 And certainly ensuring that we are practicing social distancing. Now, this has been part of the mitigation strategy that we've been hearing now. It's so essential right now. There's a difference between social distancing and quarantine. And social distancing means you try and keep yourself away from people as much as possible, 6 to 10 feet if you have to be in public. But let's try to stay away from bars and closed restaurants. I know some people have to eat. And when you're going to eat, you're going to eat. But let's let's try. And finally, stay home, especially if you're sick, but also if you are not. That last one is part of what's called social distancing. As many of you know, social distancing is the new word that is spreading around the world because we are trying to slow down the spread of this thing. But what not enough of us are talking about is how this is going to affect our mental health. So that's what we're going to be discussing in this video. But make sure that you stay tuned until the end because we're mainly going to be talking about the solutions. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. So if you're like me and you struggle with mental health issues and want to try to improve them, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. All right. So yeah, we need to talk about social distancing. It's something that we all need to do. It's something that I'm glad that a lot of people with a big voice, a big reach, a big following, they are promoting to other people. For me personally, they just shut down like a ton of places here in Las Vegas where I'm from a lot of the casinos and restaurants and bars. They're shutting down until this thing slows down. My son and every other kid in Nevada, they just closed down the schools until April 6th, I believe. And I'm very fortunate because I work at a place where it's not a big deal if I work from home. All right. But anyways, this is to promote more social distancing to try to keep us away from each other and slow this thing down. Okay, but this is going to take a toll on our mental health. And I'm going to explain why that happens to some of the psychology behind it. But anyways, I have a whole playlist on maintaining your mental health during this time. But if you want accurate updates, if you want somebody who's speaking common sense and is a doctor, make sure that you're checking out the videos from Dr. Mike. I will link his most recent video as of this point down below. He's doing regular updates and saying the date. Anyways, go check it out because I love what he says. He talks about being aware, not anxious. But let me tell you, let me tell you my favorite thing about Dr. Mike. Okay, he is not afraid to sass a fool. Okay, so here's a tweet that he actually retweeted just yesterday. I think it was. So who is this? Anna Carrera, and she is a CNN anchor. And she puts hashtag urgent over 3,000 of, you know, the people in the U.S., there's 61 deaths. There are at least 3,010 cases in the United States across 49 states and D.C., according to the state and local agencies, governments, and the CDC. So Dr. Mike, being the, the amazing dude he is, he retweets and says, any particular reason why this is labeled hashtag urgent in my update video today, I specifically left out numbers as they are anxiety inducing, oftentimes inaccurate and not particularly useful statistics, practically speaking, like, I love that little, practically speaking. But anyways, I made a video yesterday about 11 facts to help kind of chill your anxiety during this time, but Dr. Mike's absolutely right. Like the, the, the media, like they need, they need the views, they need the clicks, they need, you know, the traffic, especially since like, you know, views on television or dropping, not a lot of people are buying newspapers or magazines anymore, so they're trying to drive traffic to their websites and a lot of their anchors are on Twitter. But we need to realize that because they're constantly inundating us with these numbers. I was just talking to my beautiful girlfriend Tristan yesterday, like, what if this thing never happened and every single day, starting January 1st until December 31st, every day, they're like, hey, the death toll has gone up, the death toll has gone up, the death toll has gone up just for everything that happened, right? We would constantly be in this state of panic. So don't treat this thing any different, okay? So like Dr. Mike says, stay aware, not anxious. All right, but anyways, I got the idea to do this video after I was reading this Vox article about social distancing causing a loneliness epidemic. So I'll read you a part of it. I will link it down below, but it says, Boyd was a major contributor to a major national academies of science report on the health consequences of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. The researchers found that even before about a quarter of older adults fit the definition for socially isolated, which measures routine social contact and 43% said they felt lonely. You can be socially isolated without reporting feelings of loneliness and you can be lonely without being socially isolated, but both conditions seem to inflict harm on physical and mental health. Social isolation has been associated with a significantly increased risk of premature mortality from all causes, the report found, including a 50% increased risk of developing dementia, a 29% increased risk of incident coronary heart disease, a 25% increased risk for cancer mortality, a 59% increase of functional decline, and a 32% increase of risk of stroke, okay? So although they are talking about people who are older, this is something that can actually affect all of us. So one of the reasons why there is a debate on confinement, why is that word slipping my mind? Solitary confinement, that's what it is. There's a debate around that because social isolation can be deemed cruel and unusual punishment, okay? When we are isolating, we can go crazy. So let's talk a little bit about the evolutionary psychology behind that, all right? Why does social isolation make us depressed and make us anxious, okay? So an amazing book that I've referenced recently is Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. This book explains depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, addiction, ADHD, schizophrenia, from an evolutionary standpoint. I love evolutionary psychologists because they try to understand why did the gene pool even keep these certain traits and everything? So depression and anxiety, the reason why these happen when we're socially isolated is think back to the days when we were like hunters and gatherers and living in these small groups, right? Your body needed to send off these warning signals when you were by yourself to say, yo, you need to get back to the group because you think about it. Back in those days when there was pretty much no medicine aside from your local shaman and things like that, if you went off by yourself, you can get attacked by a lion, right? What if you got injured? What if you got sick? So the way that we evolve is that when you are distanced from other people, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, those are natural because it's your body saying you need to get back towards the group, okay? And you've probably heard this all the time and I'm not an anti-social media guy. Like I love technology. I love social media. And in fact, when we talk about the solutions, I'm going to point out why I love them so much. But you hear all the time about how social media has made us more isolated than ever before and now we're being forced into this isolation. But one of the reasons people talk about that is because we are wired for human connection, okay? So let's talk about some of the solutions when it comes to mental health. First, we're going to talk about support and reaching out to each other, okay? So again, it is 2020 and that's why I love technology. Like if this happened, what, 20, 30 years ago? Like none of us had cell phones. We didn't have social media. The internet was barely popping off in the 1990s. We couldn't connect with one another. So I'm grateful that it is happening during a time where we can stay connected and we have these beautiful things right here, all right? Although it is not that same face-to-face, although your mirroring neurons are not activating, we have FaceTime, right? Or video chat apps, whatever you choose to use. You can use those. You can text. You can call whatever it is. A lot of it, when it comes to our depression and anxiety, we need to feel like we're not alone. We need to feel connected with other people. So no matter what it is, like I think a good habit to develop during this difficult time is to reach out to at least three to five people a day. Three to five people a day and just say, hey, how are you doing? How are you doing? Like, I have been reaching out to people. I've been talking to my parents more than I usually do, right? I've been talking to some of my friends. Like, you know, we're getting older. We all have families and everything like that. We have a few different group chats where we're talking and, you know, keeping in touch and all that. So don't let this force you to disconnect from people, even if you're not doing it face to face, like talk to people. Talk if you're feeling some type of way. The next thing I want to talk about is support groups. So during this time, like something that's been on my mind a lot since I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, I'm like, okay, well, what about all the 12 step meetings? You know what I mean? But there's all these other support groups, like there are trauma survivor support groups and other mental health support groups, you know? So what are these people doing? Because a lot of people are afraid to go out and we're practicing social distancing and all that. So for anybody out there struggling with addiction, or if you know somebody struggling with addiction, check out this website intherooms.com. When I first moved back to Las Vegas and I didn't have a car or any transportation, I found this website and they do online 12 step meetings. They do AA, they do NA, they do Al-Anon, all right? They also do other 12 step programs like gambler's anonymous, overeaters anonymous, all those things. And you do it online, they do video chat. You don't even have to have a camera. You just sit in there and just do voice chat. And you don't like a regular meeting. You don't even have to say anything, all right? But for everybody else out there who needs support, like this is what I encourage everybody to do. And I've been doing this for years because so many people feel like nobody understands what they're going through. There are so many support groups out there. Go on Facebook, just type in what kind of support group that you're looking for. I guarantee you will find it. Go to Reddit, you will find them there. Go to Instagram, go to Twitter, take advantage of hashtags. You will find people who are dealing with what you are dealing with. And start having conversations. One of the most difficult parts of having mental health issues is feeling alone and like nobody understands, okay? But the thing is, we are not unique to our feelings, right? Although some of our situations might differ from one person to the next, the feelings of depression, the feelings of anxiety, the aftermath of trauma, all these things are feelings that other people are experiencing. And we need to stay connected to them. That's why 12-step programs save lives like the way it's saved mine, okay? The last thing that I want to talk about is I know a lot of people, they prefer face-to-face therapy and everything like that. But I personally do online therapy. I use BetterHelp online therapy. I have a therapist where there's a messaging system in there. We schedule calls once a week, once every other week, whenever our schedules line up. But it's dope because I work a ton, so it's easy for me to just dip out. Like I work, I'll usually do it on my lunch break. I'll go out to my car, I'll do my weekly session with her. So if you are struggling right now, please, please, please, give BetterHelp online therapy a try because while we're practicing social distancing, we need to take care of our mental health. And there are so many mental health professionals out there. BetterHelp uses licensed therapists, okay? So I am sure I would assume that a lot of therapists right now, because of what's going on, are signing up to use the BetterHelp app, okay? Like I said, I personally use it. I absolutely love my therapist. One of the other benefits is that if you don't like your therapist, rather than having that awkward breakup conversation with them, you just hit a button and it's like, find a new therapist, boom. And you can find therapists who specialize in what you're dealing with. All right, so down in the description and down in the pinned comment of all my videos is an affiliate link. So basically what that means is that you get affordable online therapy and a little bit comes back to support the channel, which is very helpful since YouTube demonetizes any video on this subject, all right? So I highly, highly, highly encourage you to just give BetterHelp online therapy a try. Again, down in the description. And if any of you out there have suggestions or resources for support groups and everything like that, make sure you leave them in the comments and make sure you're following me on Instagram and Twitter because I will be putting together a list of mental health resources that everybody can take advantage of. A lot of very cool mental health professionals are doing things like courses, videos, podcasts and all that. I actually have some really cool people, mental health professionals, psychologists, neuroscientists, all sorts of people signed up to do my podcasts in the coming weeks. So make sure you're following me on Instagram at the reWiredSoul as well as on Twitter at the reWiredSoul and I'll keep you posted about all that stuff, all right? But anyways, make sure you're staying connected, okay? But that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books at the reWiredSoul.com. I am currently redoing the whole website. So go check it out. If you wanna go to the little shop tab, I just started a deal over all my books, so go check that out, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.