Barbados experienced an alarming number of suicides in the first two months of this year. At the end of February the reported number of deaths due to suicide stood at six.
A noted psychologist assessed the situation as having been triggered by the inability of people to cope with the stresses of the economic hardships, failed relationships, social pressures and, sometimes, drug abuse.
President of the Barbados Association of Psychologists, Beverley Drakes, said that suicide speaks to both the absence of forums that give people the opportunity to talk and the society’s failure to develop a population that is resilient.
“We should be striving to develop a population that has high levels of resilience, creativity, spirituality and intellectual growth where they develop and maintain properly functioning personal relationships,” she said.
Drakes also stressed the need to manage mental health from childhood through to adulthood. She explained that research showed that children suffered stress in the learning environment and some also have self-esteem problems and difficulties in their social life. The psychologist added that children needed to have creative outlets as well as to learn to manage emotions successfully and to develop confidence, assertiveness and the ability to empathize with others.
Drakes said that the maintenance of mental health required support from family and friends and being involved in community or volunteer work.
She said the ability to handle stress and bounce back from problems depended on the type of social connectedness people had.
Drakes’ views on stress management find support in the book Social Psychology (11th edition) by Robert Baron et al. The authors say that stress is an inseparable part of life, and the key task is not trying to eliminate or avoid it, but learning to cope with it effectively in ways that reduce its adverse effects.
The authors state that many people turn to friends or family seeking their advice help and sympathy and research findings indicate that this can be a highly effective means of protecting our personal health from the ravages of stress.
Baron et al recommend three major strategies: replacing the negative emotions produced by stress with more positive ones called emotion-focused coping; altering the situation itself, called problem-focused coping; and seeking social support, that is, drawing on the emotional and task resources provided by others.
Finally, Drakes added that getting the eating and sleeping patterns right was important to mental health.
“Lack of sleep and rest is detrimental to mental health. Sleep . . . reduces stress and causes the body to function properly,” she said.
Hilgard’s Introduction To Psychology (13th edition) by Rita Atkinson et al state that about 90 per cent of adults sleep six to nine hours per night, with the largest number sleeping seven and a half hours.
Atkinson et al add that most of these people have measurable signs of sleepiness during the day time, as most require eight to nine hours of sleep to be free from daytime sleepiness. Most people occasionally or chronically deprive themselves of adequate sleep as 30 per cent of high school and college students fall asleep in class at least once a week and 31 per cent of all drivers have fallen asleep at the wheel at least once in their lifetime.
Atkinson and her fellow authors recommend the following for a good night’s sleep: get a regular sleep schedule; avoid alcohol and caffeine as it disturbs the sleep cycle and causes you to wake up early the next day; avoid eating heavily before going to bed; and avoid sleeping pills as long-term use can lead to insomnia.