Our U3A Living Sustainably in the Suburbs group had a discussion on how to keep mentally healthy without excessive dependence on anti-depressants.
They had some good insights:
[ul]Coming to a class or exercise group that provides opportunity for people to talk to each other provides immense value. Not talking about their problems; just talking socially with each other.
Living within our financial means is crucially important as a lifelong habit. Don’t get into buying things you can’t afford and into debt. It builds up a source of almost inescapable worry and depression.
If a situation is impossible chop it out of your life. You might have to grieve but let go and move on. Especially if it is not your fault and there is nothing you can do to change it.
Individual resilience is a key asset like a bank account or a fit body that requires working on all our lives to build up margins in case something happens to us that we really need help. Resilience can be our close support networks our value systems our home environments our skills.
We need to change our boundaries with age. Infants need closer boundaries than young adults. As we grow older we need to pull our boundaries back in to what we can manage within our reduced capacities.
Don’t worry about what you can’t control.
Get informed about support and services available to help early. They will make a profound difference if you need them.
Like the Scouts learn to take on your own responsibilities ride out and learn from failures and stand on your own two feet.
Chronic severe pain can be very depressing and learning skills to manage or overcome pain is a valuable life tool; an alternative to pain-killers.
Finding ways to adapt when our bodies or life circumstances go through a sharp change is an important part of the task.[/ul]
Focusing on managing our own mental health well is not necessarily easy and we can distract ourselves with making unfavorable comparisons with how others manage their lives. Would we want to trade places with them and find out what it is really like to be them?