Managing Oneself for a Prime Soul

ARSIP EVENT KOMPAS

Spaceguide taking pictures with visitors to Gelora Bung Karno, Sunday (17/7/2022). Ahead of the Kompasfest event, anyone who finds a Spaceguide will receive a prize.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — In the midst of fast-paced technological development that offers a lot of freedom, self-management and control of expectations are important. It turns out that freedom that goes too far can have an impact on mental health, and this can no longer be taken lightly.

Lately, there have been a lot of discussions about mental health as awareness increases about its importance. It is not enough to be physically healthy, but one must also be mentally healthy. Young people are increasingly aware of the importance of mental health, both in their personal, social and work lives.

Mental health practitioner Adjie Santosoputro said on Wednesday (17/8/2022) that there was now awareness about mental health across generations, but compared with the baby boomer generation, millennials and generation Z were more mental health literate. "However, what needs to be watched out is that some are being careless and unfortunately make it their identity on social media to be recognized," he said by telephone.

From Adjie's experience, the younger generation now generally experiences four mental health problems, namely trauma, loneliness, anxiety and relationship issues. Many factors become triggers, such as a tenuous family relationship or excessive interaction with mass media and social media.

Also read:

> Mental Health for All: Between Hope and Reality

> Service Infrastructure for Mental Health Needs Improvement

Adjie is one of the speakers at Kompasfest 2022, discussing the topic 30 Under Pressure: The Search for Peace of Mind. Adjie highlights young people under 30 years old because many young people experience a quarter-life crisis. “At that age, problems about career and relationships arise. Young people start to think deeply about life, marriage and usually financial problems, [as they] are more independent because they are separated from their parents,” said Adjie.

Adjie added that young people needed to educate themselves on the topic of mental health. For example, many people know about first aid in an accident, but not many know what to do when mentally stressed due to sharp comments in public. The impact, among other issues, is unhealthy relationships and irritability. "So, I also talk about the approach to unravel and address the situation with mindfulness," said Adjie.

Young people start to think deeply about life, marriage and usually financial problems, [as they] are more independent because they are separated from their parents.

Referring to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, more than 792 million people in the world are dealing with mental health problems. Two of the mental health disorders with the highest number of occurrences are anxiety disorders and depression. In Indonesia, the prevalence of these two types of mental health disorders have continued to increase for almost the last three decades, namely during the 1990-2019 period.

Overall, the prevalence of mental health disorders in Indonesia is 10.68 percent below the global average. Interestingly, many developed countries, with good economic levels as well as freedom of expression and work, have an even high prevalence, in the range of 14-16 percent. These countries include Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the Netherlands. This high prevalence is also seen in developing countries prone to conflict and lack of freedom with low economic levels, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Brazil and Libya.

KOMPAS/PRIYOMBODO

Three young women use mirrors to take selfies together at M Bloc Space, Blok M, South Jakarta, Thursday (3/3/2022). Me time or giving yourself time to have fun can be done in various ways and one of them is hanging out or visiting interesting places, alone or with friends.

Space of freedom

Clinical psychologist Nago Tejena when talking in Jakarta on Thursday (18/8), explained that mental health in general was related to many things, such as desires, interests and frustrations. All of this also relates to the need for freedom.

“It is necessary to have the space to explore oneself so as to find the right place to grow. Growing up without being demanded and forced. However, freedom combined with the large amount of information as it is today, [can make] the mind go wild. Which is actually better than being restrained. But it can turn around when we don't do anything," said Nago.

In line with World Health Organization findings, young people who fall into the millennial and gen Z categories in developed countries with high freedom of expression and work are prone to stress, leading to anxiety disorders to depression. This freedom they have encourages them to keep thinking, but not everything can be done.

Also read:

> Unequal Access to Mental Health Services

> The Snobby Disease

"Therefore, it becomes a burden. Not to mention, now, with the flood of information, [a young person] continues to see people their age who have achieved a lot. Overthinking. Therefore, [it is important we are] slowly shifting and unraveling to organize life according to our level," said Nago who will speak on the topic Something Beyond Your Mind at Kompasfest on Saturday (20/8).

However, that does not mean young people are not allowed to dream or daydream, especially in this fast-paced digital era. The dream must be initiated and worked on slowly according to one's capacity and then increase again. "Also the ability to sort out what is really important to ourselves so that our time is not spent on things that actually have no use and can obstruct productivity and even social relations," said Nago.

In order to get there, the key is to listen to oneself to find out the will so that it is easy to manage the oneself and the expectations being owned.

Kompasfest 2022 will take place in a hybrid manner on Friday (19/8) and Saturday (20/8) at M Bloc Space and Kala in Kalijaga, South Jakarta. This time, Kompasfest raises the theme , Act and Decide by presenting dozens of speakers.

This article is translated by Hyginus Hardoyo.