The Artsy Cure

Humans have an inherent tendency to engage in self-defeating thought processes. We muddle our coherent stream of consciousness with such unnatural thoughts that they leech away all the beauty from the world. To be tethered to reality, we must be aware of certain lies that we automatically tell ourselves on the daily basis, or in face of any event. There’s a common adage that the way you think has a bearing upon your behavior. This can be understood easily by calling into mind the image of a priest: as their thoughts are centered upon understanding the mysteries of the universe, their demeanor and actions are nothing but serene, and at ease. But not all of us have the privilege of such nirvana dwelling in our minds. We, instead, are rather chaotic, and it distinctly reflects upon our daily lives: our thoughts are cluttered, we trip and stumble upon them, and we always find ourselves close to a meltdown. While it is easy to blame the world for inducing perpetual distress, it is in fact t...

Ever been in a situation where  a friend or a close family member of yours opened up to you about how they have been feeling low for the past couple of months or something related to mental distress and you didn’t know the right words to say or make them feel better?   People usually in such situations make statements like “Don’t worry, it gets better with time” or “It’s nothing, it’s just in your mind.” While one might assume there is no harm in saying these statements, they don’t understand how difficult it must have been for their friend to open up about the issues they have been dealing with.  The recent advancements in the field of mental health have shed light on the importance of a concept known as ‘Psychological First-Aid’ (PFA). Although it's gaining more popularity in the modern days, it was first coined in the 1940s. P FA may be defined as a compassionate and supportive presence designed to mitigate acute distress and assess the need for continued mental health...

Mental health is an important condition of human existence, and before we can all sit down and highlight the numerous policies that the government or private institutions should adopt to generate greater investment and access, we first and foremost need to focus on what we as individuals are contributing to the understanding and awareness about these issues. We need to question whether we even know what is going on with our own state of well-being, as well as that of the other.     Imagine you switch on the television and the first thing you see is a red, hot, raging wall of fire consuming half of the wildlife to ashes. You transition to another channel, you see farmers on the roads, protesting against the atrocities of capitalism. You see antigovernmental marches; you see a world engulfed in chaos. You realize that while you are aware of certain events, you don ’ t know the background of others. You open your phone and search on Google. You gather the knowledge and feel i...

This year ’ s  World M ental  Health Day (2020) is getting all the hype it deserves! It ’ s good to hype up big mental health movements and campaigns that are happening this month but it is also very important to know what exactly is  “ World Mental Health Day ”   and its history. World Mental Health Day (WMHD) is officially celebrated on 10th October every year, and is supported by the UN. It was first started in 1992 as an annual activity by the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) . The first WMHD did not have any theme. For the first three years, one central activity was a special two-hour global telecast broadcast from studios in Florida that marked the d ay. People who participated included WFMH board members from the studio, with live  telephon ic participation from Chile, England, Australia, and Zambia along with pre-taped segments from Geneva, Mexico City, and Atlanta; but all these were anticipated calls. In one such telecast, WFMH realized that ...