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How to protect your mental health this holiday season
Is this really the most wonderful time of the year? The head of the British Royal College of GPs Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said that if Santa was her patient, she’d consider diagnosing him with alcoholism, work-related stress, gout, and sleep deprivation. What about the rest of us?
“I don’t need therapy. I just need to toughen up.”
While 80% of men say counselling has improved their lives, guys wait an average of 11 years to seek help. So, why do we intentionally hold back our mental well-being? Here’s why guys put off going to therapy (and why it’s all BS.)
You’ve been told a million times that if you want to succeed in love, life, and work, you need a great personality. But what if you don’t like yours? If you feel like your personality is holding you back from the life you want, you can change it.
You’re not alone. Cases of anxiety and depression have tripled since the start of the pandemic. But with the right mental framework you can transform anxiety into a performance-enhancing drug.
By many measures, it’s an objectively shitty time to be a human. From a pandemic, to the climate crisis, to economic insecurity, there is no shortage of things to suffer in the world. Of course, there have been a lot of shitty times in human history—the Atlantic slave trade, smallpox in the Americas, and the two world wars all come to mind. And somehow men have emerged triumphant.
Applying for that job you don’t think you’re qualified for. Asking out that girl you think is way out of your league. Even learning that language, instrument, or skill you’ve always wanted to.
Anyone and everyone gaslights these days. A politician who walks back a campaign promise? Gaslighter. A wife who insists she contributes to the housework despite never having washed a dish in her life? Gaslighter. A boyfriend who refuses to admit to infidelity despite text message evidence? The crown prince of gaslighting.
In nature, humans are driven by the fight or flight response. When faced with a threat, we choose to stand our ground or run for the hills.
Much of who we are is shaped early on in childhood, a childhood that very much depends on whether we had good or bad parents. For those of us who had bad parents, an all too common result is the self-limiting beliefs that stop us from living a happy life. Unproductive and unbalanced, the ghosts of our childhood past hold us hostage and hold us back.
By bragging, we signal to others that we feel deficient and insecure. It does nothing to move us forward as we’re cloaking the underlying issues rather than addressing them. Even when it’s just part of our job (social influencers take note), it’s likely to negatively affect our mental health and can come at a significant human cost. Inevitably, there’s a price to pay for the brag.
