Sharing – New Study: Sleep Is Literally a Deep Clean for Your Brain

Sharing – New Study: Sleep Is Literally a Deep Clean for Your Brain

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

Having trouble with stress and anxiety? The suggested solutions often require adding even more to our to-do list. Meditate, practice mindfulness, do acts of self-care, etc. But we often forget that maybe the most important act of self-care is getting enough sleep.

Don’t even get me started on the fitness industry and the number of people who talk about “earning your food/sleep” through exercise. Argh!

This study would indicate that sleep is not something you want to mess with. Simply getting enough would help us with our mental “junk”. No, it won’t cure depression or eliminate symptoms of bipolar, or any of the other things that some of your friends will, unfortunately, suggest, but it does serve a core function for the healthy functioning of your brain, and that is certainly one place to start making things better, no?

Shared Links (weekly) March 28, 2021

Shared Links (weekly) March 28, 2021

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute
Sharing – What We (Still) Refuse to Believe About Mental Illness

Sharing – What We (Still) Refuse to Believe About Mental Illness

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s true that most people dealing with bipolar or schizophrenia are not dangerous, and it’s also true that someone in the middle of a psychotic episode is not going to seem very “normal” to us. Unfortunately, what that often means is that people will call the police, because who else is there to call? Then, the police, who are trained to deal with dangerous criminals, act accordingly, because, again, they have no other training. The best option for them is to get the person off the streets and way from the public, which means jail, because, once more, there’s probably not anywhere else to take them.

Now they are part of the criminal justice system. A place with almost no mental health treatment available.

Of course, as the article below also reminds us, that’s only if they actually survive all of these encounters, which is, far too often, not the case.

Sharing – How To Be A Good Friend To Someone With Mental Illness

Sharing – How To Be A Good Friend To Someone With Mental Illness

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

Not every tip you read will be appropriate for every person. People with anxiety are different than people dealing with depression, are different that people dealing with Bipolar are different than people dealing with a myriad of other issues, and even within all people with anxiety, they are all individuals. There is no one-size-fits-all advice here, other than to open the lines of communication, and ask how you can be a good friend.

In the end, isn’t that what being a good friend to anyone is? Trying to understand how you can be helpful and supportive in their life? It’s no different here.

But, these are a good place to start.

Sharing – Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders At All

Sharing – Researchers Doubt That Certain Mental Disorders Are Disorders At All

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

On one hand, I think we could eliminate a lot of the stigma around depression, anxiety, PTSD and ADHD if we understood them to be fairly common, and normal responses to abnormal events.

On the other though, I’m concerned that trying to explain away something that can be as debilitating as depression can be could lead to an increase in people not taking it seriously. Which could lead to people not getting help as needed for it, and being blamed for not just dealing with it, etc.

I also worry that if we define mental health conditions very strictly, we’ll be increasing the stigma of those with other disorders like bipolar, or schizophrenia.