Mental Health: Avoiding Unnecessary and Harmful Stress

As part of life's trials, individuals occasionally find themselves in situations that cause mental strain and stress, challenging their ability to cope. Human nature is designed to withstand stress up to a point without collapsing.

The pressures and stresses one faces at various life stages are typically within one's capacity to handle. Hashem does not present challenges beyond what one can endure. Just as people can choose to follow good or evil, health or harm, they can choose to protect their mental well-being from unnecessary stress or expose themselves to it, bearing the consequences of those choices.

Choosing to inundate the mind with stress-inducing horror or thriller movies, beyond normal life stresses, weakens one's resilience and creates a false perception that the world is far more frightening than it is. This perception, fueled by violent and troubling media, can lead to mental collapse during life's inevitable crises.

The Torah advises us: "Do not follow your heart and eyes seeking things that lead you astray." Without a conscious effort to avoid it, one's natural curiosity might lead them away from spiritual ideals and toward material desires that begin in temptation and end in remorse. Thus, we should redirect thoughts towards the true and good ways of the Torah.

Similarly, individuals should not pursue all of their heart's desires or the world's pleasures, as the end of these pursuits leads to ruin. Adherence to the Torah's values helps prevent sin and strengthens personal happiness.

Just as temptations in immodesty draw one with curiosity, leading to a loss of spiritual sensitivity and personal joy, so does consuming negative content online and through media. This exposure weakens one's ability to handle life's pressures.

The Harmful Effects of Visual Media

Numerous studies have shown the negative impact of visual media, especially TV and films, on mental and physical health. This is undisputed. Negative influences include violence, low self-esteem, impaired intelligence, learning disabilities, compulsive viewing, moral decadence, alcoholism, and obesity. In 1993, the American Psychiatric Association joined other organizations in recognizing that violent television content poses a risk to children's and teens' development and family stability.

Principle: Balanced Perception of Social and Environmental Failures

Someone who believes they are unwanted and surrounded by hostile people may conclude that their entire world is harsh and threatening, increasing anxiety and potentially leading to mental illness.

To avoid such outcomes, one should teach themselves and their children three fundamental behaviors from the Torah, providing profound benefits beyond spiritual obligations:

• "Judge your fellow justly."
• "Do not take revenge."
• "Do not hold a grudge."

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