Mental Health: Do you need to be an expert to help?

A wedding in January, a trip in February and an exam in March. One more in April, and finally a graduate by May. This is what the plan for me, a final year student in 2020, roughly looked. Life was supposed to turn around, ridding us from the constant cycle of studies and exams. We would be free to do what we wanted when we wanted it. Well, I wouldn’t say that life didn’t turn around. It surely did. It turned itself around into another dimension altogether, leaving us with this mess that we are in right now. We are facing a one of a kind situation. Something that we never have had to before in our lives. It got me wondering, how has your mental health been in the last few months? What conversations have you been having with others that have benefitted your wellness?

I used to thank my stars. I had accepted the pandemic’s fate that I had to face and that this would be an indefinite thing. Yet, I was glad that we lived in a digitally connected world. There is so much activity all the time that you can never really be alone. Internet used to be a rare luxury: an escape from the real world, back in the 90s. As I get deeper into the lockdown months, the internet seems deadlier than this virus infested world. Is it just me, or has the world become crueller than it was earlier? Almost every day, I find 16-year-olds exposed to sensitive, sensational content on social media. Proper pages circulate grotesque news about rape, murder, crime, animal abuse, and whatnot.

We live in a world where we need more meditation, fitness, wellness, and distraction, more than anything else. Yet, this is the content that we expose ourselves to every day. Mental health is serious, guys. We’ve always looked at it as a profoundly psychological concept that only clinical psychologists or psychiatrists can help us with. I’m neither of the two, but I know that my mental health is way too precious to be tampered with. Especially during this time. And I’m sure the same goes for you.

This brings me to the central message of this article. Indians, in particular, have traditionally considered the whole concept of ‘mental health’ to be highly westernised one. American shows are featuring how Indians shy away from therapy as that is what “mental patients” deal with. In my opinion, you don’t need to wait for a clinical disorder, or an ailment of any kind to seek help. Also, what is “help” exactly? Again, I’m neither an expert nor have a medical degree, but I’ve personally just got out of the whole phase of college life. I’m a 21-year-old final year student, whose career is literally on edge, facing uncertainty right now. Apart from me, there are so many others from different walks of life, facing the same issues (maybe even more severe) as mine right now.

All I know is that even though we are not experts, we can all help each other in the smallest of ways. “Help” doesn’t have to be a sickness or a disorder that you deal with. Help can be assistance, an act of kindness, a means of keeping your mind in order. Here are a few quick, simple tips that you don’t need an expert for and help keep your mental health check:

1. Digital Detox: I know, I know. Social media might be your only escape now, but do you want to be innocently scrolling through your feed one day, to suddenly find a disturbing graphic of a monstrous crime that happened right here in your city? I know that staying away from your problems isn’t going to stop them from happening, and it’s our way of staying in touch with the outside. So, let’s try and solve that in our way. Instead, read about something more impactful. Read up about something that is going to make a difference. Follow the 5-second rule and combine it with your mental health: if it’s going to take away 5 hours of a good night’s sleep from you, better not spend more than 5 seconds thinking about it. It’s that simple. Choose what you want to read and not what has been randomly planted in your feed. Subscribe to the news of your choice and read-only that. Stay away from social media for a while, and see what wonders that creates.

2. Declutter: Ever found yourself thinking about that argument that remained unresolved, five months back, before the lockdown started? Has your mind gone back into that scenario over a hundred times, to devise a perfect comeback to get back at that person? Well, I’d say that now is the time to stop that. Connect your phone to your system, have a good look at what your life was, and again choose what you’d like to keep, and what you’d like to discard. Lockdown is not only a break from daily life, but it’s also a chance of self-reflection. I decided to declutter my phone files a while back and let my brain wander to bring up some very unpleasant memories evoked by detailed screenshots from toxic WhatsApp group chats. Missed your old life? Well, remember those group projects you used to work on together?

Remember how that ended up? Stop remembering. Delete, declutter, diminish. Pretty simple, huh?

3. Happiness starts at home: Most companies out there are still strongly leaning towards work from home. It means everyone, except for the essential services, is always home. Even then, the office is hardly twice a week. We always complained about having so much work that there isn’t enough time for family. That may persist if you have a job, no doubt. But there is so much more than you can do when they are literally around you. For starters, plan your lunch breaks together as much as possible. As little as a half an hour full of good food and hearty conversation can be wholesome in the smallest of ways. Talk to your parents, tell them more about your work, studies, and make them understand your world and your life better. It is time to create two-way communication more fluid than ever. Grab your chance.

4. Ring up a friend: We feel that this time has made us distant from everyone else, but I think that it has just made us closer. Like me, a 21-year-old is bound to have a close-knit group of 5-6 friends, rather than a big ass group of 10+ friends. If you do have the latter, you’re indeed blessed with some good company, but if not, that isn’t a bad thing either. If you do have a select few in your friend circle, whom you absolutely can’t do without, they are the ones you should stay closest to, especially during such a time. Stop hesitating and wondering, “does he/she want to talk to me?” or “will I be disturbing him/her?” No matter how busy our lives are, we are all secretly vying for the person on the other end to contact us and reach out to us.

I haven’t been the best at keeping in touch with others, so if you are my friend, you are probably laughing at my face right now. Still, whenever I do end up talking to any of my friends, or the rare instances I randomly reach out to them, I realise how much they have appreciated it, and how much we needed each other. So pick up the phone and call that friend you’ve been ignoring for the past five months.

That’s all from my side today. You don’t need to be an expert to make sure that you and those around you keep their mental health levels high and well. You don’t need to necessarily rush to a doctor’s clinic to ask for help. Seek help from those around you. Often a glass of warm tea, followed by a deep heart to heart with a parent or a friend, can do wonders.

Tried all this and still feeling tired? Maybe you just need a break! Take a look at this article to know why taking breaks is important and how the workaholic in you can learn how to take them! https://forge.medium.com/the-3-breaks-you-need-to-take-every-day-44b84e062086

Found this article helpful? Read my next article on how you can leverage the current situation to your advantage and learn how to extract maximum positivity out of it! https://holaadulthood.com/index.php/2020/09/02/thoughts-on-normalising-the-new-normal/