[Music] hey YouTube Alex here my thoughts on Mental Health in Thailand now before we get into it I want to mention that I am not a licensed counselor these are just my observations this video will focus on commentary
discussion on Mental Health as it relates to foreigners because I can't really comment on what that's like for Thai people I can't speak Tai very well so this is fairly broad commentary I think the first question that a
lot of people wonder is Will living in Thailand make you happy I think it depends on the cause of your unhappiness but I can say that for those who are unhappy due to circumstances that really can be changed
through living in Thailand if it's something more specifically if it's an external circumstance type of thing I think that you still need to choose to be happy on the inside if you're unhappy because for example the weather is
terrible a large chunk of the year you struggle with seasonal mood issues that seem to only really happen when it's cold and rainy in your home country maybe half the year it's cold and rainy or cold and snowy
the other half it's nice but for half the year you feel unhappy well Thailand doesn't really get snow in any of the major cities that I know about additionally I would say if you're somebody that you may feel
lonely in the West in the case that you've moved around a lot for work right like I have I've lived in a lot of different places I've interacted with a lot of different people there's no really one place
that feels like home back in the US I really conceptualize it as more like a few places that I feel like I'm at home but certainly being in one of those places means that I cannot be in the
other places Thailand feel feels like because the places are more distinct in some ways you have an easier time kind of deciding and I think it may be part of it is that when you're in work mode back
in the US at least for me I'm willing to go anywhere for work I'm not really picky I just want to be productive ear money but here because I am in quasi vacation mode I have more time to
think about where I want to live I choose to live in changai I find that changai living in changai is overall very good for my mental well-being you might be wondering what are five reasons that I feel a
better sense of well-being or things that really help me to feel good less depressed than I tend to feel at times back home well I would say number one is that I'm an introvert right I am somebody who
recharges from spending time alone in the US it's a very outgoing culture I would say even introverted people have pressure to operate in an outgoing way if you want to have a successful career if you want want to
get a new job you really have to be out there promoting yourself where here in Thailand I don't really feel that same kind of pressure that I feel back home I don't really feel the need to shill I
don't really feel the need to constantly sort of negotiate or V for status or sell myself in the same way that I do back home I feel like if you're an introvert you're quiet back home if you're not
in the right circles like I have friends that are introverts but if you're not in the right circles people are going to regard you as kind of strange or perhaps socially awkward or with dislike or distrust it doesn't
even mention things like spam calls that you seem to get a lot consistently getting bombarded with Spam physical mail like junk mail also just seeing advertisements everywhere one issue I have with the US is that Pharmaceuticals are so
heavily advertised I'm not an anti Pharma or profarma guy overall I find the advertising to be really just over the top you don't get that to the same extent here in part because you probably don't speak the local
language contrast that with here where I rarely get spam messages like I said I can't understand very many of the advertisements a lot of the times Tai people want to help they want to be helpful they want to
help you and this is different than in the US where Americans are a mixed bag like it's hard for me to say Americans will do this or Americans will do that because America is a Multicultural Society right it's
not a place where there's one way of doing things or one way of thinking about things and contrast this in the US where people a lot of the times if you need to interact with them in a business
context they're trying to negotiate so hard and push so hard a lot of the times you're just saying no back and forth something that comes to mind is the South Park episode where they call I think it's a
the phone company or the cable company the Personnel is mocking them and laughing and oh you need help ah ha here it just feels so much more flexible there's this this sense of spontaneity and that's going to be
my next point for Point number two more on the introvert friendly bit so I've talked to expats online that have gone as far as to say in 15 years in living in Thailand they've never had a Thai person
come up to them trying to sell them something or direct them to do something different or tell them that they can't be there contrast this with the US where on a fairly consistent basis unfortunately the the government is
constantly having to regulate Behavior so like in San fr Francisco they don't want people to sit in a certain place they put up physical barriers because they just telling people not to sit there isn't going to work another
example well you know you interact occasionally with deranged homeless people in California and they'll tell you hey you can't stand here you can't film here I want to exist in this major city in this public place with no
you know nobody around me basically like I want to be in a city of a million people and get the resources that you can get in a city from with million people or 8 million people in the Metro
areas is the case in the Bay Area you just don't have that in Thailand you don't have people coming up to you saying hey you need to do this hey you need to do that hey you're breaking the
rules hey get out of my way I never see road rage here I've ever seen road rage where it's very common in the US whether you live in a small town or you live in a big city there
is road rage as an aside from that I was showing a friend of mine a video of Thailand and this was in Bangkok actually and they noticed wow it's really quiet a city of 20 million people and I
explained yeah I mean people here are simply not as loud as Americans they're more considerate of the people around them it's a collectivist society as opposed to an individualistic Society people are much more oriented toward group happiness as
opposed to individual happiness here what a beautiful home with that that's established that Thailand is introvert friendly and I'll move on my next point I mentioned before about spontaneity and I I think that when it comes to spontaneity
a lot of people feel like well I want a predictable life what isn't commonly talked about is the balance in my mind people need a mixture of predictability and excitement I mean as an example look at the people
in jail presumably their lives are fairly predictable everything is controlled those people are not happy so even though they have that predictable Factor they don't have the spontaneity so spontaneity what does it mean to experience spontaneity and why
is that good for our mental health and how can I contrast that right so there's some countries where you have spontaneity but you have no order Thailand has both well some countries they have that sense of spontaneity but
you don't really get much sense of order I'm not going to name specific countries but certainly you could probably think of some Thailand is not one of those places Thailand has both a sense of order and also a
feeling of spontaneity it's a place where if I order food I know it's not going to come tomorrow it's probably going to come in a reasonable amount of time I know if I go to a pharmacy for example
they're not going to say oh sorry sir we don't have Tylenol so you do have some sense of order here it does feel very safe I can walk around at any hour I know that I'm not going to
get mugged I'm not going to get robbed initially when I started making this video I thought that it was just going to be about the spontaneity but it's spontaneity mixed with a sense of order I mean there's places
in the United States that you can go that feel spontaneous right that are bad areas you don't know what kind of terrible thing is going to happen to you uh depending on what time of day you visit some
of these places those are spontaneous places but they're not orderly places in Thailand I feel like I could walk around at any hour of any day anywhere in any City and not running any issues I've walked around Bangkok
1 2 3 4 a.m. same in shangai I've never had an issue taking cabs at all hours it's just a very safe place now back in the US now back in the US we can talk about that sense
of order that you have right there's this predictability to life back home where you can roughly imagine what every day and what every week is like you have limited time you're in a hurry you're trying to plan you
want to make it on time for work you need to go to the grocery store there's all these different things that you have to do that really take away from the predictability that take away from from the spontaneity
of your experience for me when I get extremely bored I do tend to get depressed I do tend to be unhappy because I feel like oh wow getting up to do it all over again there's there's no wiggle
room I need to be at my desk at 8:00 I need to take my 1H hour lunch I'll get off at 5:00 and start preparing dinner if I worked from home or I'll have to get on the train
and ride home it's a very formulaic experience it's very repetitive I think for some creative people it just feels stifling now some of the love for spontaneity in Thailand does come from the fact that back home in the
US aside from all of what I mentioned as far as rules and orderliness is that in Thailand we typically aren't working a 9 to5 no some are many choose to theol of Investments while they're here right or they
have some cash savings built up that they're going to live off while they spend some time here and so certainly there is a difference right if you were a person that had to work here you might feel like
wow it's not so relaxing after all when it comes to spontaneity I noticed that when you go out you don't really know exactly what's going to happen and sometimes I get invited out for stuff last minute and it's
a lot of fun to just go have fun like that I feel like that's a little bit harder in the US right people have work schedules a lot of my friends have responsibilities they have homes they have vehicles
they have a lot of things that they have to take care of that necessitate them making plans in advance which is fine right I mean everybody wants to have a nice life I don't blame them at all for
that but you do get the sense here that things are just more flexible if somebody gives you a certain time and they're a bit late oh well my pen Ry to add to the discussion about spontaneity you feel
like when you are here anything can happen as an example of spontaneity yesterday last night really a friend of mine and contact me saying hey I happen to be in your neighborhood and that's really common here in Thailand
is for friends to just hit you up and come hang out it's really a wonderful experience that's really harder to replicate back home a lot of people have schedules that they need to follow closely and they're really busy
with getting chores done after work things often need to be planned in advance a bit but here you do have that sense that like oh wow A friend of mine might hit me up or maybe I'll hit a
friend up after work and we'll just get together on random notice that kind of think can really brighten your day contrast this with back home where most days after work I'm just kind of watching TV watching Netflix watching
some YouTube on my laptop and not really feeling as outgoing right it's I'm so busy with work and so tired from work I really of and feel like I have a lot of energy to do much after work
except for to just kind of veg out I'd say number three is definitely dating in relationships pivoting from the sponty factor talking about friendship in Thailand I think the dating is more interesting In tha because you have that
foreign exchange student factor in a way I recognize I'm not personally a student here in Thailand but I remember in my high school and even at College we would have students from other countries and they would have this
cool Factor when it came to dating everybody was interested to get to know them to learn about the country that they're from and my high school I remember there was a guy from the UK there was also a
guy from Germany that Intrigue is similar to what happens here when you're coming from another country and you're coming to live here in Thailand naturally to a local person then there's some Intrigue there's this wow I wonder what
they're like I wonder what their home country is like I wonder what kind of TV shows they like to watch I wonder what kind of hobbies they have there's this reason to engage where in the US if somebody
tells me broadly where they're from and what their job is like I automatically know a lot about them okay they're an engineer from Massachusetts okay well they probably work for a military company or a technology company or an
academic instit institution they studied mechanical engineering or software engineering or whatever for 4 years then they went to graduate school for a couple of years that kind of thing but here there's this mystery right when it comes to
getting to know Tha people and I think also for Thai people getting to know us there's this really intriguing feeling that you get that really makes it positive there's a lot of excitement and you don't know exactly how
things are going to go I'd also say that a lot of relationships back home have pressure from various stressors that are not as common I think that in the US we're very status driven on average and people are
looking to upgrade every aspect of their life and that applies to some extent to some relationships now not all relationships are like this not everybody is like this I think a lot of people have probably seen a relationship
end because one person felt like they could do better which is really short-term thinking I'm not going to get into why that's an issue but certainly it affects mental health and mental well-being for people like when they have
relationship issues certainly feels very much in American culture there's people have an easier time just like kind of walking away and I'm not sure if it's just me let me know what you think down in the comments I'm
not really sure like all the causes for it I mean I think of living having the latest shiny new toys having such a high standard of living back in the States contributes to this but it doesn't seem as
much the case here I mean I've I've been out and I've noticed a lot of Thai women toally focused on their man I've noticed that even in relationships in the US once again not all Dynamics are like this
many are the couple competes with one another they are interested to outdo each other in terms of earnings they're interested to get a promotion they're interested to have some kind of career advancement and there's this like push and
pull where here I feel like that's less the case at least the women that I've dated haven't really been all that worried about it as long as I'm employed and have a career path I'm not just like totally
aimless it's not going to be this one-upsmanship game or one-upsmanship game right that you have a lot of the times um back in the US and certainly once again these are not blanket statements to appeal to everybody but
I noticed just generally speaking some of these things are an issue back in the States one thing to add to that and this goes back to what I said earlier in the video about outgoing culture I found in
the states a lot of the times people being more outgoing that there's more pressure when you're in a relationship you're trying to date to go out and to spend a lot of time at a bar night life scene
going to clubs going to Florida to the beach doing these kinds of things Nashville where I'm from going to Broadway here there's not as much of that the number of the women that I've dated are comfortable with going
out to a movie going out to a nice meal chilling out not really this we need to party it up dstress from the weekend so I don't know if it's just people are not as stressed out here I
don't know if it's people manage their stress in different ways but I found that that's something that's really nice about being here when it comes comes to dating is that you don't really have that same pressure to go
out T night life to participate in overwhelming experiences even I mean I would just say even like to add to that if you're getting older or feeling older like I am I get tired more easily sometimes I just
don't want to go out like I want to just come back and chill and not really be doing a whole lot of stuff and that just seems to be more okay here where back in the US I think
at times people like why don't you want to go out why don't you want to go do this why don't you want to go do that and for me as an introvert I like to just chill out I'm
not always interested not very often interested in spending a ton of money and a ton of time around people that while I get along with my friends I don't know about the people at that scene or that spot
they're a random collection of people I'm sure many of them are great people but I know I'm going to enjoy time on my own I know I'm going to enjoy time with significant other I know I'm going to
enjoy time with friends I can't really speak for as many people outside that group and I know some people would say well that's how you make new friends as you get out you meet more people but I'm cautious
right when I was younger I didn't really have as much of a filter for the people that I spent time around I made some poor choices and who I built relationships with and I'm a lot more cautious now
as an adult try to be a lot more conscious about who I choose to let into my life four when it comes to mental health and why I feel mentally healthier in Thailand I'd say that the number four
reason is really the way high people practice Buddhism and this is very different than where I'm from I'm from the Southern United States and the vast majority of people in the southern us especially outside of the major cities
are conservative Christians this isn't a slander against that or push back against that often there's a component to fit in you have to join one of those groups that it's not sufficient to have your own private Faith or
private practice of spirituality that to actually go be a part of that and if you're not you're an outsider I mean growing up where I grew up in the South we had a preacher on each side of us
in front and back to the left and to the right and they didn't get along and or talk to each other not because they had some real difference but because they belonged to different faiths they were pastors of
different churches each of them and didn't really see eye to eye even though they're all Christians there's a very specific way that they interpret things such that you're either for us or against us and that Dynamic doesn't exist
here in Thailand people are very much Live and Let Live as long as you don't hurt anyone people don't really care what you I've never had a thae person come up to me asking me where I go to
church I've never had a thae person come up to me asking me what faith am I what religion am I people really just mind their own business when it comes to that now if you do go to a
Buddhist temple here in Thailand expect that it's possible you interact with monks or potentially other people as well but it's once again still a very calm experience it's not this okay you need to be dressed a certain way
you need to meet us at this location on Sunday we're going to talk and sing about this for an hour then we're going to do this other thing for an hour then we're going to I mean it goes
back into that regimented kind of way I know that temples close at night but it's it's not one of those things where you it's not a high demand belief system it's not a high expectation belief system it's very
very easy to mesh with for me I don't feel like it's I feel more at home here than I do where I'm from outside of the Cities right in the Southeast outside of the Cities it feels foreign and
alien to me in a lot of ways whereas here I just feel like I fit in nobody bothers me nobody's trying to prze to me nobody's trying to set up outside of the mall to push people into joining
their faith it's just so refreshing to not have that it's just you don't have that aggressive morality here you don't get Flack and push back if you tell people hey I'm not super religious or hey I'm Buddhist I
mean I've had people back in the States tell me that I'm unethical because I'm not a Christian person I've had people tell me they don't believe that non-christians are capable of happiness or or joy and and so there's
this invalidation that you experience and even if you're happy or fine or content when you're young like not as much now for me I'm pretty solidified in who I am but when you're young you really wonder at times
is there something wrong with me that I don't believe the way that these people believe I don't see things exactly the way they see things for the sake of the video I'm not an atheist either but I'm not
a Christian either I I'm open to people of all backgrounds following my videos I I definitely am open-minded and I want to include everyone but I also have to be honest with everybody and really share that it's a
boost to my mental health to be here because I don't have the experience my way of doing things or my belief systems are invalid yeah I just I think for a lot of you that maybe feel like you're
tired of dealing with pushy people in the west pushy people back home that's that's something that's just really nice and really refreshing about being here and I I just love it five I'm saving this kind of obvious one
for last but it's cost of living in the United States cost of living is higher than it's ever been inflation just seems to keep ticking up the price of rent physical Goods Services everything where here in Thailand it's
much more reasonable I think when it comes to mental health part of why so many people struggle with mental health back in the States is the cost of living is worrying like how am I going to make my
rent payment how am I going to make my car payment how am I going to afford groceries how am I going to pay for this pay for that pay for this pay for that oh I've got a ticket
now how am I going to pay for this oh there's some kind of health issue that came up there's all these things bills wise that are constantly like knocking at your door back home I remember I used to
every Sunday try to go through and scrape and find any bills that I maybe forgot about to try to make sure I paid them so that I wasn't delinquent on what I needed to pay that's very different than
here in Thailand and we'll come back to cost of living a little bit later in this conversation but for me I have a few bills here in Thailand I have rent I have food I have my cell phone
bill I have electric bill I have water bill and that's basically the main five other than that there's not really bills many bills that I get every month and it's it's just so refreshing to not constantly be paranoid
okay did I forget about this did I pay the toll road fee did I get my tags updated did I do this did I do that it's just this like cycle of having to stay on top of things
and then also the price of those things going up now of course this is particularly true when it comes to major cities and so I lived in the Bay area of California before I came here to Thailand and
some people would say oh we just move somewhere cheaper but they would never acknowledge that I had a lot of opportunity in the Bay Area and still do that I don't have elsewhere in my field the Technology field
the salaries and opportunity are greater in the Bay Area than anywhere else so this idea that I'm going to still have a high earning potential but move to Fargo North Dakota or Pierre South Dakota is just unrealistic it's
it's just not practical I know there are some remote roles that pay well there are also a lot of roles that are not remote and many of those roles that are not remote are in the Bay Area in
the Bay Area if you're not familiar it has some of the highest cost of living in the world you can easily pay 2500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment three grand a month for a one-bedroom apartment I personally
lived in a boarding house and paid around 1,00 per month this included a room for myself but the showers and bathrooms are shared the building did not have a kitchen so the expectation was you can do some light
stuff in a microwave but you're having to also spend extra to eat at restaurants or get takeout and so that certainly can make what's a seems like an affordable Arrangement relative to the area cost more than than what
you expect because food is also can be quite pricey in the Bay Area to contrast that for my studio here in changai I pay about $250 a month it's a much newer building almost 100 years younger than the
building I was living in in the Bay Area food here is wonderful there's a ton of Asian food I will say the Bara has Thailand in general beat when it comes to TexMex or Mexican Hispanic food but it's
much more accessible for me to have a lot of the things that I like to have such as sushi sushi is much cheaper here in Thailand than in Northern California probably I would say half the price maybe a
third of the price depending on where you go for transportation in the Bay Area I own my own vehicle I paid about $100 by the end $115 a month for a parking space that did did not include registration
that did not include gasoline that didn't even include security as my car window was smashed at the cost of $180 to replace it I knew I was leaving that 2 weeks before I left the pay area my car
window was smashed it was just like wow I couldn't ask for a better sign to head out of here for a while for a paid off car for parking for insurance and gasoline to drive a few weekends a
month you're talking easily $250 a month that doesn't include if I had had needed to make pay payments on the car that doesn't include registration which is very expensive in California these costs can really add up here in
Thailand I don't own a motor bike but I could just walk a lot of places and if I want to take a grab taxi or I want to take a bolt taxi it's relatively affordable it's a few dollars
I'd say everything averaged out I spend probably like 50 bucks a month on Transportation if that that's including flights back and forth to Bangkok that's including s tows occasionally here in changai around the city I'll take those for
like a dollar contrast this to a bay area where a oneway bus ticket in the Bay Area is like 225 250 on the subway like if you take BART you can spend just to go from the airport to
your place like $10 and if you're going to SFO from the East Bay $20 it's certainly a lot more expensive now of course the Bay Area does not have the hot weather that you have here in Thailand it's
much cooler much drier but certainly when it comes to cost of living and mental health a lot of people seem stressed out in the Bay Area not everybody certainly some people are very fortunate they've made really prudent decisions
eventually they get promotions they are able to save and acrew more money but a lot of people are struggling with the High Cost of Living I mean I remember I met this woman I think she was from Texas
and we met in San Francisco just like ran into each other at a burrito shop and we were talking about oh where are you from where are you from I was like ah I'm from the south I'm from
Tennessee oh really I'm from Texas and she was like it's so bleep expensive here and I was like yep she's like I love it though and it's true true I love it too like I love Northern California I
love San Francisco you do feel like you're in Hustle mode a lot of the times I me you're working long hours to pay the rent they're definitely getting high expectations from companies they're paying you such large salaries Equity
bonuses health insurance all these things are not free and there's an expectation a trade-off for that in in Northern California I definitely felt my mental health suffering at times because I would be so exhausted from working so hard
not wanting to turn it off wanting to perform for my employer wanting to give it my all yeah that that's just something that if you live in New York City or you live in California very high cost of
living areas places like London or Paris Auckland New Zealand or Sydney Australia you know that living in those areas comes with a lot of stress for a lot of people that are not the elite of the elite that
don't have the money to basically enjoy themselves and you know what I'll throw in a sixth one a bonus bit I think that people here are really friendly and that's good for my mental health back in Northern California
people are in such a rush people are in such a hurry they're trying to get ahead they're trying to get from point A to point B it's very much like Manhattan or New York City in that it's a
high cost of living area a lot of people have really important jobs they're making really important decisions that affect millions of people whether they're at a tech company or they're at a defense company whatever they're doing is really
impactful and that can definitely create people having a brusk attitude like Hey look I've got to go I don't have time to hang out etc etc and the culture here is a lot slower people just have more free
time they're easier going they're not in such a rush I think that it's just a beautiful thing and it really provides contrast for that ego-driven mentality that we sometimes have in places like the barria where we're just trying
to get ahead we're in a rush we're trying to be successful and perform and move up and here people seem to be more content happier with what they have and you see it in the smiles I occasionally make
eye contact with somebody and if they're not nervous or shy typically they'll smile back at me sometimes I'll catch a thae person making a joke and I'll start laughing and then they make I kind of start laughing because
they realize oh wow Frank understands like what I'm saying and I will laugh and smile even if I don't know what they're saying just because it is infectious when you are here in Thailand like this this celebration of
life mentality and attitude that's unlike anywhere else I've ever been in the world the people are just uh lovely to be around thank you for watching I hope this video has been helpful to you this video has covered
why I feel like my mental health benefits from being in Thailand let me know what you think down in the comments have you been to Thailand have you been to Southeast Asia how did it impact your mental health
to be down here did you feel happier here I'm happy to get into as well some of the negative impacts on Mental Health in another video just to discuss some of the pitfalls that people run into how to
handle Freedom how to handle the night how to handle that responsibility but thanks so much for watching give us a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and I will see you next time
