Thoughts on Psychological Health

pittybitty

I believe there is essentially 4 things we need to do almost every day to achieve psychological health:

Work. To work is to affect the world around us and to maintain ourselves. To work is to be part of society. Particularly work is the things that require consistent effort over months, years, decades. Many cultures put importance to have a day in each week where you shall not work. I believe there is something to that, if just that the body needs to recover.
Cultivation. Aka self-improvement. This is activities that probably aren't going to change the world, but that change ourselves. This is working out. This is creative projects. This is learning new things. Often this is things that we need to overcome ourselves a little, barriers that need to be broken. Without this we stagnate, stand still at where we already are.
Reflection. Aka boredom. Specifically this means time without any particular external stimuli (e.g. electronic devices) that occupy your mind. This triggers something called the default mode network. This is when the mind ties up all the loose ends, thinking about those things that are important but are not relevant to the tasks at hand. You can think of this of cleaning up your mind, to give meaning to your life. You should aim to dedicate a few hours before sleep to this as it completely changes how we perceive time and how alert we are, making sleeping much easier.
Rest. Sleep. Not much to say about it except you need it. During sleep the brain does a lot of emotional processing which are required for you to stay grounded.

sunsunsun

okay........................

gg12

@pittybitty I agree with creation and learning and also work.
You forgot the most important thing though

Social interaction- even if ur surrounded by normies or people who u think u will disagree with be friendly being alone is when I start to create problems for myself and others

pittybitty

@gg12 I think that is kinda specific to what you life looks like and what your goals. For many people being social is simply part of work. For others it's part of resting. For someone who either wants to be a great orator or is socially anxious it would be part of self-improvement.

I personally don't think you can force being social. How social we are heavily depends on our physical health. If we don't have the energy for the interaction then it will always feel shallow and fake and not lead anything further.

However as I mentioned prolonged boredom/being in the default mode network does change your perception of time and as consequence how we judge social interactions. In the end it makes one more open, after all you are bored, if you don't have anything else to do you might just chat around.