[Serious] The Mental Health Crisis

[Astreja]

I think that disappointment and frustration underlies a lot of mental health issues. Real Life™ bears very little relationship to the grown-up lives we were promised when we were younger. Work is often a struggle to bring in enough resources to meet basic needs, social media presents us with highlight reels of other people's lives rather than an accurate picture, and the news is designed to put us into fight-or-flight mode rather than inform us in a meaningful way. We eat too much fast food, get too little sleep, and spend too much time in passive rather than active leisure-time activities (probably because we're malnourished and exhausted).

Multifaceted problems are very difficult to solve globally, and I'm pessimistic about getting a top-down fix because a lot of the players up top make their money from providing the very things that cause the problems. The solution will have to come from elsewhere, perhaps a movement that promotes a less manic, less cutthroat way of life. Minimalism culture has a few useful elements, but not all of them. The current trend of people not wanting to work at crap jobs anymore is also promising. Mindfulness training gets two thumbs up from me. Talk therapy (particularly cognitive behavioural therapy) would help some people, but it's usually expensive. That's all I've got so far.