MENS-WELLBEING.COM

05 April 2012

Depression and (Over-) Work.

Much is often made of the link between lack of work and depression. There are two reasons for this. First, in losing a job, we lose not only an income but social contact, a structure to our day, and our self esteem. Second, lack of activity gives us lots of time to get caught up in our worries and concerns. Such rumination, unsurprisingly, is linked to both anxiety and depression. In the UK we are prescribing more antidepressants than ever before, up 28% according to recent NHS figures, and this is no doubt connected to the economic down turn and higher rates of unemployment.

Less though, is made of the link between too much work and depression. A study in the online journal PLoS ONE suggests that working more than 11 hours a day will make you 2.4 times more likely to suffer depression over a five year period (factoring out all other variables) compared to a 7 or 8 hour day. As men are more likely to work longer hours, they are also at greater risk.

Why does over work lead to depression? Unfortunately the study does not suggest hypothesis as why this might be the case. One clue however, might be in their finding that the people who were younger and less skilled were at higher risk. The younger and less skilled you are the less control you have of your work. People who do not feel in control of their lives often feel powerless which can lead to depression. Perhaps too much work deminishes our sense of control and autonomy?

The truth though, is this is just a guess. All we do know for sure is that too much work isn’t good for you!

Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers:

Posted by Dr Phil Tyson on 05 April 2012 at 04:55 PM in Academic, Depression | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

29 March 2012

Top Regrets of Dying People.

Perhaps because I tend to work with high achieving and aspirational men, a lot of my clients work far too hard than is good for them. One of the questions I often ask these men is whether, at their memorial service, do they want to be remembered as someone who “worked hard”? Often the answer is NO!

I was intrigued therefore, by a new book by Bronnie Ware called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’. Bronnie had worked in palliative care in Australia, and asked the dying people she worked with their main regrets. The top five most common regrets were:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish I had let myself be happier.

I’m sure there is something on this list for all of us. What would your main regret be?

Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers:

Posted by Dr Phil Tyson on 29 March 2012 at 03:18 PM in Book Reviews | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

22 March 2012

Mentally Ill at Risk of Violent Attack.

A shocking new study published in the Lancet revealed that people with mental health problems are four times more likely to be a victim of violence than the general population. In the report which looked at 26 studies from developed nations, as many as a quarter of people with mental health problems have been attacked in the last year.

What this research clearly demonstrates is that far from the mentally ill being a threat to society, it is society which is a threat to the mentally ill. Mentally ill people are ten times more likely to be a victim of a violent attack than the perpetrator of the attack.

Disturbing as these findings are, they are unsurprising. As a society we are intolerant of behaviour that falls outside fairly conservative norms. Mental health problems often leave people behaving in apparently strange or unusual ways. Someone who is agoraphobic is going to look pretty scared in open spaces. Someone who is depressed is likely to be caught up with themselves, and miss out on the usual social pleasantries. We expect people to behave in a certain way, and when they don’t, we feel threatened.

Perhaps our post industrial culture is also partly to blame. We prize scientific rationality and are deeply suspicious of the irrational. Indeed ‘the irrational’ is something many of the so called ‘less developed’ nations are less scared of, and this is something we can learn from.

Given that anybody can experience poor mental health at some point in their life, what is needed is greater understanding and tolerance of mental illness.

Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers:

Posted by Dr Phil Tyson on 22 March 2012 at 02:58 PM in Academic, Mental Health, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

08 February 2012

What’s the Point?

Have you ever asked yourself ‘what is the point of life’? Well you’re not alone. In fact it’s a question philosophers have been asking themselves for recorded history. Yet at the same time it is a profoundly personal question. We all have to work out what our own point of living is. Of course, when things are going well, the point is pretty obvious … its love, sex, family, friends and the good times. But what about when things aren’t going so well?

When people get depressed they often spend a lot of time asking themselves what the point of their life is. For these men it is a serious problem. When depressed the world and the future looks bleak. In fact the world looks stripped of meaning. Everything just seems so pointless. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a journey into the depths of melancholia, Hamlet is found asking himself “To be or not to be, that is the question”. It is one of the most quoted lines in the English language for a reason. It speaks to our being alive, and if meaning cannot be found, the bringing of life to an end. It is the most profound question of existence we all face.

Unfortunately trying to grapple with these big questions when depressed is not the most sensible of strategies. None the less the question often presses itself on the mind of the depressed person with some force. How should we respond to a person that sees so little point in life?

My take on this is that just by being able to ask the question is astonishing in itself. Let me explain. Space, as we know, is vast. Millions and millions of light-years pass revealing nothing but stuff. Comets, stars and planets. Separating this stuff is endless amounts of nothingness. Space. Yet in the middle of this vast universe is a small star called the sun with a small planet called the earth on which you and I sit. Here we can reflect on this whole process, and ask ourselves … ‘just what is the point’! In other words we are that small part of a vast universe that can reflect on itself and ask why? It is in being able to ask what the point of life is that the point of life is revealed. Our life is a miracle. The point is everything.

Image by James Dent. Thanks.

Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. He offers: