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Jonesboro, AR – (Contributed) – As I stated in my first post, it’s really not your imagination; you are busier now than you were in the past.
The number of things you are juggling has increased significantly. Some of it is just part of the world and the time we live in. But some of it is from our own doing and not taking care of what’s important – you.
You can’t be a good wife, husband, parent, boss, employee, friend, caregiver, etc. if you don’t take care of yourself first. When it comes to your health and wellness, be selfish.
| READ MORE: Part 1: Diet • Part 2: Activity • Part 3: Sleep
Approximately 20% of Americans will have clinical depression sometime during their lifetime. From August 2020 to February 2021, between 36 and 41% of adults in the U.S. reported feelings of anxiety or depression. Considering that, during that time frame, we were in the middle of a pandemic, I’m surprised the numbers weren’t higher. However, those statistics were based on survey data, and humans are not the most honest group when it comes to mental health.
Nationally, almost 20% of visits to see a physician have an underlying mental health component. I suspect that number is actually much higher. In my own practice, I would guess it’s closer to 30%. This brings me to my first point.
Everybody Needs a Therapist
Seriously. Some people need to see one once a week, some once a month, and some just once a year, but everybody needs to see one. You need a neutral third party (not a friend, spouse, family member, etc.) that’s going to listen to you and offer honest feedback. Someone who can validate your feelings, but also tell you things you may not want to hear.
Finding a therapist you “click” with can be difficult. I tell my patients that finding a therapist is like trying on shoes. Not every pair will fit, just keep trying different ones. But remember, just because one pair doesn’t fit doesn’t mean you don’t need shoes.
The longer you live, the more likely you are to have an accumulation of unresolved, unprocessed mental trauma. Humans are really good at putting traumatic events into a box and putting them up on a shelf. It’s a defense mechanism so we can go on with our lives. However, over time, that shelf can get full of boxes and eventually break, which results in various responses. Relationship issues, anger, depression, anxiety, problems sleeping, addiction; the list is long.
No one is immune to these issues, and people who interact with the public daily have higher rates of depression and are really good at “shelving things”. As you might expect, those individuals include people in the medical profession, police, fire, 911, and the military. However, they also include people in food services, personal care services, and those in entertainment. As a society, we have done a bad job of recognizing mental health. In fact, it’s historically been looked at as a weakness to even talk about, especially among men.
Untreated depression or anxiety can have a significant effect on our overall wellness. Moderate to severe depression that isn’t treated almost doubles the risk of all-cause mortality (dying from any reason). The risk goes from 5.62 to 9.48 deaths per 1,000 people per year, according to a JAMA study from the American Medical Association. Most of the issues are related to an increase in cardiovascular disease (a 40-50% increase) and death.
Here’s how it works. Depression, anxiety, and/or stress set up a chronic state of hormonal imbalance (mismatches in serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and cortisol) that physically affects our entire body system (called allostatic load), from cognition and memory to routine organ growth and repair.
Hormones are part of the signaling system in the human body that tells it how to perform routine functions and how to respond to external stimuli. When those hormones are out of balance, the whole system gets affected. This is why you can physically feel bad when stressed.
Not managing stress, in particular, can lead to an early decline in cognition, increased risk of heart disease, disruption of immune system function, and it can actually accelerate aging (shortening of the telomeres in your genetic code). In terms of cognition, during periods of stress, cortisol hormone levels are increased.
Over time, that constant increase affects the brain and causes cognitive decline and dementia. We’ve seen this time and time again in people who live in wartime settings, but now we’re seeing that it can happen with things we read, watch on TV, or see on social media.
The Blue People
When we look at community clusters of people that live into their 90’s and 100’s (i.e. Blue Zones), there are some commonalities we see. It’s no surprise that diet and activity are big factors, but equally important is the community they live in. These groups don’t just focus on diet or their activity. They emphasize the connections to others around them (friends and family). It’s a holistic approach that includes attention to the body, mind, and spirit (a core principle of osteopathic medicine).
Humans are communal by nature. We like being around other people, and there is evidence that our happy hormones (dopamine and serotonin) increase in social settings. We also know that isolation is a risk factor for dementia and cognitive decline.
Does having a “Purpose Driven Life” make a difference? We actually have data on this. There was a systematic review and meta-analysis of 37 different research studies in adults aged 50 or older that found that having a “meaning in life” or “purpose in life” was cross-sectionally associated with better performance on verbal fluency and memory. Positive affects also correlated with global cognitive scores (overall cognition), suggesting that having a purpose in life can support cognitive/mental health.
Do people of religion/faith have better mental wellness? Generally speaking, “yes”. However, the devil is in the details (pun intended).
Having religious or spiritual beliefs is associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, and substance abuse (especially among teenagers). There is also data on improved quality of life and faster recovery from depressive episodes. Specifically, regular attendance at religious services has the most correlation with positive outcomes, linking a 27% reduction in all-cause mortality and a 33% reduction in depressive episodes. That’s pretty impressive. You actually do get points for showing up!
Now for the “devil”. Faith can also have a negative effect on mental wellness. Especially if it leads to shaming, isolation, and patterns of abuse within a religious sect. There are tons of examples where religion went awry because of a few bad actors, and I’m not being dismissive of the gravity of those groups, but don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Overall, having a positive connection to faith can be a plus for your mental wellness.
Social Media
It’s no secret that companies, politicians, and influencers have wanted our attention for decades, but social media opened a new door for literally anyone to reach anyone. As expected, it has been abused. There are a lot of factors to consider when looking at the actual effect social media has had on mental health.
For example, teenagers spending more than three hours a day on social media have a much higher risk for depression and anxiety compared to those who don’t. Passive, commonly referred to as “doom”, scrolling has a negative effect on mental health, but direct texting can enhance social connections. Cyberbullying, shaming, and embarrassing AI-generated videos/photos all add to the negative effects social media has on our mental state, but reconnecting with a colleague from high school or college can be positive.
By design, social media platforms reduce your ability to have empathy. We’re human. We rely on facial cues, vocal tone, body language, and a host of other interactions to communicate. Social media removes that, but the big issue seems to be the computer algorithms that track our viewing and “feed” us content. Unfortunately, that “fed” content taps into our emotions and changes how we see the world.
Suddenly, finding out a friend or family member “liked” something we disagree with creates a divide in our relationship. We then, fed by our algorithm, find other reasons to disagree, and before you know it, you’re estranged from that person without ever having a conversation.
In today’s world, negativity sells, which is why you have to fight against it. In a study looking at how and why posts are shared, it found that a negative political post about the “out-group” (the other guy, who’s an idiot) was 67% more likely to be shared compared to any other post, and it was found to be almost seven times stronger than content that had a moral basis.
Between the ability to be anonymous, the not in real-time communication, the computer algorithm that amplifies negative posts, and the human brain, which is inherently lazy (it searches for the fastest answer, regardless of accuracy, and then moves on), it’s no wonder we’re so divided. We’ve gone from marketing sugary cereals by putting them on the bottom shelf of the grocery stores (eye level for kids) to a computer algorithm that keeps people from coming together at Christmas. Pretty fascinating if you think about it.  Â
As a skeptical optimist, my advice is to find the positive and break your algorithm. Follow content, watch channels, and seek out opinions that you don’t inherently agree with. It will be uncomfortable (which is why most people don’t do it and the Catholic Church created a position around it – “Devil’s Advocate”), but I suspect you’ll find the same thing I did. The truth seems to always be somewhere in the middle.
For tips on how to boost your mental health, check out this post from Mental Health America.