People today are becoming more and more fragile mentally as the technology is advancing and their way of living is also evolving. There is very little interaction among people at the emotional levels. Most of the time it’s only superficial even when talk at the family level.
This is a great matter of concern as it has lead to more people detachment and rise in the levels of anxiety and depression. You can easily identify a depressed person by common symptoms like persistent low mood, feeling of sadness and loss in interest.
World Health Organization has set some comprehensive mental health action plan to help combat the increasing cases of mental ailment and other issues of psychology.
Each one of us is prone to depression at low to higher level in our life at some stage. But if we can train ourselves into improving our mental toughness we can easily handle the situations in life without falling prey to depression or if someone is already suffering from it can come out of it. Here are few tips to beat depression by improving mental toughness:
- Learn To Talk About It- Your ability to withstand any mental challenge right from anxiety to cases of depression can be enhanced by the small routine exercise of gaining the courage and learning to talk about things that disturb your mental peace. One requires being mentally tough in order to speak out what is in his or her heart. Almost every one of us find it difficult in most cases to speak exactly what we feel. Start doing a small exercise with your near ones who understand this and develop that much needed courage to then talk with others. You will be amazed to see how light you feel and how many more people you help.
- Building Your Resilience- Psychological resilience is very important for a person to bounce back from any social disadvantages or highly adverse conditions. A strong resilient person knows how to adapt to the situations and avoids any bad situation to arise. Few simple understandings of life that you cannot please all, you cannot perform all tasks, you cannot know all the things and that you need to continuously update yourself will help frame a better mental resilience, giving you a positive outlook towards life and its challenges.
- Develop A Positive Belief In Your Own Abilities- Many a times we come across people who are confident on their abilities and have complete belief that they can achieve the task at hand. But often they are considered as the arrogant individuals because of their high level of self assertiveness. These people do not go over board and disrespect others’ abilities neither do they over estimate their abilities. When we talk about developing a positive belief in own abilities are to understand what you know and to what extent you can use them. This way you are also opened to upgrading yourself which gives you more linking in the society and a happy mind set.
- Fix A Routine And Stick To It- Psychiatrists always suggest that having a routine is very good habit because this you way you ensure that your brain doesn’t find any time to think negative. In fact when you have a routine you plan better right from your time, work to your life. A well planned life with little bit of twists is stress free living. It also ensures continuous growth at both personal and professional levels.
- Letting Go To Let In– A simple meditation has many applications which many of us are unaware of. While meditation a simple thought that I am letting go of my worries and past problems you simply open up the gates for the happiness to come into your life. And when a person is happy, he is in much better state of mental situation where he can handle multiple issues with ease. Do remember all the mentally tough people you can see around you, have developed themselves into realization that clinging on the worries and past problems will stagnate their lives, that’s the reason now they are mentally prepared to handle any situation at hand.
- Make Time For Nature- We human are inbuilt with a mechanism which automatically connects with the nature and the growing urban landscape the number of trees along with the sites of fresh water and air are disappearing. This is disturbing the balance of our mind and body. Country like Japan understands this concept and encourages their people to spend at least one day with the family in the parks, gardens or any natural outing. A does of fresh air also reduces anxiety helping into toning up the mental toughness.
Depression is among one of the many mental illness problems which affects almost every one and has been getting some attention for sometimes now. But there are many other mental health issues which need to be attended. This requires a comprehensive mental health monitoring program from the government and also the private organizations to ensure early identification of any symptoms related to it. People need to be trained into self evaluation of the mental state in order to early identify the signs and symptoms of any mental problem thus making it important to develop comprehensive mental health system which is continuously creating awareness among the masses.
By Manoj Kumar Singh(Trustee & National President, Power In Me Foundation)