Schizophrenia – one of the most harmful mental diseases

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disease accompanied with reduced lifespan of up to 14 healthy years for men and 12 healthy years for women.

Assessing the risk

How to know beforehand if you or your close ones are in a risk group? According to multiple studies such as the recent Danish twin study the heritability is very high, around 80%, so knowing about your family history is beneficial. Triggering environmental factors can be stress and drugs that cause psychotic events. Needless to say, using drugs to fight stress is a double hazard.

Reasons for ill-health in schizophrenic

For people living with schizophrenia, heavy smoking, failure to diagnose cardiovascular diseases, and eating right for prevention seem to be the main lifestyle causes for reduction in health, accompanied with social isolation.

Fighting it

Even small social support, stopping smoking, doing exercise together, eating right, and helping in weight loss for the obese all could positively contribute to better quality of life.

Next step.

Take action.

We know, moving from your current evening schedule to follow instructions needs good reasons, but let’s start by something you can do here and now in 10 seconds — raising awareness for prevention.

Think about your family tree. Are there cases of schizophrenia? One parent having that means half the risk, which is 40%. Just one grandparent who suffered from schizophrenia means 20% risk.

If you are at risk, the next paragraph is for you. If you are clear, good for you! You can think about someone in your close ones who might be at risk or even have the disease.

Lifestyle decisions that reduce stress and psychotic periods matter the most in prevention. Is there a danger of isolation, no means to release stress, or even usage of drugs? In these situations, connecting with a message is already a win! If you can put more effort, go for a walk or eat in a healthy place together. Remember that schizophrenia is a difficult mental condition, so when it feels hard to relate to someone, just notice that in this condition it is hard to relate to even your own thoughts and feelings.

By small effort you can feel immediate benefits and maybe even trigger a longer-lasting habit change — keep that positive thought in mind and step into action!

Share.

The act of giving back.

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Also, check out Tassilo Weber’s book Life Extension Design.