. Then if you stored these tips up, you may say, you know what, I'm going to actually try that thing I've read about so much in the context of mental health and depression. You will have something to reach for.
Sure there can be other underlying causes for why your life is derailed. But first and foremost you need to fix yourself as a biological homo sapiens to a certain level so that you can engage in the complex task of untangling why you slid off the road. (Beyond a certain point you need a therapist clearly, but only beyond a certain point). Once you have the mental clarity and energy and a baseline okayish mood, you can think of what lead to all this. Maybe you're giving 200% at work, trying to satisfy everyone, while others are actually taking credit for your work who work way less intensely. Maybe you're pushing hard at work to become a martyr and aren't actually using your energy in an efficient manner and others are more ahead because they are working more efficiently not harder. Maybe you seek validation in your professional life because your intimate relationships are failing. Why are they failing, why do you have no friends, are there perhaps practical issues involved, do you commute too long, could you move closer to places where socializing would be easier etc etc. But you cannot begin to tackle these questions is you're in the loop of rough sleep, tons of caffeine, 200% hard work for someone else, stuffing yourself with ice cream and chocolate at home alone, then binge watching stupid youtube videos while downing beer after beer, staying up late, and repeating the cycle.
Don't question it with 23 additional meta levels of buts and ifs and counterintuitive speculations that it will then mean that I am X, Y, Z. Or that it will mean that I should have already done it. Or that I have to admit something or judge myself or I won't be able to keep it up, that I tried so many things already or whatever. Too much thinking. Just do it, shoes on, no thinking, go for a walk/jog. Care for your biological animal side. No questions, you don't need to rationalize it, you don't have to have a great scientific explanation. There can always be questions and doubts. But fixing basic lifestyle will be beneficial. There's no way you're going to end up worse by fixing these. I found it to be very beneficial to read Zen texts and koans and listen to Alan Watts to stop the destructive thought loops and realize their absurdity.
But surely, sometimes all it takes is not conceptual intellectual advice, just a hug, a gentle look, a soothing voice etc. But an article cannot provide this by its nature, so it will be about practical, conceptual things.
This is a good way to view it, thanks.
I'm just trying to figure out how humans, with personal intentions of constructing things, fit into this framework.
But at the same time, it's important to recognize that there's far to the story then this. Mental health is just as much rooted and so many other factors not in the least social and economic circumstances.
This just half the story. The other half is actually the difficult part of addressing root causes. Such as growing up in a dysfunctional or abusive family situation. Or having a disposition towards addiction. Or being the butt of systemic discrimination i.e gender, physical appearance, disabilities, cultural background, skin colour, income level,...
Sure, you could tell someone "the cause of your fatigue and latent depression is your 4 hour daily commute." but that's not something you can readily change if that individual doesn't have the affordances - degree, income, dependents,... - that allows them to either get a job closer to home or move closer to their job.
Neither does it do to tell someone "Your lack of self-confidence and anxiety is a matter of stress management and lack of sleep" if they are under tremendous peer pressure compelling them to conform to particular culture or mentality at school, among friends, at work or at home which is at odds with their personality and who they are.
The entire picture matters.
My gripe with the article isn't that it dispenses advice in line with what you're saying - advice I wholeheartedly agree with in it's own right - my gripe is that the article simply doesn't even begin to address the complex reality that underpins mental health issues. Instead it deprecates entire fields of study because either "they don't know what they're talking about" and "it's been in stasis for decades now without any new insights" and then substitutes that by launching new concepts called "mental wealth" making bold claims about "investing" and "durability" rather then "fixing".
Putting your shoes on, no thinking, start walking. I can get behind that. It helps to clear the air and get in the present moment. And I'm sure a part of the audience will take that advice and apply it tot heir own betterment. But it shouldn't detract from the real hard work up ahead.
So I see that not just this article, but articles like this in general floating around half-assedly in public consciousness can create an atmosphere where the attitude is that everyone who is down there got there by their lack of will, by their corrupt soul, and deserve it etc. which seems to be a common framing in the US. I don't live in the US and I myself are pretty far from that framing and may be too blind to its bad effects. So by all means, fighting for political change and for creating a social net that catches people and bounces them back up is very important.
But certainly in another sense, for a particular person it's a bad strategy to wait for others to pull them out of the mud. It may never happen. There are plenty of people who remain in that type of cycle, get all types of disease, die early etc. There won't be any dramatic music or moral lesson in the end, they just die with perhaps few people caring about even that fact. I like the quote "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." It's also similar to the Christian idea of Christ embracing the sinful and loves them in their humanity as they are right now, not only in some idealized version of them. Or the 12 step program for addicts, etc. If you take note of where you are, you can make a deliberate small move to where you want to be, instead of doing a random walk. Of course this only benefits you in some sense, but after a while it can expand and snowball to improvements for your family etc.
The top-down solution and the bottom-up solution can and should coexist.
You're at this point because you came to an understanding about yourself and that you don't have to let those issues define who you are. At the same time, who you are today is very much someone who faces this challenge, and this is intrinsically a part of your identity. This is neither good or bad. There's no judgement or value attribution here.
The observation here is that you wouldn't be who you are today if your life took a different road, either by your own choice or by circumstance.
My point isn't that life is pre-destined or pre-determined. Each moment is an opportunity to do something that pushes your life in one way or another. But the opportunities and the choices life hands you? Those aren't infinite and neither are you in complete control over what will cross your road.
Sleep, eating, stress management, exercise,... those are all good habits that will help open doors to other sets of opportunities and choices which you wouldn't have if you didn't mind them at all.
But in my view, the author overstates their importance to the point where he simply ends up disregarding many other factors that determine one's mental well being which often have a larger impact.
Some respond more to rational reasoning, some to emotional ones.
There is no general recipe.
> If someone lost a loved one, they don't want to hear "maybe you should see a therapist" right off the bat, they are addressing you directly, and they hope you're just willing to listen and acknowledging their pain and not much more.
While you directly address listening I think, more broadly, you mean to suggest active empathy. I fully agree and it’s a skill many people inadequately develop or practice.
Imagine if we simply observed obesity as "what happens to x% of the human population after y years of exposure to this environment".
Imagine if we observed the growing disconnect between intelligence and critical thinking ability as a function of changes in the information ecology.
But the article isn't about fixing your mental health, it's about investing in it. Your comment is like getting angry that a blog post that goes "take care of yourself, eat fruit every day!" is "putting 100% of the onus for dealing with obesity on the individual".
Also I think your attitude is unnecessarily defeatist. So what are you suggesting instead, that rather than attempting to build healthy habits, depressed people should give up?
Telling people to do that when they are struggling with big social problems (unemployment, poor access to education, discrimination...) or already existing mental issues is very harsh.
A lot of people with two jobs and a rent to pay have no time to sleep/exercise/meditate/read/whatever.
A lot of people with mental issues have no mental energy to sleep/exercise/meditate/read/whatever.
This entreprenurial opportunity could only help the more well-off with mental issues, of course.
On a broader scale, whenever I read comments like yours, I wonder what the point is. What do you suggest people in those situations do? What's your alternative advice as to how they might improve their lives? Because all I hear, in general, is 'well, this is good advice, except it'll be hard for some people to follow it because x'. I never hear the next part where people explain what those in those situations should do before following the above advice.
Or are we just taking it for granted that there will be people who will just live in misery until the day the revolution comes?
As a mindset, it just doesn't seem complete.
The thing is, there are testimonies of tons of people online who fixed so much about their life, based on tips like this. I'm very much against this attitude of "let's keep good advice secret, so we don't look too judgmental". This is what leads to things like "health at every size" and "fat acceptance". That you can no longer spread advice on how you can massively improve your well-being and life expectancy by losing weight, because this is somehow too judgmental towards people with conditions that make weight loss unusually hard.
Second order effects are important, sure, and there can be counterintuitive consequences and other weird smart stuff. But first and foremost, there are tons of stuff that people can do right now to improve their lives. I am really greatful for the existence of articles like this, because this stuff helped me and if it was for you, we'd only have articles that make us all resentful, bitter and give up trying.
And OF COURSE the system needs to change, especially in the US. How they treat mental illness by policing, the whole consumerist propaganda, the stress inducing, hyperoptimized apps, the hyperpalatable foods that are engineered to trick us to eat more and get fat etc. etc. they all need to be addressed. We cannot expect people on a massive scale to suddenly be able to counteract these immense forces raining down on them all day every day from all channels, billboards, ads etc. guiding them towards a harmful life.
In summary
1) When giving advice to an individual it's about how to thrive in a cold hard world that doesn't care a bit about whether they are happy or suffer or live or die. What you can do, you should because ultimately you have different paths forward and working step by step, little by little, while not beating up yourself in the process can be immensely helpful. Not because you will get praise or because you obeyed the commands of the white coats, but because you will genuinely be better for your own sake.
2) When talking to people who have their shit together, advocate for compassion towards those who are in a messy situation. But really helping is hard. Teaching to fish vs giving fish etc. Just because someone has a messed up life with mental health issues doesn't make them into angels, that would be some variant of "noble savage". It can be difficult to help, you may be used, you may be tricked, and progress is not guaranteed.
Think of it as an analogue of the Liskov Substitution Principle. Prepare the person to be strong in a harsh environment and simultaneously work on making the environment less harsh so that less strong people can also thrive.
As cliche as it sounds it felt like if I took care of these two things, everything else will take care of itself. Since last 15 days, I feel reinvigorated once again as I focus on these two things. There is a long way to go to fully undo all the damage, but I feel I am on track.
At some level our bodies are like machines. Feed it crappy fuel (food) and don’t give it good maintenance (exercise and sleep) and it won’t run well.
those are actually the 4 pillars of health: eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, minimize stress
- Clean the spaces you are in, bedroom, kitchen, office, living room, etc - Learn to communicate with an open heart. The book "Nonviolent Communication" is a great resource. - Be careful of your thoughts. Don't even joke negatively about yourself. It really does affect you even if you're not aware.
Eat well, get some sun, drink water. You are like a houseplant with more complex emotions.
90% of the time when I’m feelint crabby it’s because I’m hungry or dehydrated. Moving also always helps.
Some beliefs are so destructive that no amount of exercise will alleviate their effect. For instance, some people are what I call blamers. They believe that their misery is because of life, others, society... They refuse to accept what life has given them (whether their look, family...). They honestly believe that their misery is result of external consequences. No amount of exercise will fix that. Contrast that to those who are always grateful. Always glad with what they got. Happiness for these is simple.
Quick thought experiment: would you tell a physically abused child, to their face, "Do you honestly believe your misery is a result of external consequences? Be grateful for what you do have."
Some people habitually blame things that they caused themselves on others. Others commit the converse and blame things other people did on themselves. I don't think either of these facilitates your mental health.
If you are an adult, almost certainly things happened to you that weren't your fault, but that are your responsibility. That's life. Life is the process of dealing with those things, and then you die. It sucks, but it's worth it. Am I out of platitudes yet?
All these habits are founded on a desire to be better, which in turn needs to be rooted, at least partly, in compassion for yourself. If you don't want to be better, because you don't think you deserve it, because you have had that beaten into you, why would you exercise or eat better? And the only way you're guaranteed to have compassion for you when you need it is to learn how to generate it yourself. You're not going to exercise or eat clean or anything healthy sustainably if you're sustaining it by abusing yourself verbally or emotionally. So don't do that.
So, for some, it can help.
This is a significant, non-scalable investment of time and effort in the well-being of another. It wouldn't surprise me if such experiences were in extremely short supply in those people's lives. From my experience, there's a significant chunk of the population for which this sort of investment is a required component for their on-going sense of self-worth.
I'm not sure why, but my experience is that tech culture is particularly prone to an almost axiomatic rejection of this aspect of human interaction and well-being, and often exhibits significant prejudice towards those for whom this external requirement for well-being manifests.
Some examples:
* treating all human beings as a whole, which allows people to share happiness on other people's achievement - this kind of resonates with the theory of Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, where it argues that the goal of all humans is to maximize the chance that the entire gene pool will continue to exist
* reduce sense of one's own identity - which helps people during hard times by thinking about how small one single person is compared to the entire race, maybe even the entire universe
And of course, there's the advocate around being grateful, being compassionate, do more meditation etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain#Metabolism
As mental health deteriorates the consumption of resources required by the brain can fall out of rhythm to the detriment of the rest of the body.
No matter what the exercise is, ease in, find a trainer (you don't need one for long depending on what you're doing), and be smart.
Though, I wouldn't say it was the only "code to living a good life". After a problematic job, I'd also add work/life balance, on top ofrelationships (friends and family) and your faith.
Go figure, at some point your body stops being able to find something (I still have no idea what) to do with an extra 2-2.5k calories a day of crap, 6hrs a night of sleep starts to leave you dragging after one night of it, and you can't live like that anymore (well, you can, but it'll be... very bad).
Doing the same with a car at 80,000 miles is outright dangerous. But if taken care of properly, older cars can drive just as great as newer ones, and sometimes a well-maintained older car can drive even better than a neglected newer car.
I'm not sure about the broader society, but I think this mentality is still prevalent in both physical and mental health these day.
My mother was a very health conscious person (to the level of insanity) but one attitude she showed that I think lead to long term mental/physical health improvement is what your attitude towards medicine is. She saw medicine never as a solution but a temporary band-aid and if you use one medication more than once, it is a indication that something in your life is terribly wrong. I don't share that absolutist attitude, some situations are only solvable with medical interference. But where you draw this line seems to have an profound effect.
I've observed that people that consider medicine (both for physical & mental health) as a part of the solution to a problem they have in life never achieve to get out of their trouble. If you're living a unhealthy lifestyle, any health complications are amplified and taking medicine might suppress it for now, but unless you change the underlying life-style, it will slowly make things worse. Same goes for mental health; If your mental life style is unhealthy (bad social interaction, information consumption that most lead to negative emotions etc), any amount of anti-depressant won't get you out of trouble. You're only delaying it.
You're suggesting that I shouldn't get the same chemotherapy for relapsed cancer or that my relapse is because of "something in my life is terribly wrong".
Because the treatment worked to get it in remission, fuck me for wanting to take the same medicine again?
Lots of people suffer from poor health through no fault of their own. Arguing that their ills must be because of poor life choices is victim blaming.
Just because you're lucky enough to not have suffered chronic ill health doesn't mean others have been so lucky.
Take pleasure in your fortune, but don't try to take all credit for it.
I don't feel they were talking about it in an over-generalizing way, just saying that if you're living unhealthily you're going to continue to be/get unhealthy. Medicine and treatment can help though, as a band aid in these cases. Of course this doesn't preclude someone who's generally healthy from getting sick, unfortunately.
But your comment is also correct, just misdirected in this case I feel :)
I would say what it means that medical intervention should be used only as a last resort (or quick) measure.
To quote the key paragraphs:
>>I have seen what modern medicine does to people. "You cholesterol is too high, take this statin and your number will get better. Don't take it and you will have a heart attack". And then you have family members and friends take the drugs, and start having side effects.. random pain, random problems that stop them from being physically active. So then they go back to a doctor and get some new medicines, that maybe fixes the pain, but then adds a new side effect. And pretty soon they are bed ridden and taking 14 pills to stay alive. What a bunch of crap.
>>I am not anti-medicine, but I am anti-cutting-edge-for-margain-gain medicine. If you have AIDs, you probably should take some medicine. I vaccinate myself and my children. However I think that if you are active and eat well, I don't care what my cholesterol is. Maybe it is high, maybe it isn't. And if you aren't active or eating well - you need to fix that (not take medicine). If I start dying of cancer, I will throw every medicine I can find at it. But if I am good and healthy, I am going to leave well enough alone.
1) I live in Canada, a giant country. But camping is super expensive, $50/night camping. Its unaffordable for any length of time. And many provincial parks sell out.
2) Buying a small piece of land and hand building a tiny cottage is basically outlawed in Ontario. You need building permits and build at least 800 sqft. 100K is probably the base price for the land alone.
3)Despite all the land, there is no program for providing allotment gardens to citizens. Having a small patch of land you can grow vegetables on is rare. But its a thing in many European countries.
4) Where I live all the forests have been cut down, and turned to giant farms long ago. Almost all land is private. You can't just go and wonder.
TV, Video games and Computers are cool and all, but its obviously not something you should be spending most of your day on. But it seems like thats the only affordable entertainment option left for many people.
People are bored, cooped up in tiny apartments because of Covid. I can see why people are rioting in cities. And since so many people seem to be stacking up at zero or negative wealth. Capitalism seems to be under direct attack now, and some serious cracks are forming. The politicians need to revaluate the situation.
Lots of land in North America, why not have a program where poor citizens can get a small lot somewhere, and let them build a small cottage there. Without it costing 100s of thousand and thousands a year in taxes. A place they can take their kids to.
In Vancouver, even downtown, there are a number of community gardens with various vegetables growing.
The author's notion of Mental wealth, using that definition, would be how long can you can reasonably plan to be self assured and make decisions using that frame of mind. An hour? A day? Still looking forward to a positive time period? Even if you are depressed or grieving, you can have mental wealth by accepting those circumstances and recognizing you are making decisions with that as a factor.
Extending that model, mental poverty could be when you are essentially paralyzed or a slave to intrusive thoughts, where you cannot go a few minutes without being interrupted by fears, memories, or imagined conflicts. It's hard to separate the notion of "you," from your thoughts, and there is a part of our mind that needs to convince us they're the same thing, but recognizing that the mind that produces these thoughts can be just like a finger or an appendage that is injured without taking all of you with it is a big leap toward mental "wealth."
Viewed this way, you are not your stubbed toe, or even your broken leg, and the part of your mind that is in pain and cutting you off from the present is not all of you either. You may need to compensate for it until it heals, or even adapt to the injury, but it doesn't mean you should stop making decisions and plans. Recognizing when you aren't making decisions and plans, and exercising the ability to actively decide to do so could be the foundation for building this mental wealth. I like the author's model, it could be useful.
While social anxiety seems to be definitely more prevalent these days, I am wondering if this might be something that actually increases due to the precise lack of sufficient positive community experiences.
Meeting new people has always been uncomfortable and a bit scary for most people, but being part of something low key like a community garden or a group of people playing sports for fun will in my opinion do more for one's mental health than drinking coffee or taking melatonin.
That said, of course not every experience counts as positive nor will every activity suit everyone, it might take some time to find what you enjoy - but it's worth it.
But let's also turn it around and follow the advice, you sleep well, eat healthy, do your round in the gym, meditate and drink your coffee every day. Well, you're still going to feel pretty sad and lonely if the rest of the time you're locked up in your room reading Reddit. The advice given is not bad per se, it's just not complete.
By doing these things you legitimately improve your physical and mental faculties. Of course it's a cycle that feeds back to itself: socializing and having friends will give you motivation to keep up your habits and so on.
Sometimes the first step is fixing the basics so that you have the energy and mood to go out and explore the world and to make people want to befriend you. You have to break the cycle somewhere and it has to be where you are in control, not where other people are in control.
1) Sleep
Tip: "my biggest pro-tip [...] wake up every morning at the same time"
2) Diet
Tip: "Get your food allergens checked and make sure you’re not consuming foods that your allergic to on a regular basis (I used Everlywell.com for their at home food allergy test recently, and it was great)."
Tip: "Consuming multiple alcoholic drinks before bed can absolutely wreck your sleep, which is the first foundation to mental wealth."
3) Exercise
"I’m going to zero in on the anti-inflammatory effects of high intensity aerobic exercise 3 times a week (which incorporates improvement to mood, detoxification, and anti-inflammation). [...] this is all about using a stair-master or elliptical, cycling, or high intensity running for anywhere from 15-30 minutes, etc. 3x per week. Cycling has been shown to be superior to running for the aerobic effects, so I use our family’s Peloton for 20 min HIIT rides at least 3x a week, preferably more. [...] Try this for 4 weeks and see what it does for your mental health (and your sleep)."
4) Stress Management
Tip: "[find] time to sit quietly for 15 minutes in the morning, with your cup of coffee or tea in-hand, to do three primary things has been extremely helpful for me:
(i) Gratitude journaling of 5 things that I’m grateful for (nothing is too small here, from the sunrise to the laugh of my daughter will make the list),
(ii) 2-3 minutes of breathing exercises (google 4-7-8
breathing for a really simple breath work exercise),
(iii) Lastly, 5 minutes outline my to do list for the day."
5) Exogenous Compounds
Tip: "any of these, from the innocuous to the Schedule II prescription, should be last on the list of your personal “mental wealth” audit."
Even then, medicine is super hard since there is so much complexity in the human body and variations across populations, and experiments are extremely costly.
If that's the definition, then there are zero psychiatric drugs that can be classified as western "medicine", as we have yet to understand how drugs like anti-depressants intercourse with the mind ("the mechanism of action deduced").
"psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Allen Frances
It's a very odd use of the world "western"...
When the things mentioned (Sleep, Diet, Exercise, Stress Management, Exogenous Compounds) go out of balance, that "unbalancing" may well be a symptom (consequence) of the mental issue and not the cause as is implied in the article.
You can invest all you want decades in advance in creating balanced habits in those areas and still be disrupted down the line with negative mental health events.
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin
I think these are accurate but a glaring omission is the overarching element of "how good is your life". You can take care of your physiology (and you should) but that won't get you too far if, for example, you're also stuck at a dead end job or if you're completely isolated and have no friends and no intimate partner.
You can say 'healthy' is just a good-enough arbitrary cut-off. For mental health, no glaring neuroses, you usually feel good or neutral about yourself, no suicidal ideation, basically just if none of the markers people've said are unhealthy show up.
- fresh air and sunlight (high CO2 indoors is detrimental to cognition and sun is needed for the circadian rythm and vitamin D and other stuff)
- social contact (appropriate to personality), so friends, family and romantic relationships to the extent and intensity that one's personality needs them
- career success and stable finances: makes one feel useful and takes away a lot of stress and frees up mental energy to think about all the other things mentioned in the article
- winding down sometimes, unplugging from phones, TV etc. One way is meditation, but can also be just sitting with a cup of tea thinking about nothing particular
- learning and trying new things, new foods, new languages, new books or genres
- challenging oneself and overcoming discomfort, physically such as cold showers, or mentally such as public speaking or whatever seems scary/hard
I think the overall idea is a scaffolding of routine and stable structure in life punctuated with deliberate, planned and conscious reaches out of the comfort zone. Like yeah waking up every day is great and much better than a whacky schedule. What's probably even better is having exceptions and whacking up your sleep for one or two weeks per year for a festival or a hike or a few days of intense creative work.
The point is to return to the default every time, but religiously sticking to a rigid routine where you cancel and refuse anything that may conflict with it is only to be recommended to people with really low change tolerance like certain autists. Even they should play with their own limits even if those limits are at a different place.
However, this should be read with some skepticism. The author relies on their own authority as someone who "has been thinking about mental health for 19 years." I was intentional about not googling whoever this is, perhaps they're a medical professional or something. But if that were the case, I would hope they would cite better sources than describing themself as "someone that has paid close attention to this cross-lattice work of interweaving disciplines for a while now". Skimming over buzzwords like "detoxification, and anti-inflammation" is a red flag. The article's first side bar goes on to talk about how "the first medical professionals were surgeons saving a soldier’s life". This is line is particularly disconcerting, but the entire "sidebar" sounds like conjecture. The whole article sounds like conjecture, which should NOT be sold as a source of authority on a topic like health. That is how we get essential-oil anti-vaxxers.
It's now been a few years after my burnout/depression episode and finally someone put my thoughts into words.
I came into the same conclusion after learning about depression, doing therapy, and among other things/research/trying things.
So I refused to take pills, but instead make a lifestyle change. I also started developing Habinator app (see: habinator.com), which is a tool to help to make a change.
I'm glad that there are professional smart people who see the bigger picture in (mental) health and not the short term fix. It would be great if the decision makers and people with money would also see this.
Usually people write to their past selves regarding some regrets in order to ease the pain. Simply putting your thoughts out of the mind and onto the screen helps. And treating your past self as another person helps, too.
Also people write to their future selves to encourage/overcome the fear of the unknown.
I use the schedule future email feature in Gmail it's nice to reflect on in the future my current fears/concerns at that time, am I still alive, etc...
However, I'd absolutely change the order of things to pay attention to. The first one of the mentioned ones should be 'Stress Management'.
If you get this one right, you'll have better sleep, more time (and willingness) for exercise, as well as less of a need for any substances to get you through the day.
Also, he doesn't mention metacognition at all. Paying attention to one own's thought processes is a big part of staying sane in the long term.
Worse, it seems that many doctors and organizations think they can actually do harm given the misinformation they provide:
......
"Patients who ask Dr. Robert Wood, an allergist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, whether they have a food sensitivity would never undergo an immunoglobulin G test. Immunoglobulin G tests “are completely useless and do dramatic harm” because they may compel patients to unnecessarily avoid broad swaths of a healthy diet, Wood said.
“In all my years of practice, I have never sent an immunoglobulin G test because they have no ability to predict food sensitivity,” he said.
That’s because immunoglobulin G stems from the body’s normal immune response to exposure to many substances, including food. High levels don’t indicate a problem; they simply point to foods a person recently has eaten.
For these reasons, a 2008 European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology task force recommended against testing for a type of immunoglobulin G to evaluate for food intolerance. In the report, the group wrote that the test was “irrelevant for the laboratory work-up of food allergy or intolerance and should not be performed in case of food-related complaints.”" [0]
......
"Dr. Neha Shah, a rheumatologist and immunologist at Stanford University, is one doctor who is skeptical.
"What we don't have is proof that having a high IgG level against a particular food item means that that food is causing your symptoms," says Shah.
"A lot of this kind of huxterist testing is keying off of the placebo effect," says Dr. Norman Paradis, a clinical lab expert who teaches at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, referring to the industry in general and not to a particular product. "[1]
......
"The presence of IgG is likely a normal response of the immune system to exposure to food. In fact, higher levels of IgG4 to foods may simply be associated with tolerance to those foods.
Due to the lack of evidence to support its use, many organizations, including the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology have recommended against using IgG testing to diagnose food allergies or food intolerances / sensitivities" [2]
......
The author should seriously consider removing this from their article.
[0]: https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/23/everlywell-food-sensitiv...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/28/6141252...
[2]: https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/library/alle...
The mention of older medicinal systems being focused on prevention and listing Dr. Andrew Weil put me off. IMO, these should be last on your list when you’re looking for help or solutions.
The first half talks about how to treat mental health like we treat physical health, and we treat physical health in a transactional "businesslike" way.
The second half of the article proposes doing exactly the same: extreme measurement of pathologies and solutions instead of going for what feels right to your body.
Worse, it seems that many doctors and organizations think they can actually do harm given the misinformation they provide:
......
"Patients who ask Dr. Robert Wood, an allergist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, whether they have a food sensitivity would never undergo an immunoglobulin G test. Immunoglobulin G tests “are completely useless and do dramatic harm” because they may compel patients to unnecessarily avoid broad swaths of a healthy diet, Wood said.
“In all my years of practice, I have never sent an immunoglobulin G test because they have no ability to predict food sensitivity,” he said.
That’s because immunoglobulin G stems from the body’s normal immune response to exposure to many substances, including food. High levels don’t indicate a problem; they simply point to foods a person recently has eaten.
For these reasons, a 2008 European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology task force recommended against testing for a type of immunoglobulin G to evaluate for food intolerance. In the report, the group wrote that the test was “irrelevant for the laboratory work-up of food allergy or intolerance and should not be performed in case of food-related complaints.”" [0]
......
"Dr. Neha Shah, a rheumatologist and immunologist at Stanford University, is one doctor who is skeptical.
"What we don't have is proof that having a high IgG level against a particular food item means that that food is causing your symptoms," says Shah.
"A lot of this kind of huxterist testing is keying off of the placebo effect," says Dr. Norman Paradis, a clinical lab expert who teaches at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, referring to the industry in general and not to a particular product. "[1]
......
"The presence of IgG is likely a normal response of the immune system to exposure to food. In fact, higher levels of IgG4 to foods may simply be associated with tolerance to those foods.
Due to the lack of evidence to support its use, many organizations, including the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology have recommended against using IgG testing to diagnose food allergies or food intolerances / sensitivities" [2]
......
The author should seriously consider removing this from their article.
[0]: https://www.statnews.com/2018/01/23/everlywell-food-sensitiv...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/28/6141252...
[2]: https://www.aaaai.org/conditions-and-treatments/library/alle...
What's the historical basis for this claim?
Then he indulges in exactly the kind of casual, "if you just do this you'll be _fine_" sort of reasoning from armchair diagnosticians that leads people _actually_ suffering from mental illness to think, "oh man, I guess I'm just undisciplined and all of this is _my fault_."
I'm sorry, but no. Just stop. Your "helpful tips" equate the _symptoms_ of mental health issues (lack of sleep, inability to focus and plan, over-consumption of alcohol, etc.) with the fixes that are available to you if you "just try harder'.
Telling someone deep in debt that smarter decisions made long ago would have avoided their current problems may be _accurate_ but is neither helpful nor compassionate. Likewise, telling anyone who'll listen that acute mental health crises can be prevented proactively by "simply following these few tips" does less than nothing for those suffering right now: in fact, it worsens the perception that their illness is their own fault, it's too late to make any improvement or progress, doctors will just try to sell them snake oil so why bother, etc., etc.
Perhaps if the author had said something like, "I too have struggled with mental health and found the following things made a difference for me. YMMV, and of course you should only attempt self-fixes in combination with treatment by a qualified professional, etc. etc." He did none of that, nor is he a trained psychiatrist or counselor, which makes his "hard-earned wisdom" suspect to me.
"Be more like me and you too can be successful/happy/rich/etc." is not a terribly useful kind of advice. Likewise "the trained experts in the field don't want you to know this, but the solution to $really-hairy-problem is just to $follow-my-convenient-five-point-plan."
In case my umbrage at the tone and content of this article wasn't clue enough: I have been diagnosed as bipolar, with concurrent major depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. Many of the symptoms and aggravating factors were buried or even encourage by the "startup life" and I'm deeply skeptical about VCs and founders who purport to care about the mental health of their peers and employees while making a constant push to "hustle", "put in the hours", "not settle for a lifestyle business", etc.
Throughout my career my manic periods have consistently been the most productive weeks and months of my working life, but the corresponding depressive episodes usually resulted in me being fired or walking away from an otherwise-decent job because no one understood or bothered to ask why a "high performer" had suddenly become flaky and uncommunicative. Advice on how to "prevent" mental illness from those who have neither suffered from it or been trained to treat it is _not_ going to make things better for me or folks with similar experiences.
Instead, I would advocate participating in communities, working for social and environmental justice, volunteering and acting in a spirit of generosity that is directed away from the self. You can do this in many ways and one of them is to participate in non-toxic open source communities that build together and give away the product freely.
In my experience focusing on political causes of any kind is not a great path to happiness, as it almost inevitably results in anger, frustration or sadness at the state of the world.
Neglecting and suppressing emotions definitely doesn't improve mental health. The belief that everything must be happy and bring pleasure is delusional and hurtful.
Clearly you have goals/values other than just "maximising own happiness". If your goal was purely that (not suggesting it should be), then those other values would just stand in the way of happiness.
The stability gained from institution should not be undervalued and easily discarded/bypassed.
Work on social and environmental improvements by the day, asses it on social and environmental justice every month.
- justice cannot be achieved. Look at the courtrooms (which is actually there to serve justice), but is the verdict really justice? So persuing justice can make you cynical - for the example of social justice, you could approach it by thinking it is just (or solves the justice problem) to take away the wealth of the rich. Does this improve the social condition of the unfortunate? Also this can make you radical and bitter. - Also if you go for justice, you might start to see a lot of things as 'unfair' this is a negative feeling
Generally I believe a mindset of helping others/nature by planning to improving things is better (for the cause itself and for oneself) than trying to fight perceived injustices.
Lots of middle-class activists for justice, for example, don't actually seem like most of the poor very much (understandable: the poor are a basket of useful idiot deplorables). They're more motivated by their hatred for the rich, and punishing someone is still justice, even if that won't actually improve the material conditions of the poor (which isn't that big a problem, because some of them are trump voters and we still have to punish them).