[THREAD] let’s talk about how hormonal imbalances can cause mental health symptoms and how to deal with them. The connection between the two is well known and there are many conditions that would affect it such as PCOS.
In those cases, the symptoms would be higher during those periods of hormonal imbalances. The most common mental health issues related to those would be depression and anxiety. We often underestimate the role of hormones in mental health, but they are very important.
They carry messages from our brain to our bodies, activate or deactivate many bodily functions and regular our moods and behaviours. Many studies that PCOS in particular is strongly linked with increased depression and anxiety. The mental health symptoms can also be severe.
Given that PCOS symptoms can last longer than periods, it means that there are many days where the person would have the mental health impact. Furthermore, those frequent changes in mood can in themselves be detrimental to mental health because people may feel helpless.
Mindfulness in the form of deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation has been shown to be helpful. But for some people, treatment will have to be more intensive, especially if the symptoms of depression and anxiety are unmanageable.
Medication can certainly provide that extra support that may be needed to take the edge off the serious mental health symptoms. Therapy can also be helpful in learning to cope with the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Outside of those two, it is important to increase self-care
and externalizing. That means that during those highly stressful periods, self-care is turned on to the maximum, and externalizing about emotions to friends and loved would be highly beneficial as well in terms of providing that support that’s needed.
The biggest barrier to this comprehensive treatment remains ignorance, especially in relation to healthcare professionals. PCOS may require an interdisciplinary team of doctor and therapist who focus on different aspects of the person’s needs.
We also need to change employment laws because by forcing people who are in physical and psychological pain to come to work and be that productive is simply too much to handle and can contribute to further worsening their mental health.
While we still have a long way to go, it may be beneficial to try some of those solutions and see if they help a little bit. Any form of alleviating some of that psychological discomfort can help lead a better quality of life.

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More from @bazzapower

21 Oct
[THREAD] I want to talk about agoraphobia a bit. It is a process that happens when we have too many panic attacks or anxiety outside and therefore slowly withdraw more and more in our house. The idea of going outside or in open spaces scares us (almost opposite of claustrophobia)
The reason why this happens is because when we have anxiety attacks, they are more likely to happen outside where there are so many stressors that can trigger those attacks. Therefore, our mind starts to associate the outside world as a dangerous place.
After a while the idea of going outside in itself becomes enough to trigger that panic attack. It is something that can really impact our work, social life an general well-being. The longer it goes on, the more likely it is to become a habit and the harder it is to go outside.
Read 8 tweets
13 Oct
[THREAD] Let's talk about repetitive (obsessive) thoughts a little bit. It is a bit of a misconception that they happen only with OCD. Almost all mental health conditions have some form of obsessive or repetitive thinking. How do they happen and what we can do to alleviate them?
Given that we get around 80k thoughts a day, it is impossible to remember all of them. Usually, the ones that our brain deems important happen because we attach emotions to them. Those emotions act like a filter that trap the most important thoughts.
When we are depressed or anxious, our brain will mostly attach emotions to the thoughts that are consistent with the theme of our general mental health. Because they are deemed important, our mind will keep bringing them back.
Read 8 tweets
10 Oct
[THREAD] I want to talk about compassion fatigue in more detail. It is something that happens more often than we think and can add a lot of guilt because we feel we no longer care for other people, even when it is not accurate. So what is it? And can we get out of it?
Compassion fatigue is simply the inability to help or feel empathy for certain periods of time. It was first identified in healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses and therapists who work long hours with patients and who need to constantly show empathy.
It is a symptom of burnout and exhaustion when it seems like they no longer care. This is because they have been compassionate over and over again without a break and their minds is simply tired from it. However, we started to notice this effect also happening outside healthcare.
Read 11 tweets
9 Oct
[THREAD] I want to talk about one of the most underrated exercises that I love so much. It is called core beliefs. All of us have core values and beliefs about ourselves and the world. However, when we are anxious or depressed, we sometimes internalize negative core beliefs.
We may start to believe that “we are annoying” or “no one loves us” as core belief because we have been depressed for so long that we believe it even if there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest that this is true. Core beliefs are very important because they dictate our identity!
The purpose of this exercise is to write down all our core beliefs. After that, we pick those that have negative connotations or stem from low self-esteem. When we identify all those that are negative, we will pick one of them (for now) and change it.
Read 7 tweets
3 Oct
[THREAD] I want to take sometime to discuss exam, presentation and deadline anxiety. It is a question I get multiple times per week and debilitates a lot of students and professionals. So let’s dive a little deeper into it, why it happens and if we can overcome it.
First of all, performance anxiety is not a different type of anxiety per say. Usually, those of us who have it have anxiety in other areas of our life. But performance anxiety can directly affect results and increase our mental health distress.
The root of performance anxiety is society based. When parents put too much pressure on kids and schools have this attitude that failing exams can ruin our life, it is easy to realize why we put so much pressure on ourselves to perform. However, that pressure can backfire.
Read 10 tweets
1 Oct
[THREAD] I want to take a moment to explain health anxiety (formerly known as hypochondria). It is something that continues the cycle of anxiety and it spirals to the point where we think that something is wrong with us physically almost constantly. Health anxiety is very common.
We may go to the doctor for physical exams but the tests keep coming back with nothing wrong. However, our health anxiety convinces us that something is wrong and the doctors simply haven't caught it yet. We may get a small relief when we get our tests back but it doesn't last.
Our anxiety simply tends to move to another part of our body. If we do a heart test and everything looks fine, we will think that something is wrong with our lungs. It is a never ending struggle. We often look up symptoms on google to self-diagnose. However, this is a bad idea.
Read 12 tweets

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