in Lifestyle, Mental Health

Campus Crisis: A Self-Help Lesson For The Anxious And Depressed In College

by TK Sanders August 16, 2022, 10:08 pmupdated August 16, 2022, 10:17 pm 18 Comments

Despite a modern society with every conceivable luxury and opportunity, the mental health of developed nations continues to deteriorate. The issue is seemingly most pronounced in young people, many of whom advocate for revolutionary social change in one breath while lamenting the meaningless of their lives in the next.

Boston University researchers say they’ve recorded a massive increase in rates of depression and anxiety in students over the past eight years. They also now believe that 75 percent of all lifetime mental health disorders originate in those early college-aged years. So not only are our young people feeling worse than ever before; but there is a high likelihood that the issues will remain for the rest of their lives.

How quickly is mental health deteriorating? Researchers discovered a 135 percent increase in depression and 110-percent increase in anxiety from 2013 to 2021. They also say the number of students who experienced one or more mental health problems in 2021 had doubled from 2013.

Some demographics also tend to decline treatment options with more regularity than others.

“I find the change in treatment rates among students of color in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to be quite surprising,” says study co-author Jasmine Morigney, a clinical psychology doctoral student at Eastern Michigan University, adding that treatment declined the most in 2020 among APIDA and Black students. “Given the impact of the pandemic on this community and concentrated traumatic racism, it makes this finding quite alarming.”

What’s most troubling is that the trend is steady and gradual, not just a spike due to the pandemic. A fundamental disconnect apparently exists between modernization and satisfaction; so what can be done about it?

If you can improve the way you talk to yourself, you can improve your depression

One way to approach mental health problems is to better understand the spiritual aspects of life, and then take deliberate strides toward self-development. Some will scoff at the journey to self-discovery, but it can help bridge the gap between fear and fortune. All it takes is an open mind and a faithful attitude. See if you can follow the words below — they will serve as a starting point in better understanding the self and the nature of this complex, beautiful life.

Say “yes” to life, and say it with optimism. This is the only mantra that works over the course of a lifetime, in all situations and moods, because it instantly neutralizes resistance.

Visualizations, manifestation, and positive self-talk are all incredibly necessary for re-teaching your mind to choose high-vibrations, but even the best and most clever phrases will not hold up over thousands of repetitions if the emotions behind it is lacking.

The word “yes” will never tire or fade because it is not a breakthrough at all, just a mindset that dictates how every other interaction unfolds. The positive emotion comes packaged neatly within the word itself: you cannot go with the flow of life and feel resistance simultaneously.

When you approach life from a place of acceptance, the mind doesn’t need to calculate or consider all of the angles, or ruminate endlessly about meaning or purpose. “Yes” simplifies your existence to a constant willingness to fulfill the universe’s directives instead of your own.

Say it a thousand times a day if you must; say it when you feel bored, or nervous, or excited; say it anytime you sense your mind starting to pick up the pace or the walls closing in. Let the word, and more importantly the feeling that it implies, dominate your consciousness for an entire day if you can.

I realize how silly it sounds to say “yes” at every turn; but that is because you have only known a life of “no.” You have always looked for reasons to contract rather than expand, and it has driven you to the brink of madness. Nothing but depression can ever follow when you depress your own potential. How much more madness do you require before accepting your destiny as a life lived with “yes”?