Background
Depression and anxiety have become an inevitable part of human lives controlling their condition, mood, reaction to the outer world. The number of panic attacks, comorbidity related to irritation and anxiousness as trigger factors have significantly increased in the XXI century. Health practitioners sometimes say that people have successfully fought a variety of mortal diseases; however, currently, they have entered a new period of nerve diseases.
Modern medicine even claims that some of the nerve-connected diagnoses have converted up to date as the number of their recognition has increased. We live in a harsh time full of stress, depression, and irritation caused by different factors that easily influence our state. In the US, drug therapy with antidepressants and various stimulators gains momentum, and a significant part of the country’s population intakes such medicine permanently. I believe it is possible to get to know our mental health better and fight the habits of letting negative moods, fears, irritation, and depression control our everyday lives. Developing useful habits and critical thinking can help address depression and anxiety, lead to a better self-condition and function.
Identifying Signs of Anxiety and Depression
In this section, the data provided by scholarly articles are included and will be estimated. Before talking about fighting with these conditions, it is essential to comprehend the possible imitative factors causing depression and anxiety. Looking deep into the roots of the problem will provide a vast and detailed vision of it, and will help to develop ways to enhance the disorders. For instance, repetitive negative thinking is a part of the human state characterized by worry, rumination, and prolonged problem-solving. A study by Spinhoven et al. (2018) highlighted and proved recurrent negative reflection to be a risk factor for various depressive and anxiety disorders.
It is essential to identify the condition before it consumes a person fully and controls his mood. Any human has days of weak and strong emotional background, and during fragile periods it is major to break the negative trigger on time and be able to recognize it.
Worry is another habit of getting anxiety which is usually a thinking process about future events based on fears and beliefs. Rumination is a similar reflective practice more oriented on past events when a person struggles to disengage from it, repeats the statements to himself, and becomes intrusive (Spinhoven et al., 2018). Described habits oftentimes tend to relate to a trigger from the past that supports the pathological worry or rumination and cannot be simply abandoned. That is why understanding the initial factors causing the negative or depressive conditions should be well studied and fought.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to ignore social distancing as one of the factors influencing mental health. Humans cannot survive without society and community groups that share similar interests. Even though social needs are placed on the third step of the Maslow pyramid, it is still considered to be one of the basic ones. Without social cooperation and support a person can manage to survive; however, struggling to save his mental condition. According to Wang et al. (2020), 28% of Chinese people surveyed in the study after the lockdown notified various symptoms of anxiety and stress. Isolation and quarantine limit the communication between people, their level of usual activity, and emotion sharing. Social interaction provides people a certain level of satisfaction, self-confidence, and feeling of being united with others. During a current pandemic, psychologists need to put extra stress on various disorders prevention and develop meetings providing social interaction.
The question of addressing anxiety and depression is closely related to me and the society I live in. As a student, I also had anxiety, took medications, and received help from the social worker. I remember how tough it was to try to fight the feeling of constant irritation. People surrounding me also struggle with these disorders which means the problem is modern and remains unsolved in society. Having experience in the condition, I wanted to investigate the topic deeper to understand how to use a strong mindset to fight the conditions.
The Role of Critical thinking and Useful Habits
I suppose that there is no better solution in any situation for a human than him helping himself. When a person is deep into a negative mood, and people surrounding him tend to help, without his will, there will be no significant result. A person addicted to drugs or alcohol will never break the addiction unless he is motivated in that. Same with depressive conditions and anxiety: once a human finds the strength to break the state, the progress moves on. The help provided by the physicians, medications, friends, and family is supplemental and secondary.
Critical thinking is one of the major abilities that triggers self-development and social skills. Without understanding its bases, it might be tough for an adult to develop himself (Thorndahl & Stentoft, 2020). In childhood, we seem to think that we are the center of the world; however, within time, we start to realize the importance of self-development and constant self-questioning. The outer world is never stable, with a similar speed our perception of thoughts, people, and ourselves changes. That is why developing a critical mind and flexible character can help enhance our personalia and stay an up to date person for longer times.
As it was smartly and exactly mentioned by Elder and Paul (2012), naturally all humans are conformists that tend to agree with dominant ideas and stay in comfortable conditions. Nevertheless, to initiate any progress, a person needs to pull himself out of the relax zone, and agree with his weak sides, and disadvantages.
The ability for critical thinking is supported by treating all the judgments equally using accuracy and logic (Elder & Paul, 2012). A person in depressive mode usually goes to the subjective side and becomes narrow-minded, concentrated only on personal feelings. Questioning our purposes, assumptions, and points of view continuously and similarly to other beliefs can help us overcome dark moods and irritation. Instead of concentrating on recurrent thoughts, putting your thoughts under doubt, and listening to other opinions with objectivity can help to get out of depression faster.
My assumptions on the topic include, apart from developing critical thinking, useful habits. I experienced them after having anxiety and can claim that a healthy and proper routine helps a person better than pills. Beginning something unknown to your body is always harsh as, again, all people are conformists, and deep in their minds they do not want to change. However, after making an effort, the energy level increases, and you have a better mood in general. Indeed, sports activities were proved to positively influence self-esteem and happiness (Collins et al., 2018). I have noticed that a body feels more flexible and in tonus when it is used to daily exercises. More importantly, people who do not like sport still can choose to do what they like: walking, playing an outdoor game, doing yoga, or something else. Sport is many-sided, not obligatory lifting heavy weights or going to the gym.
Healthy eating routines are hard to achieve but also provide help in feeling fresh and energetic. It is hard to follow a nourishing and right diet throughout the week; however, eating more vegetables and fruits instead of fast carbohydrates prolongs the feeling of being well-fed and does not make you sleepy. Sleep schedule is also very important, especially for students. I have noticed procrastinating and postponing schoolwork is a widely spread problem for the majority of students, and I am not an exception.
From personal experience, I was rough on myself with procrastination: if I did not manage to finish the task, I simply went to bed as the significant rule of my day was to go to sleep before midnight. Soon after I noticed my energy level increased and I could focus a lot easier on work. Decent sleep schedule is one of the most essential routines everyone should have. I cannot say I follow a strict regime; it is always hard to stay permanent, but I try my best to not fall out of the timetable very far.
Coffee is another issue of my tiredness and refraining from massive caffeine intake also helped me feel more energized. Having more than one cup of coffee keeps me active and quick throughout the day. I think the caffeine receptors tend to lose sensitivity to the substation within time as I have noticed differences from my body reactions on the amount of its consumption. Drinking coffee in the second half of the day never broke my sleep previously; still, the quality of sleep worsens with having caffeine before bed. The rules I am sharing, of course, can be changed or implemented variously as all people differ with preferences, character, and body reactions.
How Can I Use This Information to Better my Health
Anxiety and all the feelings I have come through with it led me to another level of condition. I can say now I can feel my body better: what it wants and how it feels. It is essential to figure yourself out, and I am happy to achieve some new level of condition and sense of myself. Developing routines is a decent habit that can help accomplish greater outcomes and stay positive and energized most of the time.
Critical thinking also enhances health as it teaches you to reflect before spending your energy outside. People are not tolerant or patient by nature, but they try to develop these feelings as we live all in one society and want to share great ideas, emotions, and experiences. Spreading negativity and winning can never be useful for improvement as it drowns the person down and narrows his mind from creating new ideas and being efficient for society. People need social satisfaction as one of the components of happiness, that is why we learn to cooperate, create together, and try to take after each other various advantages.
For studying this issue, I used scholarly articles that helped me estimate the topic widely using not only my opinion. Scholarly works provide research that proves or rejects the statements made at the beginning of the article. Judging that, I received useful knowledge about anxiety and depression, their possible causes, and how it is important to prevent the conditions from having a psychological or psychiatric background in the early stages. The further we play in conformists; the more severe disease can develop. Studying several sources also helps to assess the data to widen the information used for the paper and being able to compare.
I believe that any person can happen to be in a tough situation with negative mode and anxiety. More importantly, he needs to develop his general awareness about the topic, be better at listening and understanding himself, accept opinions and help from others. Using these methods will never worsen the psychological condition of a human, and he will develop himself as a strong person fighting his fears every time.
Thus, the problem of addressing depression and anxiety, finding ways to better health are central in modern society as a lot of individuals suffer from disorders or nerve-induced comorbidities. During the research on the topic, I tried to use principles of critical thinking, comparing the information, judging it from the wide spectrum not only based on my opinion. While writing this assignment, I realized critical thinking can help solve a variety of problems, including personal. Using fairmindedness, a person can allow others to share their points of view, and he will accept the opinions equally and objectively. This mindset can be used as an initial step for opening to other people and letting them help.
References
Brody, D. J., Gu, Q. (2020). Antidepressant use among adults: United States, 2015-2018. NCHS Data Brief, 37. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Web.
Collins, N. M., Cromartie, F., Butler, S., & Bae, J. (2018). Effects of early sport participation on self-esteem and happiness. The Sport Journal, 20, 1-20.
Elder, L., & Paul, R. (2012). Critical thinking: Competency standards essential to the cultivation of intellectual skills, Part 4. Journal of Developmental Education, 35(3), 30-31.
Spinhoven, P., van Hemert, A. M., & Penninx, B. W. (2018). Repetitive negative thinking as a predictor of depression and anxiety: A longitudinal cohort study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 241, 216–225.
Thorndahl, K.L., & Stentoft, D. (2020). Thinking critically about critical thinking and problem-based learning in higher education: A scoping review. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 14(1), 1-21.
Wang C., Pan R., Wan X., Tan Y., Xu L., Ho C. S., & Ho, R. C. (2020). Immediate psychological responses and associated factors during the initial stage of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic among the general population in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(5), 1729-1754.