The Seriousness of Stress: Mental Health & Battling Burnout According to the World Health Organisation, 264 million people worldwide live with depression. Each year in England alone, 1 in 4 people experiences a mental health problem. On a weekly basis, 1 in 6 will suffer from ongoing anxiety and/or depression. Indeed, every week 8 in 100 people are newly diagnosed with such, according to Mental Health Resource. And in a person’s lifetime, 1 in 5 of us with have suicidal thoughts, 1 in 14 of us will self-harm, and 1 in 15 of us will actually attempt suicide. Women are more likely to do so than men, but men are three times as likely to succeed. In fact, it is the number one killer of men under the age of 50. Our minds, then, are critical and are in a precarious position. Nonetheless, only 2.7% of mental health research is funded by public donations, according to MQ. There might have been a spotlight shone on the state of young people’s mental health in recent months, given that 1 in 7 children in 2020 were diagnosed with a mental health condition, but overall the situation and the support system is not ameliorating fast enough. It is better than it was, certainly, and there is an openness to the reality
of psychological conditions that did not exist even a decade ago – yet, is it wider public acceptance of mental health problems that is seeing the stats we do today, or is there a source cause in the very way we live our lives in the twenty-first century that is to blame for an increase in those psychologically suffering? The world today is a hypercompetitive one: is it any wonder there’s been a tidal wave of anxiety disorders? Biological mental illness aside, mental health disorders are arising more frequently as society looks for coping mechanisms to a way of life evolution surely didn’t mean to bring us to (one only has to look to the lack of synchrony with our circadian rhythms to understand there had to be a fallout at some point). Multiple lockdowns might have afforded us some thinking time, but even that period of isolation wasn’t natural and led to dire loneliness and cave syndrome in some people. Now that we’re back on the treadmill of a bustling life, though, what have we learnt? Or have we gleaned nothing from our WFH sojourn?
“Crisis… is an attempt to dislodge us from a toxic status quo and constitutes an insistent call to rebuild our lives on a more authentic and sincere basis.” - Alain de Botton, The School of Life: An Emotional Education
46
justnaturalhealth.co.uk | Just Natural Health & Beauty
