Ten mental health tips

[Cyril Haearn]

The Lord was right when he rested on the seventh day after creating heaven and earth (and PurgaTory?)
I am having a quiet day, no cycling, unfortunately I have to go out to buy some food, after that a lot of relaxing

Busy day tomorrow Sunday, going to church twice

[Cyril Haearn]

3. Eat well
Just cooked and enjoyed brown rice plus vegetables, fills one up a bit, the digestion uses energy and the brain slows down a bit (been thinking too much)

[kylecycler]

May or may not be directly related to mental health but I found this on Twitter the other week:

9 Things to quit:

1. Trying to please everyone
2. Fearing change
3. Living in the past
4. Overthinking
5. Being afraid to be different
6. Beating yourself up over mistakes
7. Sacrificing your happiness for others
8. Thinking you're not good enough
9. Thinking you have no purpose

- Poppy Mathobela

[Cugel]

May or may not be directly related to mental health but I found this on Twitter the other week:

9 Things to quit:

1. Trying to please everyone
2. Fearing change
3. Living in the past
4. Overthinking
5. Being afraid to be different
6. Beating yourself up over mistakes
7. Sacrificing your happiness for others
8. Thinking you're not good enough
9. Thinking you have no purpose

- Poppy Mathobela

Sounds a bit me-generstion.

I confess to fearing some likely impending changes just now. The changes in politics of Blighty over the last decade have me scared stiff already!

If "living in the past" is a fond rememberance of past times and events, that doesn't seem too crazed. Better than wishful thunking for some future utopia, the continued absence of which seems to be driving many mad.

Perhaps underthinking is rather more a danger to one's mental wellbeing than overthinking! Consider the various bigwig Tories, who have been severely underthinking and who are all quite mad. Consider the folk who vote for them!! They're full barmpot.

In a few years time, we'll all be afraid to be different, as this will mean the camp in The Falklands; or an uncompleted trip there in an aeroplane.

Happiness is rather over-rated and perhaps should be sacrificed regularly in a ritual fashion. How do you know you're happy if you're never unhappy? Other may or may not appreciate the gestures and rotes of the happiness sacrifcing procedure, as they see fit or are inclined to schadenfreude.

I have never been good enough but this has always been a fine motive for getting better and, eventually, at least competant (sometimes).

No one has a purpose except one they made up in order to please a bogeyman in the sky; or the orders of someone who wants you to sacrifice your happiness as a matter of duty to something they made up for you, such as "your country" (which it generally isn't, as an oligarch has the deeds).

Cugel, sane as a badger with a gas mask.

[Tangled Metal]

If you were American you'd be a sane as a badger, wearing a gas mask and toting a gun. It's good we're over this side of the big pond.

What is good mental health? We're all a little crazy in our own way. I got called weird, but I took that as meaning a little crazy or not normal.

Mental health? That basically seems to mean to the health service round here as you're suffering from anxiety or depression. They don't know what to do with n you if it's not that. A complete blank and statement that they can't help you any more.

Personally I just go for a walk or ride or some activity where there's other things you focus on. Used to try and scare myself climbing, scrambling or throwing myself off waterfalls sat in a plastic tube holding a funny stick and wearing a big grin! Adrenaline IMHO is a good, natural drug to help you stay balanced. Or it was for me.

The greatest level of clarity I've ever had was stuck on a crag with the only way up was by helping a crag fast member of our walking group up the route knowing that I was at least as scared as she was. I am afraid of heights but I know that at my worst level of fear I clarity of purpose comes in. Helped by seeing another person gripped by the same fear of heights. When safety needs your complete concentration on what you're doing you forget your stress and issues

[Cyril Haearn]

5 Keep in touch

I have dozens of friends on these fora, more than in real life
Could that be a problem?

[Cyril Haearn]

3. Eat well
Just cooked and enjoyed brown rice plus vegetables, fills one up a bit, the digestion uses energy and the brain slows down a bit (been thinking too much)

Just remembered, the use-by date on the rice was 5.2018
I am still alive

[Cyril Haearn]

'Don't you go thinking and thinking, thinking so much till your stranded behind
Don't you go thinking and thinking and thinking, thinking so much that you're losing your mind..'
Steve Forbert
..
What might a philosopher (professional thinker) think of that?

[Carpediem]

Not a thread I’d expected to find on a cycling forum,but very interesting and informative it is.
Like most folks I’ve had my issues in the past,the worst and still not resolved loss of our son at the age of 23 in a climbing accident..
Not much you can do to change that,so you just have to try,hard as it is to move on and focus on the positive things he brought to our lives.
Something I have done in the intervening years now is at the end of everyday find something I’ve achieved,however small or mundain and take pleasure from that. I also always try to find one positive out of what can at first appear to be insurmountable negatives,there’s usually something there if you look hard enough..Easy for me to say I know,it’s taken a lot of time and practice to achieve and not quite ther yet either.
Paul

[Cyril Haearn]

2 Keep active
7 Take a break

Can both be right?

[millimole]

2 Keep active
7 Take a break

Can both be right?

Yes.
Keeping on doing stuff relentlessly in an attempt to block out whatever is troubling you will lead to both mental and physical exhaustion.
You need to take breaks to reflect, to enjoy, and to recharge.
It's tempting to just do stuff, whereas, as with everything else in life, a balance in the thing.

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly using hovercraft full of eels.

[Cyril Haearn]

Adrian Massey in the Grauniad criticises the medicalisation of mental health, the many awareness campaigns, and suggests one might get help from a pub landlord or a hairdresser/barber instead

[Oldjohnw]

See bouts of idleness as a virtue. Standing and staring in a life full of care.

[Cugel]

Adrian Massey in the Grauniad criticises the medicalisation of mental health, the many awareness campaigns, and suggests one might get help from a pub landlord or a hairdresser/barber instead

I have the same feeling about "mental conditions" - it's a category error to make them all "illness". It's annoying, though, when some newspap scribbler puts forward the notion, as this will just encourage the adoption or rejection of the bald opinion with little consideration of the nuances.....

...Such that some mental conditions can certainly be best classified an illness, in that they haves a physically treatable causes responsive to a scientific (rather than a sociological made-up-stuff) analysis and cure.

Perhaps some sociological or anthropological analysis of the causes of "mental conditions" can also suggest ways of improvement? It's no secret that the provision of certain hygienic factors for the environment in which any human lives will tend to their positive behaviours whilst other factors will be detrimental. Not is it a secret that the everyday treatment of a human (by parents, authorities of various kinds and the public in general) has a large effect on how humans feel and behave.

But the area ("mental conditions") is full of tinpot theory and associated charlatan "treatments". Many of them are "official" in that various psychiatrists or even GPs can employ crackpot theories and definitions to impose draconian "treatments" on their victim-patients.

Another thread asks if Trump is mad, with opinions both ways, one of which is: "not mad but bad". Sometimes the old-fashioned definitions of difficult personalities are rather better at suggesting a response than are the more modern notions. Trump doesn't need "treating" he needs to be relieved of his power and influence.

Cugel

[Cyril Haearn]

8. Do something you are good at

I think it is good to try to do something one is - not- good at, learning should activate some brain cells