Recently, I've been studying mental health in the U.S.
I've personally struggled with mental health off and on over the years, I have friends and family members who suffer from mental illness, and I've read news articles about how mental health worsened during the pandemic and there's a shortage of therapists.
Generally, I just want everyone, myself included, to be happy and feel good.
We've put a man on the moon and split the atom. We've mapped the human genome and developed vaccines for diseases that used to kill millions. And we've invented technologies that seem to be on the verge of putting the economy on auto-pilot.
But what's any of that worth if we don't feel good?
It seems ridiculous that modern human civilization is so advanced, yet we seem to be less sophisticated than ancient cultures when it comes to mental health.
On a global level, 1 in every 8 people is living with a mental disorder, and "most people with mental disorders do not have access to effective care."
There are at least two interesting problems:
Why do so many people have a mental disorder in the first place?
How can we make sure that everyone has access to effective mental health care?
For now, I'm just doing research in an attempt to understand what's going on.
So far, this is the research I've done:
More than half of U.S. adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment
Medication and psychotherapy: usage and effectiveness in treating mental illness
How to use speech-to-text transcription for self-guided therapy
At some point, I want to do something to make a difference. But I want to spend ample time on the research first in order to be as effective as possible in offering a solution.
I do have some preliminary ideas:
A simple website with easy-to-understand content about mental health treatments
A more complex website with an intake form that algorithmically recommends mental health treatments
Alternative forms of therapy that don't require a professional therapist, e.g., self therapy, community therapy, AI therapy
A form of self therapy that involves talking to a transcriber and then reading what you said later and processing it
A form of community therapy where everyone can be each other's therapist
"Spiritual" mental health treatments, e.g., meditation, mindfulness, yoga, breathwork
Before jumping in to work on any of those solutions, I want to finish with the research phase to make sure that I move forward with a solution that will be optimally effective, as measured by helping people, myself included, to feel good.
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Thanks for sharing Cole. You should check out Gabor Maté and his work linking mental health to physical illnesses "medical research estimates as much as 90 percent of illness and disease is stress-related. Stress can interfere with your physical functioning and bodily processes. High blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and heart disease have been linked to stress factors."