Breathe
By Arlen Solodkin
October 10 was designated as World Mental Health Day by the World Health Organization and reminds us how important this aspect of our lives is to achieve holistic wellness. The most important objective is not only to raise awareness among the population of the relevance of taking care of our mental health status, but also to break the stigmas and myths surrounding mental health problems.
Social barriers are evident in our country, where only 2 out of 10 people with mental health problems turn to a specialist. In Mexico, many people still avoid going to a psychologist or therapy, because there is a widespread perception that only those facing serious mental health problems should do so. In fact, the stigma of disorders of the mind and emotions is still very prevalent. This belief means that, when faced with an emotional problem, many people opt for silence and self-isolation instead of seeking professional support.
According to Mexican health authorities, as a result of the pandemic, more than 3 million Mexicans have presented some type of depression or mental health disorder, which is often exacerbated in the workplace due to overwork, prolonged stress or lack of quality relationships among colleagues.
Beyond the alarming data on the increasing cases of depression, anxiety and mental health problems, as founder and director of the Instituto de Bienestar Integral, it seems relevant to me to talk about the areas of research and practical applications of what is known as positive psychology, which can help us to improve the integral wellbeing of people in Mexico.
Today we have more access to information and technological tools than ever before, allowing us to have a significant impact on our lives and the world around us. Technology can be like a two-edged knife: on the one hand, it helps us to magnify our voice, making our messages reach the other side of the world; on the other hand, when used uncontrollably and in excess, it can have an impact on our mental health.
One example is social networks, which, without control, can affect us emotionally. However, these digital platforms can also be a predictive and intervention channel. We also have an area of opportunity with the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), which is already being used in several projects.
For example, the World Wellbeing project led by Andrew Schwartz who will be in Mexico City in November at the Hope Circuit meeting, which brings together the brightest minds from around the world in positive psychology, human development and happiness to lay the groundwork and follow the goal set by Dr. Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology, that 51% of the population will be flourishing by 2051.
In this project at the University of Pennsylvania, a group of psychologists work with artificial intelligence tools for diagnostic and predictive purposes by analyzing language, especially on digital platforms such as social networks where millions of people around the world post billions of words daily.
The specialists working on this initiative seek to understand how language can provide the key to recognize when there are trends in users' physical, psychological or mental health problems. The intervention models they have developed through AI seek to promote mental health.
The research was based on a follow-up of 75,000 volunteers who completed a personality questionnaire through the Facebook application. Participants allowed researchers to monitor and access their status updates in order to look for general linguistic patterns according to the language they used on the social network.
Subsequently, psychologists created word clouds that summarized the language that statistically predicted a given personality trait. Thus, for example, a word cloud might show the language used by an extrovert with words such as "party", "big night" or "contact me"; while in the word cloud of the personality trait of those who scored lower on introvert, words associated with social activities such as "snowboarding" or "basketball" were identified.
In this way, words can be correlated and associated with personality traits or moods. The project seeks to implement AI to develop new techniques to measure psychological and physical well-being based on the language used in social networks. The results have shed new light on how psychosocial processes affect health and happiness, and allow the development of well-being measures to complement (and partly replace) traditional costly survey methods.
An example of how technology can offer us new ways to detect deterioration processes in physical, mental or emotional health and open doors to help, inform, channel with experts and perhaps, attend some of the situations in time.
**ABOUT HOPE CIRCUIT
Hope Circuit is the international meeting that brings together the most recognized leaders in the fields of integral wellness, happiness and human progress; which will take place on November 23rd and 24th at the Westin Hotel in Santa Fe, as the first of other actions that seek to create a more positive future for Mexico. In the next publications we will share practical tools and findings of world leaders who will be at Hope Circuit, such as Dr. Martin Seligman, considered one of the most influential psychologists of our times; Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, professor of the most popular course at Harvaro University Andrew Schwartz, director of the World Wellbeing Project, in order to challenge the status quo and enrich our community so that together we can find solutions that will help us build a future of greater optimism, empathy and hope.
IBI
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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