professional advice

To achieve your full mental health potential you have to believe in yourself and surround yourself with people who believe in you and your potential in life. Family members and friends who stand by you during good times and bad times can help you realize your own capacity for self-belief and self-love. You should consistently work on cultivating your own self-confidence along with a positive mindset. Always remember your successes in life when new challenges seem difficult and remember you can succeed again and again. Visualize your own capacity for success and never forget you deserve it. And don't ever be too hard on yourself. You deserve self-compassion and you should deal with people who share a deep respect for your emotional needs. All along never forget you are a unique person in this world with unique needs. Never stop growing in every dimension of your being with new experiences, new ideas, new feelings, and new challenges. Everyday offers the potential for growth. And in the midst of dealing with the anxieties anticipated to occur with continuing to move ahead in your life consider any negative thoughts and feelings to be a healthy catharsis as you strive to build your life on more positive thoughts and feelings. 

I prefer to concentrate on the concept of mental health instead of mental illness. Instead of focusing on the long journey ahead to learn to cope with mental illness, your life has more promise if you strive to realize your capacity for mental health. In this context I do not like anything about the psychiatric paradigm which leaves you feeling helpless with useless labels such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. These labels are dangerously stigmatizing and based on the subjective whims of the psychiatrists. They are however deemed essential in the rigid orthodox medical model approach to mental illness in order to help with evaluations of medical students and billings to welfare and insurance policies even though they serve no therapeutic value and are instead defeatist in nature. It shouldn't be a big deal even if you have experienced episodes of psychosis, as long as it's nonviolent, keeping in mind many very successful artistic, musical, religious, financial, and scientific minds have shared out of the ordinary creative and enlightening experiences throughout history. Furthermore, the psychiatric interventions are consistently destructive in nature, particularly the psychiatric drugs. It is sometimes implied it's a simplification of matters for me to tell someone to enjoy some salmon and green tea to help with their mental health, while the psychiatrists are so proud of their supposed complex task of writing haldol, stelazine, lithium, valium, ritalin, etc. again and again and again and signing their prescription slips. I prefer salmon and green tea for a start over any of these toxic drugs in times of health and sickness. Good nutrition is essential for your mental health. Daily exercise, preferably in the fresh air and sunshine anytime of year, is also essential for your mental health. Spending time with significant others can also help. However, you should not feel you have to always be involved in a deep romantic or sexual relationship to be mentally healthy because relationships of this nature often simply don't work out. And so learn to love and respect yourself first and foremost. And try sharing some of your capacity for love with a nice pet. You really will discover if you show love for your dog that's someone who will never let you down. Thinking positive should also help with your mental health. If you feel a therapist can help you with your mental health needs, that's fine as long as you like the approach of the therapist. This can never be helpful if it is forced on you because there can be no trust and a therapeutic alliance with court orders and force. And in this context remember there must be therapeutic boundaries for this type of interaction to be professional, safe, ethical and effective. So find time daily to journey down the path of mental health and forget about mental illness. Dr Harold Mandel (Copyright) 

I do not support the idea that as people age they should learn to act their age and stop behaving foolishly by adhering to youthful values and lifestyles. Both men and women do not have to give into this idea if they strive to stay healthy in body, mind & spirit. If you want to mix socially and personally with younger people and this is mutually desireable than why not. I frankly think it's depresssing to impress upon someone that you have to stop feeling and behaving like you're decades younger than you actually are if you can stay healthy enough to make this quest come true. Being biologically, emotionally and intellectually younger than your chronological age is something you have to work at. And keep in mind all along this desire will be difficult without financial freedom so be careful with your investments and who you trust to help you with that. There are some honest and ethical financial advisors, but there are also some who will try to steal your money.  Without the empowerment which money brings you it will be hard to explore avenues to maintain your youth for as long as possible. You have to exercise regularly to maintain your youth. Long walks, swimming, bike riding and hiking are all good.  Spending time in nature is also a great idea. And you have to eat well to maintain your youth. Diets rich in antioxidants including berries and leafy greens, omega-3s including walnuts and salmon, and good hydration are vital. Spring water and unsweetened green tea are good for hydration. And don't under-estimate the importance of sleep. You should get 7-9 hours of quality sleep every night to nurture cell repair and mental altertness. You should also stay fluid with your artistic and musical tastes. Check out modern art and exciting pop and metal music. Get into the art and music and feel it. This will help keep your mind plastic. And if you don't want to retire and various professional interests and businesses are giving you a problem due to age while coming up with other excuses that don't make sense than try setting up something yourself online and experiment with that. You have got to think, eat, behave, feel, and desire to stay young to remain young for as long as possible in body, mind and spirit. With this pursuit I think your life can be much more rewarding and enjoyable for as long as you live.   

Many of us have had toxic relationship experiences.  It's always very emotionally shocking to have invested yourself in someone for a long time and suddenly find out that person is like a stranger to you. All that love, support and sexual intimacy is now making you feel like a fool. You're crushed and feel inadequate, lonely and as if maybe you did something wrong and your world is simply feeling empty. Personal relationship break ups are extremely stressful even if you are the one who felt you had to break off the relationship. All of the sudden you're feeling alone in the world. Scenes from reality show soap operas are all too common in real life with your lover having an affair with sometimes who you thought was your best friend while you're working or simply out shopping. When this happens you can't be too hard on yourself and start second guessing why after all did you introduce someone you thought was so important to you to who you thought was your friend. It takes a firm committment going both ways to maintain the type of monogamous solid loving relationship most of us dream about having in our lives. And after all you can't keep your lover downstairs chained in a cage in the cellar away from everyone so if this kind of terrible thing happens remember the sooner you find out the truth about who you were so committed to the earlier you will be able to start on a path of emotional healing and move on with your life. This is a rough time in people's lives and can lead to drug and alcohol abuse and even suicide in anyone. So if you know of someone going through this that you care about don't let them down at this critical time. Let them know you're around to talk with and hang around with. This is a time in your life to find time to do more of the things you enjoy in life such as spending time in nature, playing with your dog, and spending more time with your parents, siblings or kids as you discover life can now move ahead without you losing your own feelings for your self-worth. I don't suggest jumping right into another deep relationship as soon as this occurs. Give yourself time to heal, realize you don't need to always be in a deep relationship to define yourself as a person, and if someone else comes along you think may be worthwhile  investing yourself in maybe things will go better this time around. And if you feel professional counseling can help you cope with all this better make certain you like the person you chose for this or there will be no chance of a therapeutic relationship developing. 

Although I am 100% in support of self-defense the issue of an epidemic of gun violence raises deep concerns. Clearly the majority of people buying firearms are not buying them for self defense and are not handling these deadly weapons properly. This is of course however not a simple issue due to cleared concerns dealing with government overreach particularly in an era where the country fears massive surveillance measures with disruptive satellite driven neurotechnologies which are undermining citizens basic freedoms. Government overreach was already a concern when the US Constitution was written prior to the development of surveillance technologies. This all leaves the lines severely blurred between who the worse criminals in our society really are. And so while supporting the right to self-defense I must take the position nevertheless that firearms for everyone, including law enforcement, must be tightly regulated with a strong message that anyone who actually uses a firearm will be held accountable. Firearms are associated with about 50,000 deaths a year in the USA. They are the leading cause of death among children and youth. This is a public health crisis. If you have firearms and children at home and the firearms aren't securely locked up I frankly think you belong in jail. I personally took a riflery course at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pensylvania. As a sport I thought this was challenging and fun. However, in all honesty I didn't think it was all that hard to develop an exerptise in this and hit the bullseye most of the time. So I suggest being very careful with firearms. 

The world is in bad shape. It appears the degree of military hostilities have not been as threatening to worldwide stability since World War II. The Doomsday clock is clicking closer and closer to midnight. Syndicated journalists have been publishing maps which portray the most likely nuclear strike points worldwide. The hypersonic nuclear weapons that Russia, the United States, China, France, England, India, Pakistan, North Korea and possibly Israel have can knock out entire cities in a flash. The devastation was shocking enough at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet this new generation of nuclear weapons are catastrophically more powerful. Tuning into the realities of what's actually happening in the Ukraine war, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, Haiti, Myanmar, and elsewhere will shake up the psyche of any normal person. These tensions are heightened by very tense situations between Mainland China and Taiwan,  North Korea and South Korea, Thailand and Cambodia,  and India and Pakistan. This all could make anybody go insane if you don't try hard to maintain your sanity. I personally suggest throwing your full support for peace initiatives between Russia and the United States because unless these major powers can stop edging towards a possible nuclear confrontation there's no chance for coordinated efforts to realize peace in the other troubled regions of the world. Playing politics at a time like this could be costly. You'll feel better about yourself and part of the peace process if you endorse peace instead of war at this time and leave politics out of this search for peace! Only peace can save the world now!  

It's very enticing for most of us to find some time to get a sun tan. Moderate exposure to the sun can in fact offer many health benefits. However, this exposure should be done very carefully with overexposure avoided. UVB rays from the sun convert dehydrocholesterol in the skin to vitamin D3 which is important for bone health, calcium absorption, and immune function. With adequate vitamin D there is a lower risk of osteoporosis, rickets, and bone fractures. Furthermore, vitamin D helps to boost your immune response which generally lowers your risk for infections and autoimmune diseases. And sunlight helps to boost your serotonin levels which improves mood and lessens depression. Also nitric oxide released in the skin from sun exposure may help lower your blood pressure and improve your heart health. However, overexposure to the sun can cause sunburns, premature aging, and an increased risk of melanoma and basal cell carcinoma. Tanning beds in particular may increase your risk for skin cancer. I recommend along with moderate exposure to the sun the use of sunscreen with an SPF of at least 30+, use of hats, quality sunglasses, and light cotton clothing to help prevent UV damage to your skin. And be particularly careful about direct sun exposure between 10am and 4pm which are peak UV hours. Optimal sun exposure for adults is 5-15 minutes to the face, arms, and hands 3-4 times a week, outside of peak UV hours. Sunburn should at all times be avoided. Furthermore, you should be particularly careful about direct sun exposure for children. Too much sun exposure in childhood is a primary risk factor for skin cancer later in life. And infants under 6 months should be protected completely from direct sun exposure. You can enjoy the sun and be all the healthier and happier for the time you spend in the sun if you are smart about your sun exposure.

 In times of health and sickness seeing psychiatrists is a horrible thing to do for your mental health. The psychiatrists are diabolically insane tyrannical frauds who have been made so arrogant from large financial rewards and public respect which they demand it appears they are in delusional states and actually often believe their own lies about helping people with their consistently destructive discipline. Psychiatrists like to throw around powerful names of Universities they're associated with to try to add credibility their ignorant ideas. Yet, a small town General Physician (GP) can actually do a lot more for your mental health than any of the psychiatrists. A general health check up coupled with the warm compassionate interactions of GPs are significant. And down to earth advice of a GP to maintain a healthy diet, get regular exercise, spend time in nature, maintain warm family relations, sleep well, avoid violence, and avoid too much alcohol and drugs can do wonders for your mental health. Psychiatrists claim that this all simplifies mental health issues and interventions and they're so proud of the way they can say schizophrenia and bipolar disorder over and over again and keep jotting down scripts for the same highly toxic drugs again and again. Those repetitive simple tasks represent brilliant minds to a brainwashed public which gazes in awe when the psychiatrists throw around the terms of the trendy psychiatric labels  and interventions again and again in press interviews and on TV talk shows. And psychiatrists are very impressed with themselves when they discuss mechanisms of actions of their toxic drugs with such comments as "dopamine blockade" from psychotropic drugs, which you can now say too and which as an aside often causes severe depressions, seizures, blackouts and irreversible Tardive Dyskinesia which is a neruological disorder as severe as end stage Parkinson's disease. Furthermore, the psychiatrists consistently put aside the most important things in your life, including your relationships, career and money, as being irrelevant to your mental health care treatment while a good GP wants you living, working, loving, prospering and enjoying your life. And remember it's supposed to be the GP who makes referrals to specialists and after I've learned more and more about the repulsive attitudes of psychiatrists and the intense pain and suffering they cause for their patients I would have a guilty conscience if I referred anyone to a psychiatrist. 

 Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that cancer causes about 9.6 million deaths across the world every year, which accounts for 1 in 6 deaths.  The National Cancer Institute in the United States has reported in 2025 there are projected to be over 2 million new cases of cancer in the USA and over 600,000 people will die from cancer in the country. There are preventative measures that can be taken which can lower your chances of getting cancer. Regular physicial activity is important for cancer prevention. You should also strive to maintain a healthy weight. A plant based diet which is rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is good for cancer prevention. And you should limit red meats and processed meats, highly processed foods, and sugar sweetened beverages. Alcohol consumption should be limited and avoidance of smoking is critical. It is also advisable to avoid exposure to other carcinogens including second hand tobacco smoke, ultraviolet radiation, infectious agents such as human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and C viruses, and certain chemicals such as asbestos, benzene, and formaldehyde. Don't let down your guard in dealing with cancer. Cancer can often be prevented if you work on it. 

Consuming contaminated food or drinks can lead to food poisoning which may be associated with nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fever. Severe food poisoning can be life threatening with bloody diarrhea, diarrhea that lasts more than 3 days, high fever over 102°F, vomiting which is so severe you can't keep liquids down, and signs of dehydration. You should never let your guard down dealing with foodborne illnesses, which can be caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, and toxins. Contamination generally comes from poor food handling, cooking, and storage. Measures you can take to prevent food poisoning include good hygiene, proper refrigeration and making certain food is cooked properly. 

Prevention of cognitive decline & Alzheimer's disease as you age encompasses leading an active lifestyle with regular exercise, keeping your brain challenged with work, hobbies or games, and a nutritous diet. Your diet should have a lot of fresh fruit & vegetables & some low fat dairy products. Antioxidants in green tea, berries, nuts & leafy greens also nurture a healthy brain. Omega-3 fatty acids in healthy fish such as salmon also helps. Meditation & limiting alcohol & drug consumption also nurtures a healthy brain. It's also important to avoid smoking, maintain a healthy weight & sleep well at night.  

Although a reasonable amount of time to relax daily is important, it's not a good idea to always relax and to completely avoid stress. Your personal growth may be stunted without sometimes taking some chances and leaving your comfort zone. When you confront reasonable amounts of stress your growth and adaptability are nurtured. And your performance reaches its peaks with balanced stress levels because some stress in your life can drive your motivation and focus. With a total lack of any stress you may experience a lack of mental agility. And some stress may trigger the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol which can enhance your alertness, memory and decision making. So although too much stress in your life may be bad for your overall health and wellbeing, a moderate amount of stress in your life may improve your health and wellbeing significantly.