It is proven that men who do not exercise definitely have an increase in high blood pressure, weight gain, depression, and generalized risk of overall poor physical and mental health.
Getting regular exercise may boost more than just your endorphin levels. A new study, published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings earlier this month, found that men with mental-health issues who were in better cardio respiratory shape had a lower risk of death than those who were less fit. Continue Reading →
There seems to be a new trend now, whereas everyone seems to be opening up about depression and Mental Health. I do think it is wonderful and healthy for women and especially for men who are now coming forward in droves to talk about themselves and their depression to their peers,Therapists and Psychologists. This is the healthiest we have seen men open up about Mental Health in a decade, which is fabulous! Below is a helpful article for men about having to deal with depression!
~Lindsay, Forum Administrator
When a young woman texted DoSomething.org with a heartbreaking cry for help, the organization responded by opening a nationwide Crisis Text Line for people in pain. Nearly 10 million text messages later, the organization is using the privacy and power of text messaging to help people handle addiction, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, sexual abuse and more. But there’s an even bigger win: The anonymous data collected by text is teaching us when crises are most likely to happen — and helping schools and law enforcement to prepare for them.
My sister's letter...... I am a pathological liar. I lie to everyone around me. I say I have friends, that I am busy, happy, nice, smart. The person I lie to the most is me. I tell myself that I'm worth something and that I prefer not to have anyone who likes me. Everyone leaves a room I enter. People stop talking when I get close. When I say something it is ignored or made fun of. In less than a day I can go from bouncing off the walls to don't even want to move. Sometimes I go entire weeks where having no one who wants me around doesn't bother me at all, then I cry for weeks for being so pathetic that I don't even have one friend.
This is mental health awareness month.
05/09/2013 Which means, in my experience, that it is still, to some extent at least, alcohol awareness month. Many people who suffer with undiagnosed depression or anxiety reach for alcohol or drugs to calm their nerves or relieve them of emotional pain. In other words, they self-medicate. Rather than seek out some help in managing depression, anxiety or chronic resentment, they seek their own solution — a solution which, while it works pretty well for a while, eventually complicates the issues and leads to more pain. It's the same sort of premise as having access to your own morphine drip: You administer your own dose whenever you begin to feel pain.
Hiding in Plain Sight
Many people can get rid of temporary pain by having a couple of drinks and calming down in the evening, say, or by knocking back some "liquid courage" before facing a social event. For some, there's no more to it than this, and their use of alcohol remains fairly benign. But for another group, a group that is larger than any one cares to admit, the solution slips into a dependency, and the dependency slips into an addiction. Slowly, this group becomes trapped in their own solution. Not only can they not quite face an evening without some "help," but their own healthy coping strategies begin to atrophy through lack of use. And as they increasingly depend more and more on a substance to change their mood, their relationship with that substance comes to have a life of its own. Pretty soon you aren't really sure who you are talking to at dinner: Is it the person you remember or that person "under the influence"? Is it the "booze talking" expansively, angrily, or overly confidently, or is it them?
The connection between alcohol/drugs and mental health is not made enough and cannot be made too often. Once a using pattern begins, often innocently enough, it can come to have a life of its own. No longer is the person downing a drink — now the drink is downing the person.
