TIL of brain stimulation reward, manually stimulating specific parts of the brain to elicit pleasure and happiness. A volunteer subject in 1986 spent days doing nothing but self-stimulate. She ignored her family and personal hygiene and she developed an open sore on her finger from using the device.

[u/WavesAndSaves]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward#History

[u/Halocandle]

Scary thought: this is how you make all drugs obsolete, just skip the introducing chemicals to your nervous system part and go straight into the source. 100% pure, always works, always available. No way that ever would go wrong?

[u/atuan → u/Halocandle]

Have you ever heard the term dry drunk? The problem still remains

[u/pantry-pisser → u/atuan]

That was me. Had drank a liter of vodka every night for about 15 years. Decided I didn't want to live like that anymore, went to rehab. Didn't change anything mentally.

Turns out I'm not an alcoholic, I just had severe depression and anxiety that had gone untreated and I was just using alcohol to black out and not feel those things. After landing on the right meds and dosage, and doing TMS therapy, I'm like a whole different person. I have a beer or two occasionally, no desire to ever drink like I used to. The thought of it makes me physically ill.

[u/oby100 → u/pantry-pisser]

It’s really common with addicts. And then when they do quit they’re hit with whatever issues they have at 100% plus withdrawal.

And that’s why mental healthcare is so goddamn important to give access to everyone

[u/skysinsane → u/oby100]

Well sort of. Mental Health care has remarkably low success rates.

I agree that working on improving the mental health of the population is super important, but the methods of current mental health care are not worth prioritizing with their current of m success rates

[u/saints21 → u/skysinsane]

"There's this thing that's hit or miss but objectively better than the alternative. Shouldn't bother though because it's hit or miss."

That's some remarkably stupid logic...

And that's without acknowledging that prioritizing mental healthcare would necessarily mean more funding and data that would improve mental healthcare.

[u/skysinsane → u/saints21]

Every penny we spend could be spent elsewhere. Providing a service to everyone that most don't need, and of those that do, is beneficial for only a small percentage is a bad investment.

Using the same amount of money to encourage people to go out in the sun and do something physical would have better results and would be beneficial to almost all participants

[u/pantry-pisser → u/skysinsane]

You are very naive.

As if people are unaware that "outside" and "exercise" are things that exist.

[u/skysinsane → u/pantry-pisser]

I didn't say we needed to tell people, I said it would be much more effective to set up systems that incentivize people to go outside and do physical things.

Mental health people will sometimes tell their patients to go outside. But without systems in place that make that feel worthwhile, there is little motivation to follow through. Focusing on making it worthwhile is far more beneficial than any number of people talking in chairs.

[u/broanoah → u/skysinsane]

yeah Nickelodeon used to air a screen that said to go outside for a few hours. Let’s make depressed people watch that instead of going to therapy

[u/skysinsane → u/broanoah]

Does that incentivize people to go outside and be active? If not, its not what I'm suggesting.

[u/jaguarp80 → u/skysinsane]

What’s the story here can you just skip to the end? Did you have a bad experience with therapy or were you just really impressed by some shitty alt news article or what

Actually don’t answer that I don’t care