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If I had one wish to come true it would be to banish the terms "mental health" from the universal language. The mind is to the brain as the heartbeat is to the
by robg 12y ago
If I had one wish to come true it would be to banish the terms "mental health" from the universal language. The mind is to the brain as the heartbeat is to the heart, or if you'd rather a more historical example, the humors to the body. Talking about the product is fairly useless if we don't work hard to understand and treat the underlying causes. Unfortunately, where cardiology came of age in the 1960s, neuroscience is about 30 years behind.
The brain is the organ here. We all have brains that get tired, damaged, and diseased. Substituting "brain" within "mental issues", "mental problems", or "mental disorders" would go a long way toward changing how we think and address the underlying concerns. In fact, just simply talking about your concerns is therapeutic. Good friends as in effect therapists. But who would want to if they think they have a "mental" illness?
The brain is a bodily organ like any other. Let's start treating it as such - get good sleep each night, exercise often, and maintain good friendships. If all three of those are being met, and you are still concerned, absolutely talk to your doctor. But keep in mind that depression and anxiety appear to now follow from sleep disorders.
- tomhoward 12y agoHaving been working though brain & mind health issues for nearly 10 years, trying a vast array of treatments and reading through a large volume of research, I can say with confidence that this position is an oversimplification. I understand the point of view; for about the first 8 years of my journey I treated it as purely a physiology problem - and I did make some progress. But since more recently turning my attention to the concept of emotional health - particularly subconscious linked to early-life traumas - the improvement in my life has been far more dramatic. I hope to write on this topic soon to explain my experiences in more detail.
- robg 12y agoI don't see a disagreement with anything I wrote. Even emotional health is physiological, most especially trauma. The autonomic nervous system impacts every organ in the body. After over a decade as a neuroscientist, I don't know what the mind is. But I do know what the brain is. And therapy, even self-journaling, is shown to change connectivity patterns in the brain. The problem is simply shown by the vast array of medical professions trained to treat the brain: neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, neuropsychologists, brain surgeons, and neuroscientists. By contrast, cardiologists treat the heart. To put into practical terms, increasing evidence is showing how sleep disorders precede brain health concerns. The role of sleep appears to be critical for trash collection at the cellular level in the brain. Yet, few on the mental health "side" treat sleep problems. You see one specialist for sleep, another for therapy, and a third for medications. The whole paradigm is stuck in a dualistic paradigm of the 19th century. Then we used to drill a hole in the head to let the evil spirits out.