More specifically, too many people are addicted to their phones.

Want to have more free time? Just keep it away. Stop using it everywhere you go. In high school I saw so many kids use it while walking in the hallways (thus bumping into people), in the bathroom, and even during tests. For god's sake, it shouldn't be difficult for people to keep phone use to a moderate level.

VGChartz/Reddit does it for me as well, and unlike other platforms they are hard to get addicted to

Agreed, I don't have enough money for a smartphone or a music player so I am always looking around enjoying nature waving at people I know, or talking in class instead of staring at my phone.

My mental health is quite bad actually. I've known for a long time but resisted therapy until today. I just got back from my first session ever and I really liked it. I wish I had done it sooner. I was doing well for a while though, and tried various morning routines but couldn't stick to one for long. I want to give and receive love, have a job I'm happy at, and be independent.

I've found that coffee is addicting to where if I try to not have any I become hypochondriac or something. I'm drinking scarlet tea instead now and it's somewhere in the middle. Hoping to quit caffeine. I lost my job at Rockstar and then at Nintendo. I'm starting work at Xbox as a game tester. I'm having major girl trouble atm. And I want to move out but am scared.

Since losing my job/girlfriend, feeling uncertain about my future.. and quitting caffeine.. My muscles are burning and tingling. I'm depressed, anxious, and fatigued. I'm nauseous, with stomach aches. I have insomnia and lucid dreams. I have headache and foggy brain. There's a huge knot in my stomach. It took this to finally motivate me into therapy. Im glad, I definately found the right guy.

I did therapy for about half a year, then I mentioned a few political comments, nothing that specific really, and my therapist couldn't help but emotionally react. it was awkward. So I stopped going and just recently started this past week so go figure!

It's definitely very helpful. There is a delay effect in every habit, emotion, and activity we partake in, whether positive or negative - only after some time can yous ee the true benefit, so if you're pretty certain you made a good habit of something but with no tangible consequence, keep doing it. Same for stopping bad habits.

Also, when my health has gone south in the past it always seems to manifest itself in the stomach, and skin for acne sufferers like myself, though I don't fancy that word "sufferer." Even mroe so now that I'm on the brink of extinguishing it out of my life through intense(but reasonable) daily exercise, good food(organic! not expensive), mental stimulation(novelty, the point of this thread), and now trying to solve the "socializing" puzzle. Oh, and the job thing of course.

And don't get me started on relationship troubles, btu at least that's one thing every human can relate to! ;)

Hmm.. I think you may be right.. I mean, about you getting better by not using social media although only that is not sufficient to make someone mentally happy. But I know what you meant.

The voices in my head tell me that I have nothing to worry about regarding my mental health, but they also told me that pineapple in pizza is the best thing that has ever happened to civilization, so I don't know if I should still trust them.

It's an interesting topic, considering my family has a bit of a history with mental health. My mom suffers from depression, my sister was diagnosed as bi-polar, my brother had a really bad episode of anxiety that threw his body into disarray, etc, and my cousin committed suicide last year after battling a plethora of mental issues during a 3 year period. I'm not bothered by people who are dismissive of it but I certainly understand and I'm more empathetic to the issues more after seeing people around me deal with them.

Personally, I think I do almost all of those fairly well. Eating healthy is definitely a work in progress, trying to get more fruits and veggies anyway I can since I did gain some weight recently after 2 months of slacking off. The only thing I don't do well is catching up with people. I only really maintain relationships with a smaller crowd of people that I consider contacting daily. I just get so damn lazy to contact good friends or family members whom I haven't talked to in a while. I'm even lazier when I get really on-the-moment invitation to hang out, I need like a solid day in advance to get into the mood to hang out. If I got my day planned out (even if it's just bumming at home), ANY other activity is a monkey wrench in my mind. Despite being extremely lazy about hanging out and don't crave it often, I really enjoy talking and shooting the shit with people face-to-face after the fact. There's a definite tug of war in my mind, i'm sure there's a word for this kind of thing.

Still, I consider myself to be the most mentally/emotionally stable of my immediate family and bigger family as well. Best advice I can give to anybody is just do you. Don't pretend, accept yourself as you are, don't over think it and stay away from the social media cespool (a bit of facebook or something is fine but don't make it a daily thing)

My mental health depends on how much I feel "in control" of my life. If I'm heading out to school, hitting the gym and working on my hobby projects I tend to feel great. If I'm sitting at home, not doing much besides browsing the web, with no major "goals", I tend to feel very down.

I am JC Denton

That's a shame, then again, a forum in a ways is a form of mental health, socializing and such :)