To think we wouldn't have as many MH problems if we lived differently

[Ginlette]

Panic attacks, anxiety, depression...

How much of this is happening because of the way our society is set up?

If we all lived in fairly small communities and had good relationships with friends and family near by, would we have these issues? If we had stable work that didn't feel like an impossible workload and paid fairly?

I'm even beginning to wonder whether "positives" of modern living are actually subtly undermining our MH as a society.

• The obvious examples being the Internet and phones, but also..
• Mobility: looks good on paper, but maybe the idea of the world being your oyster subconsciously is anxiety inducing?
• Travel: fun but frequent travel again contributes
• Home ownership and improvements, style & beauty inprovements: again this idea of we have choice, but is it contributing to a low level sense of always chasing?
• More freedom of partner and freedom to have children or be childfree: but does it create a "What if?" sensation past generations wouldn't have had fluttering at the edges of their mind?
• Remote working/self employed: I have done this for over a decade but does it maybe contribute to a sense of no base, no community?

Yes absolutely agree with everything. Smaller communities that look out for one another. We seem to have a society that wants to raise awareness for mental health and then treat it. But it would be so much better to prevent it and live in society where it isn’t so prevalent in the first place.

The crazy costs of living and needing to work non-stop are definitely not helping. Life really shouldn’t be all about work.

so perhaps some form of church is the answer? because organised religion is dwindling.

I agree with this.

It mentions in Ultra-processed People that UPF causes anxiety in mice to increase. I think diet has a big impact.

@Abbimae i totally agree. We are quick to pathologise normal human experiences nowadays and I don’t think it’s helpful.

Feeling nervous about a test has become “anxiety”.

Being sad after a relationship breakdown has become “depression”

People have always gone through the normal range of human emotions. Over pathologisation makes it hard for people who are actually experiencing these things to be taken seriously.

But some people (particularly bright women) were utterly trapped by what you describe. I’d have gone mad if my horizons had been limited like that as a teen. My DGM was miserable all her life because she’d been forced into being a housewife because it ‘wasn’t worth educating girls’.

There's a lot of excellent comments on this thread but it's interesting when I read "community" in the single sense. We can never get back to that way because community is now referred to in the plural form. So whilst people might rub along and be perfectly civil, there's not much in common, certainly in big cities. Too much self segregation by income, religion and race.

But ultimately, in my opinion, there's just too many people. When my house was built in the late 40s, the UK population was 48 million. It's now "officially" 68 million...hmm. If I was under stress when my house was built there were fields opposite that would be peaceful for quiet contemplation. But now I would have to cross a busy road (trying not to get run over by a 40 ton HGV), walk through a housing estate, over the bypass, and then after 2 miles once the din of traffic has subdued I might find some calm...assuming the footpath isn't full of yappy dogs and mountain bikers. You see where I'm coming from?

Very much depends on what MH problems you're talking about, and also where you sit on the nature/nurture debate. Personally I don't think my own depression could be completely avoided by societal/social/behavioural changes (although these would certainly help). I've suffered for 30 years, as did generations of my family before me, and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason for when it's going to strike.
But is life harder now, and do we set unrealistic expectations? Yes, I think so, and that can make it hard for people to find their place, leading to anxiety/unhappiness.

There have always been people who suffer from depression and other MH issues. And there have always been circumstances that have caused huge difficulty to people no matter how they live, and led to nervous breakdowns etc.

But you still have a very valid point OP. Communities are so important, giving people a sense of belonging and a group of people with whom to have ordinary every day interactions.

People seem to be living increasingly isolated lives nowadays; doing so many transactions on line, working long hours in front of computers with very little social interaction and with no time to become involved in community activities or get to know their neighbours, and living in large sprawling estates that are like ghost towns during working hours.

You read many posts on here where posters say they spend most days in their pyjamas, or change in to them as early as possible during the day. People just wouldn't have done that years ago; there would always have been the possibility of a neighbour or friend dropping in, and you would have had to go out at least once a day to the shops. Now people can just lock themselves away from the world.

None of that makes me anxious. The amount of people in the world and around me makes me incredibly anxious though. If there were a lot less people in the world I’d be a lot more inclined to leave my home.

While I agree that how we live affects our mental health, people are all different and there isn’t a one stop solution to society’s problems.
To focus on one of your points, some people are happier travelling from place to place where as others are home bodies. Others are somewhere in between and happiest working out of the home and travelling for leisure. Society benefits when say an engineering team travels and builds infrastructure elsewhere. Without people travelling for work, things become static and this world of inequality will just become worse as some areas get richer and leave other areas behind.

Yes I think this is pretty well known already.

The problem is capitalism and over consumption. I don’t think increased choice is bad though, especially choice over whether to have children or a partner. I’d hate to live in a world where women were still so confined by societal expectations. The real issue is the gap between rich and poor increasing and a lack of money locking people out of making choices in terms of how they want to live. Wages not keeping up with the cost of living.

Completely agree. Our way of life is so unnatural.

I'm not saying we need to go back to living in the palaeolithic era, but we are not as a species designed for the lifestyle we have now.

The zoo animals you see pacing back and forth in their cages - that's us, just in a different kind of cage.

We are all consuming news of bad , TV radio newspapers, all are fear based negative Chuck in social media and big surprise society ends up being scared, angry fearful.
Community isn’t about helping others anymore and working together it’s all about individualism

Agree wholeheartedly with your post. People often say ‘right so you want to go back 100 years to no widespread use of antibiotics, women dying in childbirth, no contraception etc’. Clearly not- but it would be great to try and get back some of the good bits that we lost along the way. It wouldn’t be possible to recreate it entirely, but at least recognising what we’ve lost and trying to come up with ways to meet some of those needs.

I was going to say the same, @gothicomedy . People in their pyjamas all day.
There are loads of threads about that, and people never leaving the house. It's not good mentally or physically.
There was a woman wfh who basically did so from her bed, she just woke up then opened up her laptop.

But nowadays even people who need communities and a sense of place and belonging often can't have them. Affordable houses are often in dormer towns or on enormous estates with no facilities nearby. Jobs involve long commutes, instead of companies having lots of branches in towns and suburbs. Banks and other institutions no longer offer the personal services they once did, and insist everything is done on line. Libraries are now self service. People are being forced to work until later and later in life, meaning many voluntary organisations are struggling to survive. Long working hours and commutes mean many younger people can no longer become involved in sports, choirs, am dram etc.

It can be very very difficult to find a thriving and fulfilling community life nowadays.

Everything you mention describes my Asian community, and indeed communities in many parts of the world

We don't eat processed food.
We have a huge sense of community and family.
Women often do not work, or work part-time.
We generally have simpler lives.
Less freedom to choose partners, certainly in the past.

Are we any happier or less depressed? NO! It's just concealed!

This, all day long. I'm very in touch with my inner ape. I hate modern life, I hate apps, I hate pass codes, being indoors all day, Teams, watching teenagers who have no concept of being without a tiny handheld computer and act like its part of their soul. I hate click and collect, self scan, press 1 to hold and have to tried to do this online? I miss libraries and proper shops and quiet Sundays when the shops were shut. If I could go back to 1995 forever I would in a heartbeat.
Ok, 1995 still had technology but it was actually useful, rather than a constant irritation.
Going out now, in the sun..☀️

The longest lived people, apparently,live in close knit communities and are physically active. I watched a programme called ' The Blue Zone ' about this.

However, I can't imagine that being constantly around my family would do much for my mental health - it would probably make it worse.

The problem is over consumption, but it's very hard to consume less. People don't want to move into smaller properties, give up the car, not go on holiday etc. there's a cultural issue - just look at all the threads about it.

What a crock of shite

I believe the underlying societal structure that leads to MH issues is that we have all, in general, been focused onto individual material success rather than the success of our community as a whole. This means we compare ourselves to others and compete with them, more than we collaborate with them. We feel our slice of the pie is constantly at risk, never safe, and if we haven’t achieved fabulous wealth and happiness, we have somehow failed

There are other ways to live, but they’re hard to find. You almost have to unlearn everything the system teaches you to believe (ie. Happiness comes from money and all it affords)

Maybe we reached our peak in the 80s/90s? Some tech and freedom but not overwhelmingly so.