Tips for psychological health

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Tips for psychological health

Prevention of psychological diseases like depression, dementia, addictions of alcohol, internet etc.
Sleep hygiene (to avoid future sleep problems),
Stress management,
Learning methods / study techniques.

1) Prevention of psychological diseases like depression, dementia, addictions of alcohol, internet etc.:

It is the need of the hour as up to one in five young people live in families with a parent who has a mental illness. And over and above the effect of genetic transmission, there is significant potential for parental mental illness to adversely affect children (reduced attention, disruptive behaviour, emotional problems etc.).

So few of the following things can prevent / reduce the psychiatric diseases in our society :

Early detection of behavioural changes / symptoms of psychiatric diseases and its timely treatment. It is the first and most important thing, as late or delayed the treatment, poorer is the final outcome or recovery from the disease.
Once the disease gets better 90 to 100 %, do not stop the treatment without consulting your psychiatrist, as one needs to complete the treatment course to avoid the recurrence of the diseases.
Pre-marital / genetic counselling in case of family history of mental retardation, autism or any other major psychiatric diseases.
Parents role : As bad childhood experiences is one of the causative factor in psychiatric diseases, few things to watch out in family are –
To stop all addictions (like alcohol, cannabis etc) and family quarrels associated with them.
No extra harsh parenting or excess pampering.
More outdoor sports activity than screen time like TV, mobiles for children.
Don’t rush to fulfil your child’s each demand. They should learn to digest your or others “NO” to some of their damands. Child should learn to accept refusals

To reinforce their good behaviour with rewards but remember rewards should be what they like ( eg. Eating out, favourite dish preparation at home, playtime etc) and not the monetary gains. Even a pat on back, words of appreciation will make a huge difference.
To reinforce their bad behaviour with punishment. But remember, punishment should not be physical and very harsh. It should be immediately after the behaviour with explaination of why he has received the same.
Do not overprotect your child. For eg. Do not give your protection cover to his/her mistakes.
Inculcate good sleeping/eating habits in your child.
Remember that Parents are the role models for children (social learning). So every good habit which you want your child to adapt, you should have it first.
Workplace bullying leads to depression, lowered work motivation, decreased ability to concentrate, poor productivity, lack of commitment to work, and poor relationships with patients, managers and colleagues.
To stay away from all the addictions like alcohol, cigarettes, ganja, sleeping pills, tobacco, internet etc.

Few of the lifestyle changes can help in preventing old age diseases like dementia and those are :

brain exercises ( solving puzzles, playing cards, learn new things like for exa. to play musical instuments, writting stories, reading newspapers daily to get in touch always with the world, attend different seminars, always be in touch with relatives and friends etc)
Proper treatment of increased blood pressure/diabetes/thyroid diseases/other major medical illness.
physical exercise
good diet( pulses, vegitables,fruits)
avoid medicines without doctors advise
NO to alcohol,smoking
join some group of elder peoples, laughter groups.
always be active ( pursue some hobby, social work after retirement).

2) sleep hygiene ( to avoid future sleep problems ) :

Bad sleep patterns/behaviours can cause sleep disturbances in long term. 2 – 3 days of late night awakening because of stress/pains/work is no problem but longer disturbances can cause the sleep problems especially in case of mobile users/depression etc.

One should follow few sleep hygiene things like:

Always try to sleep and get up at fixed time,
Keep away from tea/coffee/cigarettes/other activating substances,
Avoid daytime naps, even for some reason couldn’t get enough sleep on particular day.
Regular meal time.
Do exercise regularly, preferably brisk walking, jogging,cycling,swimming whichever suits you,
Never take sleeping pills on your own,
Avoid heavy dinner.
Do not sleep immediately after dinner, instead better to take some walk after dinner,
Do not watch TV, use mobile/laptop if not getting sleep. Instead can read books.

3) stress management :

First of all, what is stress? And is it always bad ?

There is something called as Eustress that is necessary in our life to live/ work/ complete any task. Stress to certain limit is necessary and that is Eustress.

Problem occurs when it exceeds certain limit and becomes Distress. Distress hampers our body physically and mentally.

There are some coping skills to deal with such Distress. Lets see some of those :

Time management
Assertiveness i.e. learn to say NO to things you don’t want. Some of the ways might be like to give an honest explanation, to clarify your reasoning , to give an alternative, asserting our refusal etc.
Ask for help. No shame in that at all.
Cognitive reappraisal of emotion provoking situation e. to reassess the situation in different perspective.
Exercise, meditation, relaxation techniques, leisure activities helps.
Social interaction helps relieve stress.
No comparisions ( study methods, marks, carrer, earnings etc. )
Nutrition and good sleep are of prime importance in dealing with stress.

And finally , if its going out of control and causing physical and psychological symptoms in you. Better take a help of psychiatrists in counseling and medications if required.

4) learning methods / study techniques :

It is always better to follow some basic principles of learning in order to study better/memorise better. Remember every child has different styles of learning like some remembers more after one reading and others requires more readings.

One has to use good methods of learning than just the reading/ rote learning.

Study includes many aspects like concentration, motivation, memory and learning methods. To improve on all these, some basic things you need to follow are:

Place to study – try to study at a place which is quite, well ventilated/lighted.
Time to study – try to study at fixed time every day, either morning or night.
Planning – Time management for the day/week/month/year. Make your personalize time table which you can follow. Reassess your time table regularly and make required changes.
Study regularly throughout the academic year to avoid last minute rush/anxiety before exam.
Do not sit for hours together to study. Take regular breaks every 20-30 minutes like may be a little walk etc.
SQ3R method of studying for effective learning :

a) Survey –
b) Question – before reading any topic, just frame some questions which comes to your mind of that topic.
c) Read – now read the topic to look for answers.
d) Recite – to summarize in your own words, what is read.
e) Review – recapitulate, to check what you remember.

some useful ways for effective learning ( than traditional methods like rote learning ) helps in better memory for the study material read. exa :

a) group discussion among the friends/ having que-answer session.
b) teaching the topic to a friend who has not read it.
c) use of pneumonics.
d) use of tables,charts,diagrams.
e) taking notes in our own word which helps a lot specially to cover huge syllabus in revision.
f) revision/ rehearsal is must as per the law of forgetting i.e. we retain only 10-20 % of material read after few days of even a thorough reading without the revision.
g) rehearsal has to be elaborative i.e. with understanding and with interlinking them with the earlier learned information.

And there are many a specific techniques to memorize better…..