How to Get Better

Research shows that people who undergo therapy for their mental health problems like anxiety and depression, show improvement. While it is established that therapy works, it isn’t quite known why it works.

A closer look reveals that all the diverse methods of therapy seem to work, with no real difference in their effectiveness. A corollary to this phenomenon is that therapy by itself is a decoy, and what really works is simply you being in a room talking about your problems to someone who listens well.

There was a time when the educated, learned individuals like Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci, Winston Churchill and the like were known as journalers who used to write to help themselves think.

It was later discovered by psychologists that journaling offers therapeutic benefits, helping us verbalize our thoughts and feelings, reflecting upon them and making them lose their grip on us in the process.

Meditation is essentially self-observation, a conversation with oneself without the verbal noise. Regular meditation is a two-way dialogue that creates self-awareness.

Meditation was an eastern novelty a few decades ago, and like Yoga, is now a multi-billion dollar industry.

There is a common thread between the three ways to improve mental health. They essentially are doing the same thing to us. The three tools externalize the baggage (our mental problems) that we had internalized, leading to an unburdening of our mind.

Therapy, journaling and meditation are all tools to convert a subject of our consciousness into an object, building our self-awareness and diminishing our ego.