Tag: mental-health

Self Care: A Basic Need

This is happening to our youth today and they end up being so stressful and unhealthy. One should stop and ask themselves, is it worth it? Would you be happy, stress free and healthy if you achieve these goals now rather than later? With this I say self-care is important for everyone. 

Another year is upon us and many goals are already set to focus on what to do to move forward.

Most people especially those in their mid and late twenties are working to the bone to focus on starting a family, having a new job and other future plans in this New Year. Although these are important things to think of, they take up much the time for one to think about themselves for a while. This is happening to our youth today and they end up being so stressful and unhealthy. One should stop and ask themselves, is it worth it? Would you be happy, stress free and healthy if you achieve these goals now rather than later? With this I say self-care is important for everyone. 

Self-care means taking care of our mental, physical and emotional health. From doing exercises, eating healthy, meditating, taking a vacation one can fulfil caring for themselves without having other matters in mind. This does not mean neglecting other responsibilities just to feel good with yourself. It just means taking a breather from all the hard work and concentrating on ourselves for better health. 

In order to achieve this, one should make a list that has all the things that make them happy and stress free. Since everyone has different taste on what to do for their self-care, am going to mention a basic check list that can be followed by anyone. 

  • Eat healthy meals. Caring for your health is the most important part of self-care and so the consuming of junk foods and unhealthy snacks should reduce. Vegetables, vitamins and proteins are more important to keep the body healthy. By eating healthy one can achieve a lot. 
  • Exercising. Doing any type of exercises that you are comfortable with helps in not only physical health but also emotional health. Scientists say it increases serotonin levels which lead to improved mood and energy. You can choose to just walk for 30 minutes every day and it would be exercise.
  • Get enough sleep. Many neglect this while it’s important. It’s a fact that adults need 7-8 hours of sleep. Follow this and your body will be very relaxed.
  • Do something you enjoy once a month. This will keep you happy to get time for your own or with friends doing something pleasurable. You can go watch a movie, read a book, have lunch alone or with your friends, go to a party and many other activities. This helps you relax and reduce stress.
  • Travel or have a road trip. This helps you escape your everyday life and lets you go out and explore the world. 

Making self-care a priority in your life is the most important thing that you can do for yourself. It changes the perspective of life. Doing all these things will make you see life in a new way where you are able to take care of yourself and this makes it possible for you to take care of everything and everyone around you. This month, consider ways that you can make self-care part of your schedule. Remember, you deserve this as much as the next person.

The Culprit Behind Adults Pain

I am 73 and never in my life did I have the audacity to be myself. Sometimes in the middle of night I feel like I am suffocating and think that this is all for me…I have wasted my life essentially lived as per what society suggested. I have no one to blame and I feel sad’ lamented Alice when asked what regret does she feel after becoming older! 
‘If you don’t touch it, it won’t harm you’ 

may not be a very well-known saying but it certainly is a lifestyle that many of us are living with and might be the very reason to why we do not talk about death…Wait!! Don’t skip this page let us all face this reality for once because obviously death is simply passing away where every part of the body becomes deceased but there is another type of death where the body is active but the heart and minds become dead, I would call it loneliness. 

Believe it or not; loneliness is one of the most unspoken issues among the African communities especially in Africa and across the Globe because many people refer to it as an indication of strength while considering it a régime to mask their troubles. Unfortunately there is a significant figures of the victims who are secretly suffering from unimaginable number of pains and are willing to spend millions of pennies on several culprits to protect their suffering. Today, this magazine will discourse about this common culprit for adults’ pain which has left incurable effects to the societies.

What is the pain?

Unquestionably; in a world full of vast devices to keep the minds busy from worrying about our prescribed lifespan; both youngsters, adults, wives, strangers, patients, doctors and every normal human being all share a common fear of loneliness. Loneliness is the state of feeling emptiness inside someone’s mind, soul, body or heart, (regardless how much a person may be owning); where as the results, it leads to an individual’s unwise decisions which may also yields to unhealthy preoccupations such as an obsession of the body image.

The 90% of those whose focus has been invested on image obsession has either performed plastic surgeries or at least considered anti-aging prescriptions because they thought the problem is more physical than mental. On many exclusive researches conducted to find out why themajority of adults spend quite mercilessly on anti-aging products, it was finally discovered that the main cause to the act is the fear of beingempty, lonely and eventually becoming invisible to their loved ones and society in general.  

At least every year the World spends about $ 274 billion on the anti-aging products while the media has tirelessly encouraged all ages on how important it is for them to look younger on a daily basis. Although on the outside the entire anti-aging campaign may look like it is about the beauty but it seems to be a completely different agenda on the inside because when a group of adults asked why are they scared to look or get older; the top answers were all pressed back to the fear of pain, poverty, becoming vulnerable and abused. Who will take care of me? What will happen when I get ill? The fear of getting treated with humiliations in the hands of those who may not even be related to them and the costs that may be used for instance in the West to take care of elders; altogether spice up this pain. The good news is there is still hope for a better change as far as people are willing to share and learn.

What is Tanzanians’ acuity on the matter?

On the other hand; the courage of whether or not to communicate and implement about this pain seems to differ and have taken a unalike approach at least for the participants of this survey whom I believe are representatives to the majority of the country because many of them felt uncomfortable to address this. Some of them seem to have believed that loneliness is a part of faith hence no one should rise a concern about it, while others are uncertain if this is a problem or not.

Apparently when both youths and adults of 21-75 years old interviewed, they admitted to have experienced on the feeling and urge that it is unavoidable circumstance unless one chooses to live a useful life.

 ‘I celebrated a lovely 25 years’ old birthday last week with family and friends and felt so happy but I assure you on the inside I was somehow worried on becoming older because I can relate how different this birthday celebration is from a 19 years old one. The people’s engagement, the mindset, the dependence…all these were seem to be freely accessible but the more I aged; the desperate I become’’. Said Sylvia a fourth year Medical Student at Muhimbili, adding that her hard work has been a motive to worry less.

There has been an incredible rise of beauty shops in Dar es Salaam region alone which is the business city where 7 of 10 people you meet have somehow tried to mask their loneliness through the beauty concept.

By Khadija Amri