• Question: Why are people more susceptible to mental illnesses, and how can activities protect you from this?

    Asked by anon-361557 on 28 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Birsu Kandemirci

      Birsu Kandemirci answered on 28 Mar 2023:

      This is not my area of expertise at all, so I’m probably not the best person to answer, but I will try. Certain things might make people more susceptible to mental health problems, and these can include genetic and environmental factors. Unfortunately not all of these are controllable, however having a diagnosis probably is the most important step towards receiving the right support. In addition to that, having a support system (this can be family, friends, professionals, or a combination) would be extremely helpful. Similarly, protection from mental health problems might not always be possible, but with the correct approach, the person can flourish.

    • Photo: Eileen Xu

      Eileen Xu answered on 30 Mar 2023:

      When we think about risk of mental illness, we often separate risks into two – “biological” and “environmental”.

      Biological risk factors are mostly thought of as our genetics – small differences in your DNA sequence that might increase or decrease your risk (though we don’t know exactly how yet!). This genetic risk might partially explain why if your parents or grandparents have mental illness, their children might also develop mental illness. From studies of twins, we actually know that for depression, this genetic risk contributes almost a third to depression risk!

      There are also environmental risk factors, which broadly include your day-to-day activities, how you were brought up, stress that you might experience. While we can’t change genetics, we can change the environment. Environmental factors that increase risk include having traumatic experiences as a child, having poor sleep, not having enough to eat or growing up poor, recent big stresses like a relationship break-up. Some protective factors are feeling connected socially, having a group of friends or family that make you feel supported, getting good sleep and nutrition, getting outside and not drinking too much alcohol.

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