Maintaining Optimal Mental Health: How to Manage the Effects of Living in the City

Living in the city certainly has its positives. From the best coffee shops and job prospects to culture-rich museums and live entertainment scenes, everything you need is on your doorstep. However, city life also has its detractors. Some of these negative effects of living in the city can have an impact on our mental health, including stress and anxiety, loneliness, and depression. Learning to cope with these feelings can be life-changing for city dwellers new and old.

Lost in the rat race

It’s no secret that the buzz and energy of the city can be incredibly attractive, and this is especially true here in Manhattan. However, whether you’re packed onto the subway at 8 o’clock in the morning or Christmas shopping on Fifth Avenue, the hustle and bustle can be exhausting, stressful, and anxiety–inducing. What’s more, in the city that doesn’t sleep, the constant reminders of success and accomplishment can lead to feelings of unworthiness, low confidence, and depression.

Getting ahead in the rat race can quickly become all-consuming.,  Working long hours in a stressful job to earn that coveted promotion so you can buy the next item on your neverending wishlist of stuff may seem like a good recipe for success. While it’s agreed that having goals and working hard to achieve them is a hugely positive thing, not taking a balanced approach can result in burnout.

Is living in a city bad for your health?

The short answer is, it depends. For some people, the answer can be yes; for others, they’ll thrive in cities. In fact, many cities rank as the best places to live for mental health. But how does where you live affect your mental health? 

Let’s explore some context to help break it down. Recent research suggests that many factors contribute to mental health, like socioeconomic status, healthcare access, social support networks, and physical environment. So how can living somewhere make you depressed? There are many factors specific to cities that can have an impact on your mental health such as social isolation, environmental quality, and challenges specific to urban areas. 

It’s important to note the many different factors impacting mental health in urban vs. rural areas. However, despite the challenges people living in urban environments experience, it is possible to manage noise exposure, social isolation, air pollution, and other big-city factors that can impact stress levels. In fact, seemingly simple self-care habits can greatly reduce the risk of physical health issues, decrease mental fatigue, improve life satisfaction, and maintain mental well-being in the process. This can help balance the negative effects of living in the city. 

So, what can we do to stay on top of our mental health while not falling behind in the rat race? Meditation involves utilizing techniques that typically require mindful focus on a single thing to help reset our natural equilibrium, enabling us to reach inner peace and tranquility. Meditation can come in many forms, including—but certainly not limited to—reading, exercise, music, and prayer. Taking the time to focus on a single thing can help to block out the seemingly incessant stresses of city life. When listening to an audiobook on the morning subway and focusing on the spoken word, the stressful sights and sounds begin to disappear. This centers you and keeps you calm, fighting off stress and anxiety. 

Finding nature in the concrete jungle

We’ve discussed meditation as a way to temporarily escape the effects of living in the city, but, where possible, we can go further. Many of the world’s largest cities pride themselves on their natural spaces, with many cities investing a lot of resources into helping residents access nature, which has been proven to help reduce various health problems in urban areas. Manhattan’s High Line offers nature, art, and design, and it’s no surprise that Central Park is right in the center of the city. These accessible spaces offer respite for all.

Whether you’re rollerblading, walking the dog, sitting by the water, or taking part in a yoga class, getting back to nature can have a profound impact on our mental wellbeing, reducing the negative effects of living in the city. The sounds of car horns and shouting are soon replaced with birdsong and the rustle of wind passing through the trees as feelings of stress and anxiety melt away. These urban green spaces offer much-needed respite from the rush of the city, so it’s important to find time for them within our busy schedules. Going one step further can be even more beneficial for our mental well–being—taking some time off work to travel and spending time getting back to nature away from the city can provide a much-needed mental boost.

Comparison is the death of joy

Exacerbated greatly by social media, it’s easy to compare ourselves to others, to witness their apparent successes, and measure them up against our own accomplishments. Though this can be inspiring, it can also be damaging to our morale and feelings of self-worth. It’s all too easy to get stuck on the hamster wheel of city life, working harder and harder to get ahead, but finding we’re getting nowhere. It’s important to remember that much of what we see of other people is what they want us to see, and that performance is often covering up feelings of insecurity, be it on Instagram or in the VIP section of a popular nightclub.

Nowhere is this more true than in cities like Manhattan, where wealth and glamor are often on show. Comparison leads to feelings of insignificance and hopelessness, and these negative elements can quickly spiral into depression. To combat the effects of living in the city this, we must start by removing the pressure from ourselves. It’s a positive thing to look at others and take inspiration, but that must come with the caveat that comparing ourselves to someone else at the top of their game will end in failure and dissatisfaction. Instead, we should try to visualize the things we want to achieve, be them in our career or in other aspects of our life, and set ourselves short-, medium- and long-term goals for how we intend to achieve our vision. Remember, we’re not competing with others;, we’re competing with yesterday’s self. Setting and achieving goals can help us feel accomplishment, satisfaction, and progress as we step off the hamster wheel and learn to run freely. Despite the fast-paced energy of the city, mental health initiatives will help you find the right balance to lead a happy life.

Isolated in a sea of people

Despite living among millions of people, it’s incredibly common to feel lonely when living in the city. Loneliness can lead to further feelings of depression and anxiety, so learning how to combat it is essential. First of all, it’s important to understand how it’s possible to feel loneliness amid masses of people. Dunbar’s Number is a theory that suggests the human brain can only maintain 150 meaningful relationships. When studying early hunter-gatherer societies, it seems groups grew to around 150 individuals before splintering off or collapsing. Today, we see a similar cap in offices, close-knit villages, and military organizations—having more than 150 relationships doesn’t seem to last long before alienation, tension, or lack of coherence occurs. Further, it’s theorized that the human brain can only recognize a maximum of 1,500 faces. 

When moving to a city, being immediately faced with a sea of thousands of people can be daunting as people lose their individuality and become a single, flowing entity—a crowd. This can be intimidating and lead to feelings of being isolated within a crowd, going against the flow rather than with it. Eventually, it can appear that all people in the city are part of the crowd, and finding individuals to form relationships with can prove difficult. Stopping this spiraling into loneliness is essential for mental health in cities, and thankfully, there are ways to do it.

Consistency is a key part of relationship building, and we’re far more likely to form bonds with people the more regularly we see them. Places we frequent, such as work, places of worship, or sports clubs, can be great places to form relationships as when we get to know individuals they begin to stand out from the crowd. An enormous benefit of living in the city is the amount of “extra-curricular” activities on offer. Whether you’re into sports, movies, music, or gaming, you can access clubs or places where like-minded individuals meet up regularly. High meeting frequency combined with bonding over a shared interest can help grow relationships, actively combating loneliness in the city.

Loving city life

Understanding stress, finding ways to unlock inner tranquility, focusing on our own goals, and connecting with others are key tools for helping us reduce the psychological effects of living in a city, allowing us to enjoy all the incredible things the city has to offer. The city can be overwhelming at times, and it can help to talk to someone. The New York psychotherapists at Citron Hennessey have decades of experience assisting people to overcome their mental health challenges.

Based in Manhattan, we understand the stresses of city life and can help you find a path to overcoming them. Call our team today at on (917) 997-4849 and connect with the best therapists to lay your foundation for a stronger and healthier life.