Mental Health Discussion

This time's topic was mental health.

To begin with, we discussed the causes of stress while looking at few graphs and rankings. The ranking showed which state's residents are most stressed. Hawaii, California, and Florida being the top 3, we were surprised because we thought the weather will be one of the prime causes, but those states are famous for its nice weather. We came to a conclusion that the noise and the high cost of living is a big concern for them. 

Then, another question came about. Where is New York? Actually, New York is ranked 4. We did not get it. Why not above those other states? New York is a busy big city and it is expensive to live in. In addition, the weather is not as pleasant as Hawaii, California and Florida. 

We came up with two answers. First, people are used to stress because of the cold weather. They are not as sensitive to change as the other three states. Second, New York has better infrastructure than the other three states. In Los Angeles, for example, most people use cars to go everywhere. In contrast, New Yorkers tend to ride public transportation such as subways. This contributes to reducing noise and traffic jam. 

Next, we exchanged our opinions on the current issues related to mental health. Most of us basically had the same thoughts. The pressure of fitting in is a huge causal factor that leads to mental illness. Getting blame because of being yourself is very stressful.

Lastly, in order to make the situation better, one idea was to provide more opportunities to meet people. Most of the members were stressed due to covid preventing us from meeting our friends. This discussion group is one of the places where you can have fun conversations with exciting people. We also came to a conclusion that we must provide more help to those with mental illness, in stead of attributing the responsibility to them.

To sum up, it was a great opportunity to rethink about mental health, especially during covid, when more and more people are feeling stressed.