By Charles Barnard
“Compared to the 20th century, the total number of celebrities who died from a drug-related death in the 21st century increased, possibly due to an increased involvement of prescription opioids. Negative effects on individual health decisions of celebrity’s followers could be the result.”[1] This was the conclusion from a report published in a National Institutes of Health journal. Celebrities or maybe even more accurately highly creative and high achievers in general have a long history of mental health related issues.
You can find on Wikipedia a very long list of famous people throughout history who have committed suicide. There are countless others who may not have committed suicide but struggled with negative thoughts and thinking for most of their lives often dying of a disease associated with “hard living.” According to the conclusion of the previously mentioned study, the first two decades of the 21st century have seen an increase in drug-related deaths of celebrities. We are seeing signs everywhere that people are struggling more and more with their mental health, and society struggles along with them.
Mental health and mindset are irrevocably connected. As mentioned in “WhatLies At the Heart of Mastering Your Mindset?”, your mind and body are irrevocably connected, which means your mindset and well-being are irrevocably connected. Your mental health is a significant factor in your over-all well-being. Your mindset plays a vital role in the biochemical aspect of your health. It is not the only factor, but it is an important factor. Indeed, if you can control your thinking processes, beliefs and attitudes, as well as emotions, you can have a dramatic impact on your mental health.
A holistic approach to your well-being would, of course, also consider your physiology. You need to feed your body well, exercise, and rest and recover. Those factors are also significantly connected to your mindset. It is a person’s mindset associated with their physical health that either makes it fairly easy to take necessary actions to improve how they care for their body, or it can be a significant factor in why it is so hard for them to do what they know they should do in terms of caring for their physical body. Any way you look at it, your mindset and mental health are indeed irrevocably connected.
Asking why so many highly talented, motivated people seemingly struggle with mental health is an important question that needs to be asked and the answer understood. There are other questions. How do they struggle with negativity? How do they deal with the negative emotions they experience? Those “how” questions lead to answers associated with process, which can lead to behavioral changes that can mitigate the problems. That is not to say pharmaceuticals should not be part of the solution. They indeed may need to be, especially with some severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Here is another valuable question, “If more people had habits around properly caring for their body, mind, and spirit, would we see less cases of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues?” My response is yes.
At the center of stories of resiliency and people who have not just survived but even found meaning in living even while in the midst of tremendous obstacles, heartache, pain, suffering, and trauma are three important ingredients: love, faith, and faithfulness. Those three words are powerful words. They represent so many ideas. They represent patterns of thinking and being that lead to resiliency and even healing from great traumas. Of course, each of those words may represent specific worldviews associated with religion. Is it any surprise then that numerous studies have found that people of faith tend to have better mental health than those who don’t?
Prayer has always been one method people have used to confront and address trials and tribulations of life. It shouldn’t be surprising then to learn that a study comparing young adults who prayed daily and those who never prayed learned that those who prayed regularly tended to have fewer depressive symptoms, and higher levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and positive affect, in comparison to those who never prayed. You can find similar studies on the impact of mindfulness and mental health. Certainly, it would benefit each of us to develop daily rituals that would include good nutrition, balanced exercise, and prayerful or mindful thinking. There are other habits that would be helpful to have including journaling, especially when incorporating cognitive behavioral therapy or neuro-linguistic programming reframing techniques.
Establishing these habits have life-altering benefits. You can use them to also train yourself in thinking and behavior patterns that allow you to be even more loving, strengthen your faith, exhibit faithfulness, deepen and improve interpersonal relationships, improve your love of learning, strengthen your resolve regarding your well-being, and strengthen the human spirit that lies within each of us. It takes commitment to achieving an ideal – the ideal version of yourself. Sadly, too many people are unwilling to make that commitment.
[1] Just, Johannes M et al. “Drug-related celebrity deaths: A cross-sectional study.” Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy vol. 11,1 40. 9 Dec. 2016, doi:10.1186/s13011-016-0084-z