TRIGGER WARNING: This topic will revolve around depression and mental health.
I know we all go through stages of being happy and then being sad, whether or not we identify the causes or parameters of our moods and emotions. My PhD friend and I speak about this often, especially around this time of year. People seem to mentally struggle a little more around the holidays for various reasons. She posted an article on her LinkedIn about how to identify and combat mental health concerns during the holidays. She actually shares a lot of great insightful articles about health and wellness. I very much believe that mental health is still a taboo topic among so many people. Although, I also believe mental health awareness is becoming more accepted in conversations.
There a few factors professionals or doctors look for with mental health:
Biology: Genetics and family history may be a cause of mental health. It’s also possible that exposure to alcohol or drugs has an effect.
Psychology: Stressful events, like a traumatic experience, in a person’s life can alter their psychology and lead to mental health changes.
Social: Social factors like a person’s home environment, community, relationships, employment status and more can affect a person’s mental health.
Signs/symptoms can include mood changes, problems thinking, apathy, appetite issues, etc. The statistics of different age groups is also interesting and I do think that having more and more access to the outside world influences these numbers, what we see, hear, and experience can all be triggers.
Ages 18 to 25: 33.7% have symptoms
Ages 26 to 49: 28.1% have symptoms
Ages 50 and older: 15% have symptoms
I do not ever recall being "stressed" in my preteen and teenage years, but when I speak to my kids, stress is a common word in their dialogue and I can understand considering the world they are growing up in as opposed to the world we grew up in. They literally have an electronic box in front of them all the time that connects them to different details of the world, life, and what their peers are doing. Growing up, I remember getting excited when pagers were able to transmit letters instead of only numbers that we had to decode. And my biggest stress as a kid was pushing STOP on the cassette player before the radio dj started talking so my "mixtape" could sound smooth from one song to the next. Our world was a little more secluded decades ago. My friends and I were more worried about getting to the skate park to see our silly crushes. These days, people seem to be worried about various things like body shapes, being the baddest bitch or the main bitch, being Instagram or TikTok famous, or connecting their self worth to other people. I cannot imagine how people 30 and under are navigating a media forward world and the age gap between me and my oldest is 20 years. I talk to my kids all the time about what they are facing amongst their peers and if they feel pressured to think how other people think just to fit in, be liked, or be accepted. Luckily, my kids mirror my same self-confidence and do not follow the herd.
We've experienced firsthand how so much changes just within a few years let alone 10 and 20 years. And this is one of the things my PhD friend highlights in her research is that our brains have been conditioned and influenced differently. For instance, my influences not only come from being born in a certain generation, limited internet access or social media, or living in different countries, it also comes from being the eldest child, being an immigrant child, being the first daughter, being a young mother, being a wife, being a divorcee, and achieving high academia levels, all of these transitions in my life affects who I am and who I’ve become. And sometimes these things do influence my stress levels and mental wellness.
My friend also says that people who live in small towns and who have not traveled much outside of those small towns or relocated to other small towns, or do not expose themselves outside of their comfort zones keep the same mindset no matter what age they reach. She assesses that small-town-minded people stunt their understanding of people who are not like them or think like them and can be very defensive when you challenge their way of thinking. *I thought this was a very insightful assessment and I’m probably going to talk with her about it some more.
Back to mental wellness, I think when people are honest about what they are dealing with, they can better understand it and position themselves better to combat various forms of depression or other mental health concerns. I am going to get a little personal with you guys and I know I’ve shared this in passing in other topics. But I struggle with seasonal depression which has now been identified as SAD. SAD is an acronym that stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder and is a type of depression that's triggered by seasonal changes, usually in the fall and winter.
Symptoms of SAD can be:
Feeling sad, or anxious
Feeling hopeless, or helpless
Loss of interest in activities
Fatigue and decreased energy
Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
Oversleeping
Thoughts of death or suicide (*I do not have these thoughts)
SAD is more common in people who live farther north, where there are shorter daylight hours in the winter. Women are more likely than men to develop SAD, and younger people have a higher risk than older ones. I find this to be true considering most of my adolescence and early adult years were spent in the northeast and I started noticing the symptoms in my late teens and early 20s, but at that time I did not know what it was. I just thought I was tired of my schedules and routines, I just thought I was getting bored with everything and needed a change. Even now when I get like this, I think to myself that I need to make a big change or do something new with my life. Little did I know when I was younger, this is something very real. And I think it’s like this for many people and just like how I was, they just don’t know what it is or maybe even want to accept it.
I can feel it when my depression comes on. It’s like I can feel a weight on me that slowly gets heavier and changes my mood. Sometimes when it gets too much I just shut down, sit in my room, no tv, no phone, no noise, I just lay in my bed and do nothing. Although, most times I try to get ahead of it and I force myself to get up and get out. Like the past few days I’ve been feeling it and I’ve not wanted to do much after work, but I still pushed myself to go out and be social.
I refuse to go on any medications, but don’t let that stop you from taking any prescription that can help you. I’m not someone who largely relies on pharmaceuticals. But, when it does get really bad, I take the following combination of vitamins and supplements: *Speak to your doctor about these supplements. I told my doctor I did not want to be drugged up and feeling like a zombie, I still wanted to be me.
Magnesium: helps with anxiety by improving sleep, calming the nervous system, and reducing muscle tension
Vitamin D: helps with mood and fatigue
St. John’s Wort: has mood-balancing properties and can help with mental and emotional function
Zinc: plays a role in immunity, protein and DNA production, and wound healing
Omega 3 Fatty Acids (fish oil): improve brain function and mood
But to throw in another perspective, sometimes we do need to shut down and shut out and rethink our decisions because like I mentioned above, social factors like your home environment, community, friendships/relationships, employment status and other factors can impact your mental health. What felt like a good decision in the beginning, may not have the same feeling now, you have to be honest with yourself about it. And it’s not back peddling if you are changing your mind to improve your environment. But this can also be tricky because you still don’t want to avoid how changing your mind may affect others, don’t just avoid people to avoid friction. Take accountability for the change and you don’t have to over explain yourself, but at the very least let people know why you’ve changed your mind about them or about something that no longer serves your overall happiness and well-being.
Be safe everyone.
