Mental Health

Coping with negative thoughts and online experiences can be a challenge, but there are some tips for dealing with them. Honor your emotions, take a break from social media, practice self-care, and challenge your negative thoughts. Seek support from friends or through therapy and prioritize positive interactions.
 
Transcript: "Negative thoughts and online experiences can be challenging to deal with and can have a significant impact on someone's emotional well-being. Here are just a few tips for coping with negative thoughts and negative online experiences. First of all, I always tell my clients to honor your emotion. In other words, really tap into what you are feeling, how you are feeling, why you are feeling. Recognize and acknowledge your emotions. And then take a break from social media. Go ahead, take a break. If negative online experiences are causing distress, go ahead, set a boundary, take a break, and come back to it later. But no use in spending time in an area that causes you distress. Practice self-care. Go ahead and engage in those self-care activities that make you feel good. Listen, a dose of happy chemicals will certainly make you feel much better than engaging in distressing online or negative thoughts. Challenge your negative thoughts. Remember, from a cognitive behavioral therapy perspective, when we are attempting to isolate those negative automatic thoughts or those NATs or those ANTs, automatic negative thoughts, it can be a challenge, but it's important to challenge them, question the validity of those negative thoughts. And then seek support, reach out to friends, get therapy, talk to someone, and prioritize positive interactions. You will be so glad that you did."

Elite athletes face challenges such as high physical demands, mental pressure, time commitment, financial issues, and social isolation. These can be difficult to manage and have an impact on their lives both personally and professionally.
 
Transcript: "Elite athletes face several unique challenges that others may not. Some of the most significant challenges would include high physical demands. Most of the times they're expected to maintain a high level of physical performance, which can result in injuries, chronic pain, or even physical exhaustion. Another area that they may struggle in is mental pressure. You know, facing the intense pressure to perform at their best consistently can be a challenge and take toll on their mental health. And then there's the time commitment. Dedicating a significant amount of time to their sport, including training, their travel, the competition. And this time commitment, I believe, can impact their personal and professional lives. And then there's the financial challenges. Elite athletes also face financial challenges, including the cost of training, travel, and equipment. Some may earn a high level of money. But again, when you're talking about having family members and extended obligations, that can be an additional weight to have to deal with. And then finally, social isolation. Many elite athletes may face this social isolation due to time commitments and physical demands of their sport. And it's challenging to maintain social relationships, and that can be very difficult. So again, those are just a few, and hopefully this was helpful."

Depression is complex and can be caused by multiple things. Options to combat depression include medication, therapy, eating well, and exercise. Behavioral activation is a skill that can help in starting to do the things that can be hard to do when feeling depressed. Motivation does not come before doing, it comes after action.
 
Transcript: "Depression like the humans, it affects is complex. My sense is that over time, we will come to discover that depression is actually multiple diseases caused by multiple things— that said there are options. Those include the common things you hear us talk about all the time, like medication and therapy. And it also includes the things we should probably talk about more like eating well and exercise. For the purpose of this explanation. I'm gonna put in a plug for exercise, severe depression aside for milder forms of depression, exercise can be as effective as medication. Now, what about getting started? This skill is framed as behavioral activation by some treaters. You can apply to exercise and to other things that are hard to do when feeling depressed. It's a common misconception that motivation comes before doing. But I'll challenge that.  For  me. When I wake up to go to the gym, I don't want to. When I'm driving to the gym, I don't want to, when I start at the gym, I don't want to, It's about 10 or 15 minutes into my workout that the motivation comes along and then I want to finish. Motivation comes after action. Sometimes we just need to do it."

Creative outlets such as playing an instrument or painting can be beneficial for mental health. It helps to keep us in the present, which can help regulate stress responses in the brain and have a positive effect on our amygdala which regulate stress response.
 
Transcript: "Absolutely, there are benefits to exploring mental health through creative outlets. I'm a classical pianist, so that's how I explore through a creative outlet. So why that's helpful is because so often we're stuck in the future or in the past. You know, they call it destination addiction. If I get the job, if I fall in love with the right person, if I eat that food, I'll be happy. If I do X, I'll be happy. But if happiness is always at X, it's never here with us. So if happiness is always in the future, it's never in the present. So in order to be in the present, we like to practice things like mindfulness. Keeping us is something that keeps us in the moment. So when we do things like play the piano, paint a picture, write a novel, when we do these creative things, it takes so much of us that we can't help but be in the moment. And that is so powerful because it helps regulate the stress responses in our brain, and it actually has a positive effect on our amygdala, which regulates stress response. So absolutely creative outlets are so important to be here."

Common causes of addiction include psychological comorbidities, self-treating with substances, genetic predisposition and social environmental factors.
 
Transcript: "So some common causes of addiction. I'd say one of the most prevalent ones are psychological comorbidities such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, and then not getting the appropriate treatment and self-treating with substances, especially if you have a biological or genetic predisposition like ephemera history, and also social environmental factors that contribute or introduce you to substances instead of getting the help that you need."

The DSM-5 lists 11 most common symptoms of addiction, including persistent desire to use the substance, cravings, failure to meet obligations, giving up activities, using it in dangerous situations, tolerance building and withdrawal.
 
Transcript: "So 11 most common symptoms of addiction by DSM-5. The individual often takes in larger amounts of the substance or over a longer period of time, number one. Number two, persistent desire or unsuccessful effort to cut down or control the use. Number three, a great deal of time spending in activities necessary to obtain, use or recover from a substance. Number four, cravings or strong desires or urges to use the substance. Number five, recurrent use resulting in failure to fulfill major obligational roles at school, at home, at work. Number six, continued use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems, cause or exasperated by its effects. Number seven, important social, occupational, recreational activities are given up or reduced. Number eight, recurrent use in situations in which it's physically dangerous. Number nine, continued use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that's likely to have been caused or worsened by the substance. Number 10, tolerance building, like you have to use more to get the same effect. And number 11, withdrawal. If you stop it, you will have symptoms of withdrawal, like be different for different drugs. Thanks."