Here’s a quick taste of sample mental health stories providing takeaways to potential readers.
Mental health conditions affect millions of people, impacting the well-being of citizens and healthcare costs. My focus is to improve mental health via healthy lifestyle habits.
Importance of Verified Information on the Web
I enjoy and support a verifiable and objective assessment of content from third parties giving accurate feedback on the impact of content based on quality and quantity of contributions.
For several years, as a content developer and strategist, I have used Thinkers 360 to measure my intellectual assets, including scientific papers, articles, books, design artifacts, patents, and conference presentations. The central repository gives confidence to my regular readers and brings me a new audience.
In addition to some technical topics, such as Design Thinking and Emerging Technologies, one of my most significant achievements is my contribution to the mental health topic as a thought leader. I document my reviews, observations, and experiments to understand and improve mental health conditions.
This morning seeing a Tweet energized me and inspired me to share this recognition with my readers on this platform. Celebrating achievements, no matter how small or big, is an important motivation factor, in my opinion. This tweet informs that my mental health content provides thought leadership in the field.
In addition to amplifying members’ success, Thinkers 360 provides digital badges to thought leaders that allow the readers to verify achievements online. Verifiable badges give confidence to information consumers.
Here’s the verifiable digital badge provided for my content on the mental health topic. Readers need to click on the Verify button on the badge for the authenticity of the badge.
Mental Health digital badge was issued by Thinkers360 to Dr. Mehmet Yildiz
Thinkers360 is the world’s first open platform for thought leaders to discover opportunities, promote and advance their…www.thinkers360.com
I am grateful that my articles on metabolic health gain substantial visibility on Medium. Even though this platform recognized me as a top writer on the mental health topic, most of my stories did not receive the same level of visibility for unknown reasons. As a result, they did not reach out to the desired audience.
This concerns me as mental health is a topic that requires more support from a platform where words matter. Mental health conditions affect millions of people, impacting the well-being of citizens and healthcare costs.
For example, the content I write about anxiety, depression, addictions, traumas, and brain fog seems to be restricted by the platform’s algorithm. Consequently, they don’t seem to reach out to my followers or new readers.
The stories I selected in this post received relatively low views on Medium, but they received significant impressions and reactions on other platforms. Unfortunately, Medium even removed some of my most crucial mental health stories from further distribution.
This situation confused me as readers were happy, as depicted in the comments, and there was no feedback from the platform administration upon my request.
I always leverage scientific data and never provide health advice online as a principle. I merely share my perspectives, reviews, and experiences to add value to my readers. My main focus is healthy lifestyle habits to improve mental health. I don’t write about controversial topics.
This online conduct hurt my feeling as I felt my voice and messages are suppressed. Despite all these concerns, I remain optimistic and hope these constraints might be dismissed in the future. I documented my feelings about this platform in a recent article titled I Started Feeling Unappreciated on Medium, Just Like Jessica Wildfire.
Mental health matters to me as such conditions adversely affected me in my younger years, lowered my quality of life, and reduced my life satisfaction. I want to pass along my hard-learned lessons to the new generation so that they can learn from my mistakes.
I wrote hundreds of articles and stories documenting my personal experience, literature reviews, and the experiences of others in my circles. My goal is to give a quick taste to my readers by providing the abstracts of my stories.
If a story resonates with you, you may click on the link to find the details in the original content. I hope you find something valuable in this collection. I’d love to obtain your feedback and support to extend the meanings of these stories to benefit many other readers. Knowledge becomes valuable when it is shared and used.
Mental Health Stories That Helped Me Get Recognized as a Thought Leader in the Field
In this section, I provide the abstracts of sample stories from my mental health collection. You may access them on my personal publication, EUPHORIA, on Medium.
I have been writing about mental health for decades. Thus, I only provide around 1% of my stories in the field.
I cover numerous aspects of mental health. Hopefully, you can find a relevant story from the selected pieces below.
7 Tips to Prevent Cognitive Decline and Impairment
This article focuses on cognitive health, highlighting the risk factors for cognitive decline and impairment. I provide seven practical tips to prevent progress based on healthy lifestyle approaches. Cognitive decline refers to the gradual impairment of the nervous system and the brain regions affecting the daily lives of patients. It might start as mild and get intensified as the conditions progress. Cognitive impairment describes the current state of patients. People with cognitive impairment experience memory loss, confusion, difficulty in recognizing others, and constant mood fluctuations.
Here’s Why to Choose Joy for Mental Health Intentionally, Regardless of Circumstances
This article focuses on self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-love, and self-esteem using practical frameworks from positive psychology to improve mental health, creativity, productivity, and life satisfaction. Unless we care about ourselves, we cannot accept others caring about us. By following the principles of positive psychology, we might create our own happiness, joy, and life satisfaction. I offer eight effective ways to use positive psychology might lower stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts.
Healing Power of Forgiveness Can Rewire the Brain for Manifesting Joy and Health.
I know the pain of a broken heart, which can be mended with forgiveness. What is forgiveness, and why does it matter? Forgiveness is a psychological construct having a physiological impact on the body. In my understanding, forgiveness refers to changing thoughts, feelings, or behavior toward an offense from negative to positive. Forgiveness is a cognitive activity. It means that we can learn to forgive and to be forgiven. In this story, I refer to forgiving from the victim’s angle and briefly touch on eliciting forgiveness from the offender’s angle.
Having a Mental Health First Aid Kit is Not a Luxury
While many of us might have a first aid kit for our physical health, the concept of mental health first aid kit is not as typical and expected in society. I introduce 12 simple yet effective tools in my first aid kit for unexpected mental discomfort and triggers.
Here’s Why I See Anxiety and Fear as Friends Rather Than Enemies
Every emotion tells us something important is happening in the body and mind. They serve as valuable messengers. Unpleasant emotions are not enemies, I see them as friends if we can approach them with optimism, self-love, and a growth mindset. All emotions and feelings are essential for our survival and prosperity, whether they manifest neutral, positive, negative, pleasant, unpleasant, comfortable, or uncomfortable feelings.
Here’s How to Deal with Three Universal Threats Causing Stress and Anxiety.
The brain fears incertitude, lack of knowledge, and loss of control. Thus, it detests them. However, as I explain in this story, the brain loves opposites in certain conditions. It deliberates over internal and external threats, processing suggestive information, creating meanings, and attempting to create a sense of control. As a result of this lengthy and arduous process, the body and brain are subjected to a significant amount of stress. Unless brought under control, this situation might cause chronic conditions and lead to unbearable problems.
Dealing With Anxiety in Difficult Times
We notice that the level of anxiety is growing globally due to current situations caused by public health concerns. As it is on a massive scale, I want to provide a practical framework based on my studies and experience to deal with anxiety in these difficult times.
Here’s How to Deal with Amygdala Hijacks Effectively.
The most noticeable symptoms of amygdala hijacks are experiencing strong, mixed, uncomfortable, and confusing emotions. Our thoughts and biochemistry trigger emotions. We usually are not aware of emerging feelings. They seem to come from nowhere. Our thinking brain perceives situations much slower than our limbic system (emotional part), where the amygdala resides. Things happen so quickly that we get caught off guard.
Ten Tips to Slow Down Dementia
Dementia is a debilitating health condition affecting millions of adults globally. Living a long life is desirable but living a quality life is vital. As a type of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease affects 6.2 million Americans. This article introduces ten lifestyle changes that can naturally reduce the risk of dementia. I present ideas to reduce the risks of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease for better healthspan and longevity.
How Not to Be Cracked by Toxic Emotions and Chronic Stress at Work
Emotions are critical for our survival. They tell us what is going on, right or wrong, in the body. However, excessive negative emotions can be toxic for the body and mind. Our mental health is significantly impacted by toxic emotions. Emotional stress puts us in a neuro-chemically disadvantaged position. We experience an emotional roller-coaster. Constant experience of emotional stress can be poisonous for the body and the brain. I offer a structured framework to deal with emotional toxicity and prolonged stress.
Unbearable Feeling of Anhedonia: Here’s How We Can Enjoy Life Again.
Apathy is a symptom of depression, a cause for self-harm, yet treatable with therapy and a neuroscience-driven approach. Suffering from mood disorders, including unbearable lightness of being due to chronic stress and inflammation in the past, physical and social anhedonia is a topic close to my heart. Thus, I want to create awareness by leveraging scientific development in the field.
Here’s Why Depression Has More to Do with Addictions and Less with Economic Conditions.
After briefly introducing depression affecting 280 million people globally, I explain the critical role of addictions in major depressive disorders with takeaway points to lower the chance of addictive behaviors. Most of us experience depression, at least in a small amount, in some parts of our lives. Major depression or major depressive disorder (MDD) is also known as clinical depression. Other types are dysthymia (persistent depressive disorder [PDD]), bipolar, perinatal, postpartum, premenstrual, seasonal, and psychotic.
Healing Mild Depression By Scheduling And Prioritizing Fun
We need to trick the mind by planning pleasure. Having purposeful fun daily makes us happier, more joyful, and more productive. It also helps us have better relationships with our beloved ones, friends, and colleagues. Fun and pleasure can be the best investment in our health and well-being. This story does not encourage hedonistic tendencies. It is about the therapeutic use of fun and joy to address mental health disorders by taking personal responsibility.
Here’s How Georgia Defeated Clinical Depression in 10 Steps
A holistic and optimistic health approach with healthy lifestyle habits opened the channels of healing for a middle-aged female artist. This story highlights synergistically integrating mainstream and alternative therapies coupled with healthy lifestyle habits as the key to tackling clinical depression holistically.
Here’s How Sarah Eliminated Depressive Thoughts with a Powerful Method.
We shouldn’t underestimate the role of fun in our mental health. When bedtime arrived, she found herself daydreaming as if participating in the virtual situations she read, listened to, and watched all day long. Information overload has been a problem for her. Her brain was exposed to many mental activities while her body lacked movement.
After Testosterone Replacement Therapy, Adam’s Depressive Thoughts Vanished
Depression might sometimes be treated with unexpected therapies, so being open to seeking help appears essential. Hormones play a crucial role in our physical, mental, and overall well-being. Not only do some hormones affect our physical health, such as fat accumulation, muscle building, and bone density, but they also affect our mental health. Even though some hormones are called sex hormones, their function in the body and mind goes beyond sex. They directly or indirectly affect our mental state.
Here’s How to Increase Cognitive Flexibility and Emotional Maturity with Five Habits.
We can’t live a healthy and happy life without consciously managing our thoughts and emotions. Over the last five decades, I paid significant focus and attention to improving my cognitive flexibility and emotional maturity. My goal was to be unflappable in the midst of challenging situations. I understood that setbacks, especially in the form of rejections, never leave us alone from a very young age. I neutralized and turned setbacks and rejections into opportunities by gaining cognitive flexibility and regulating my emotions intentionally. After a while, setbacks became pleasant challenges for me. The result was living and producing in a flow state using the whole brain.
Here’s the Behavioral and Mental Health Impact of Fasting and Ketosis.
This story introduces the effects of ketones on the brain and heart, decreasing anxiety, tension, anger, confusion, and mood disturbances. Even though it has been confidential in mainstream healthcare for a long time, many medical doctors, including psychiatrists and psychologists, have been using both short and long-term fasting in their practices as a therapeutic intervention and for longevity purposes.
Here’s How I Activated Neurogenesis and Transformed My Depressive Mind into a Joyful One in 5 Steps.
I provide practical ways to improve neurogenesis, prevent neurological decline, and improve cognitive reserves. Both neurogenesis and neurodegeneration are real and affected by lifestyle choices and habits. Healthy habits lead to neurogenesis, and unhealthy ones lead to neurodegeneration. I provide my high-level perspective on neurogenesis and neurodegeneration using my reviews, mental health transformation, and experiments as a case study in summary format.
How to Create Cognitive Reserves to Lower Risks and Effects of Neurodegenerative Disorders
Cognitive reserve increases the resistance of the brain and mind to atrophy as we get older by using various techniques mainly based on lifestyle choices. Our cognitive reserves include improved memory, focus, attention, task switching, and problem-solving. The purpose of cognitive reserves is to strengthen brain regions and make them more flexible as we age. The goal is to slow cognitive aging and reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.
Here’s How I Defeated Brain Fog with Six Lifestyle Habits Decades Ago.
This article defines brain fog as a type of cognitive dysfunction and provides a holistic approach to addressing its symptoms and root causes with healthy lifestyle habits. Brain fog is not a scientific term. Besides, it is not in the DSM-5 or ICD-11. The closest medical terms are mental fatigue and cognitive dysfunction in the literature. However, millions of people experience brain fog at different frequencies and intensities. Brain fog became more common during the pandemic as it is considered to be one of the side effects of the covid virus.
Here’s How Jennifer Healed Her Brain Fog
Six hundred million people worldwide suffer from cognitive dysfunction. Brain fog is one of the conditions related to cognitive dysfunction. Jennifer, a retired tertiary education teacher, had localized breast cancer when she was 59. She was fortunate as her tumor was identified at an early stage and did not spread to other organs. She had excellent care and multiple therapies, such as chemotherapy, radiation, and endocrine therapy, and she got her health back. While she was extremely grateful and happy to beat cancer, after 60, she started experiencing noticeable mental fatigue, commonly known as “brain fog” or “chronic fatigue syndrome”.
Here’s How I Defeated Chronic Inflammation via 9 Lifestyle Habits.
Chronic inflammation adversely affects our mental health. The ability to understand the impacts of chronic inflammation on health and find practical ways to manage it through simple lifestyle changes has been a game-changer for me. Chronic inflammation emerged as a severe health issue in my early 20s. After suffering from the consequences for several years and reviewing the literature for decades, I understand that chronic inflammation is associated with significant diseases as a direct or indirect cause.
The Meaning of Euphoria in Mental Health and Spirituality
Natural euphoria, from my perspective, is not as crazy a state of mind as often perceived. On the contrary, it is an altered state of mind reflecting the inner joy from simply embodying a precious human on this earth, accepting life as is by staying in the reality zone with pleasant excitement despite frenetic noise and environmental disruptions. Euphoria is the act of celebrating every moment of being chosen among billions of sperms in human form with soul. But, more importantly for me, manifesting this unique state of mind creates a bridge between the conscious and unconscious minds where wisdom resides.
Why Optimists Live Longer and Happier than Pessimists
As a chronic optimist, seeing the cup always half full, I might be biased in writing an article on this exciting topic. However, I don’t want to disappoint my readers. So, rather than reflecting on my personal spin on this, I maintain my neutrality by using scientific papers to prove my point. From my experience, an optimistic lifestyle brought me many benefits for my health, relationships, and business growth.
Here’s How Self-Love Can Alter Relationships and Enhance the Quality of Life.
This article highlights the importance of self-love and compassion for our health and well-being by giving a few examples from my life and reflecting on observations and reviews of the literature. This is not a theoretical or scientific piece. However, ideas are backed up by scientific studies. I believe that by improving self-love, we might gain better metabolic and mental health. My goal is to create awareness of self-love and compassion to improve our health, well-being, and relationships by highlighting the importance of these undermined psychological constructs.
How to Attract Loving People with Self-Love to Our Lives
Attracting good or bad things in our lives is undeniable. For example, some of us attract wonderful things and great people to our lives, inspiring and uplifting us. But, unfortunately, some of us attract terrible things, miserable and toxic people putting us down. While some of us experience excellent relationships, others suffer badly from dysfunctional relationships. From my experience, observations, and reviews, the law of attraction is orchestrating our thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs, and actions to create coherence in life mindfully. This orchestration includes our brain, body, and soul.
The Role of Sex & Emotional Intimacy In Reducing Chronic Stress
Touch and meaningful conversations are part of human intimacy. Even though intimacy relates to sex, both sex and intimacy can exist without each other. So a couple can be intimate without having sex, or they can have sex without intimacy. However, touch is a critical human need. It is essential for compassion. In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch. Research suggests that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health.
Here’s What Happened to Gloria After She Did Laughter Yoga for a Year.
This is a story of a middle-aged woman who struggled with childhood traumas causing chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and weight gain. However, her life pleasantly changed after discovering laughter yoga. Laughter yoga is an exercise including voluntary laughing, body movements, and close eye contact with playfulness in a group, usually coordinated by a facilitator. Some practitioners also use chanting.
Lack of Orchestration of Cognitive Functions Might Lead to a Struggle for Health, Happiness, and Productivity.
Humans survive and thrive by orchestrating their cognitive capabilities knowingly or unknowingly. We have these inherent capabilities. However, awareness of these abilities and consciously orchestrating them can be invaluable for our success, health, and happiness. I provide six steps to gain cognitive elasticity for metacognitive skills that can be applied to any task, job, or situation in life.
Beware of Ten Risk Factors Affecting Metabolic and Mental Health Disorders.
Understanding these risks and mitigating them timely might significantly improve our physical and mental health. Life is full of risks. Everything and every event in life come with a risk. A risk factor indicates the degree of probability for an event. Our goal should be to lower the probability of disease manifestation and increase the possibility of recovery and healing. Therefore, understanding and mitigating the risk factors is critical for our survival and well-being. Health and well-being require a proactive and balanced risk management approach. We cannot eliminate risks entirely, but we can mitigate them.
Here’s How We Can Reframe Rejections for Happiness.
Despite all these bad feelings, rejections are necessary for our survival and future performance. Most of us don’t see the benefits when being rejected. Looking at the lives of successful people, we can witness a blessing after each rejection. We can only see the benefits of rejections from hindsight. Benefits can only look obvious after days, weeks, months, or even years after. The key reframing point is to understand that the universe or some of us call it our higher self, protects us from future damage.
Here’s How to Increase Adversity Quotient in 6 Steps
We can’t expect everyone to like or agree with us, but it’s possible to improve likeability with authenticity and openness. This article defines the adversity quotient and introduces its benefits. I provide a framework to increase it in six steps with practical tips based on my experience in the field. Paradoxically the body and mind desire comfort, but we grow with discomfort.
12 Habits and Mindsets That Revitalize Me and Add Meaning to My Life
Life is life; the rest is the meaning we give to it. This headline has been my motto for decades. It repeats itself in my reminders as a life principle. I consciously repeat it every day to create my own meaning to live my own life by balancing the activities of my lower and higher self. In this post, I introduce a dozen of habits and mindsets that give me adequate energy to go on effortlessly, color my life, and add meaning to my existence on this planet. These habits allowed me to take personal responsibility for my life and empowered me to enjoy it with desired happiness and good health. Therefore, I pass along this tacit knowledge hoping it might inspire others.
Six Tips to Filter Noise for Keeping Sanity in These Enigmatic Times
It is possible to shift our perspectives for a more creative, productive, resourceful, and healthier life despite the current economic climate. I recently posted an article about positive psychology. Interestingly, some readers were unaware of this formal branch of psychology and did not know about the accumulating knowledge in the field aiming to empower people. Some readers asked why positive psychology has not been widespread. Instead, most of us focus on negative events, thoughts, and emotions, increasing our stress, anxiety, and depression, making the collective situation worse.
Here’s a Delayed Childhood Trauma That Burst In a Graduate School Class.
Childhood traumas haunt us. Some of us notice them at earlier ages, and some of us suppress them for a long time, resembling the difficulty of keeping beach balls under the water. Unfortunately, untreated traumas can cause severe physical and mental health issues. Emotional memories always stay in the body. We can’t erase them, but we can change the meaning of those memories that might resolve our underlying issues. There are many types of traumas. Some are complicated situations such as violence, disasters, physical abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, and medical conditions. However, there are also minor events that children perceive as exaggerated emotions and register as trauma in their memories. In this story, to give you an example, I briefly touch on a perceived trauma in my childhood that I recognized in my adulthood in a similar situation. Frankly, it was difficult for me to write this personal piece.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I mainly write about health and well-being. As a new reader, you might check out my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting on my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments. Here are sample health improvement articles for new readers:
Anxiety, Dementia, Depression, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Brain Health, Heart Disease, Strokes, Brain Atrophy, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Metabolic Syndrome, Liver Cancer, Immunotherapy, Dysautonomia, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Cardiovascular Health, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Nervous Breakdown, Autoimmune Conditions, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance,Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders,and Major Diseases.
I wrote about valuable nutrients such as:
CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, Boron,Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
I hope these stories inform and inspire my readers.
Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
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Dr Mehmet Yildiz 