Nervous Breakdown - Can You Avoid It?

It's alarming these days to see young twenty somethings dashing to make cash, rearing to breed and urging to merge. They no longer look fresh and appealing any more. Instead, lack of sleep, exercise and a proper diet and wanting wanting all the time has made them haggard, depressed and unhealthy.

Symptoms of Nervous Breakdown

Some of the symptoms are:

• Sleeplessness or Disturbed Sleep
• Loss of Appetite
• Anxiety and Depression
• Difficulty in Remembering things
• Irrational Bouts of Crying

The Dash for Cash

Sure, it's great to make pots of money but must you kill yourself in the process? If the old cliché 'Health is Wealth' is true -and I believe it is, then how can you hold on to your health when you're slaving away most nights till midnight and after?

I have seen nervous wrecks who haven't been on a holiday for three years, can't sit without getting a backache, haven't had a weekend off for two months and always go about coughing and wheezing. Yet they insist they enjoy their work.

Sheela, who always wanted to be an editor is no longer a twenty something and is old and wise enough to say: "Because I have a kid now I don't think I'll ever be a career woman. But is that a bad thing? Would it really make me happy to be big boss? I don't think so now. I love working in my time from my home."

Sheela is certainly happier than many young mothers who are torn between the demands of their children and their careers. She has more time for her kid, her husband and her soul.

Marriage Mayhem

The young things today are in a big hurry to find their `lifelong partner' by the time they're 27. It's not that you could never find Prince Charming at age 27, but setting out consciously to do so can put a lot of pressure on your relationships and will probably chase him away. Give yourself enough years to meet more eligible men and so have a wider choice. Get to know all about them before you take the plunge. It's most critical if you want a relationship that lasts.

Says Malika S, 25: "I feel like I just have to find the right man. All my friends seem to have found theirs and I feel like the odd one out. I feel I'll end up being a spinster. I feel lonely and I long to have lots of babies."

Malika is a talented writer and if she just changes her focus a bit and pays more attention to her creative skills, she'll stop having such irrational anxieties about her future. Her experience makes one wonder how far peer pressure can influence young women to make the wrong decisions.

Baby Blahs

Women like Malika are not a rare breed. I know women who stare for hours at pictures of babies and fantasize about having their own to doll up in pink lace and ribbons. Maybe someone should tell them about the travails of parenthood: No full night's sleep for at least three years; stains on your clothes; stretch marks; smelly diapers and hey-no romance either.

Perhaps romance will creep back in once you can get back into your old pair of jeans, but most of the time, it just doesn't.

Especially not when you marry young, as your tender years make you highly susceptible to Mills and Boon type romances. You think that high you feel with your man initially will never die down. You're mistaken again. Let's say it might mellow into 'comfortable companionship'. Nothing's wrong with that if you're older and can see the wisdom of a comfortable companionship.

The best advice is to make the most of your career and your romance before you get married and have babies.

Consider the Celebrities

There's no reason to panic yet, girls. Supermodel Cindy Crawford says she always wanted kids but had to wait till her early thirties and her second marriage before having a baby boy.

Helena Bonham Carter, one of Britain's most successful actresses, did not leave home till she was 30 because she didn't want to grow up! And when she did, it was just up the road from her parents' place.

That's a desirable quality to have - being a child as long as possible. Once you're an adult, you're saddled with responsibilities.

Liz Hurley, blessed with great looks, had to wait till her mid thirties before becoming a successful film producer.

So just calm down and take it slow and you'll avoid a nervous breakdown and other disasters. The sweetest things come to those who wait.