are you critical?

[leftyjew]

So I've been thinking about what makes people seem more or less (mentally/emotionally/psychologically) healthy. I think I've come to the realization that in general, being more critical makes you less healthy, and appreciating the awesomeness of things makes you more healthy. That is, positive thoughts and focussing on the good things makes you more stable than negative thoughts and focussing on the bad. So what does that mean as far as my life goes? I'm generally a critical person, so if I completely turn off being critical, that would be rough. However, I can do the Zen thing and just note critical thoughts when they enter my mind and be aware of them, thereby abating their influence on my mental health. What do you think makes people (mentally/emotionally/psychologically) healthy or unhealthy?

Comments

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

I ordinarily agree with you, but being *too* easygoing can let you get into situations that are really unhealthy for you, because you didn't fight for what you needed.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

What do you think makes people (mentally/emotionally/psychologically) healthy or unhealthy?

I'm prone to think of mental illness as a disease. It causes things in your body to change, it has symptoms, and many times it can be treated by medicine. Although the difference is that drugs take a long time to work, and there's no mental equivalent of a painkiller like advil or something.

I'm not sure that negative thoughts cause depression. It's kind of cyclical. being depressed causes you to think negative thoughts. As a result, these thoughts make you more depressed. But when you're depressed it's almost impossible to think positively, even if you know that the negative thoughts are irrational. It's just so convincing to think negatively, and it's just so easy to think that way. But once medicine starts working and the brain chemicals start to be fixed, it gets a lot easier to get out of that mental loop.

I think there's also a question of whether you're self-crictical or critical of others, and whether the criticism is constructive or not. From a mental health perspective it's probably better to mentally get annoyed with other people and blame things on them [however accurate or innacurate that may actually be]. Like "I did badly on the test because the teacher is evil" as opposed to "I did badly on the test because I'm an idiot." Though perhaps a middle ground might be best "I did badly on the test because I didn't study well enough."

Depression usually goes hand in hand with a low self-esteem.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

i think that its important to be aware of your thoughts, and alternate ways of thinking about things, and not getting too locked into any one of them. Be flexible. ALso, jsut going with the flow and being happy might be fun, but can also be tranquilizing, keep you from striving to be a better person, or making the world a better place.