Since most mental disorders are chronic mental disorders that begin in adolescence, the ultimate goal of recovery is to reach the level of mental development and health of normal peers. Only when this goal is achieved can patients remain normal without medication. Therefore, long-term adherence to the following points is crucial to achieve this goal. First, ensure a reasonable work and rest time. Since the human brain evolved on the basis of the ape brain, the human brain has many residual characteristics of the ape brain, and its development must also conform to the laws of ape brain development. In the days of the great apes and hominids, they had to work all day long to collect enough food for their own bellies. At nightfall, they had to “nest” – return to a safe enough place to rest, or they would have become food for nocturnal beasts. After the “nest” time is probably the most important activity is to sleep – no recreational activities, no lighting conditions, sleep seems to be the logical main content of life. As the food they collect during the day is not of high nutritional value, they will be hungry after a night’s sleep, and when the first rays of morning light shine in their habitat, they will be engaged in food collection activities. Such a week-to-week life also shapes the corresponding biological rhythm – regular nighttime sleep accompanied by corresponding neuroendocrine activity, thus allowing the brain to develop normally. Modern research has found that late sleep has a detrimental effect on the cognitive function of adolescents, especially on memory. We have also found in our own clinical work that patients with the same therapeutic measures, the same medication doses, and the same medication compliance have better outcomes in an inpatient setting with regular bedtime and early rising, sunrise and sunset patterns than those outpatients with irregular bedtimes. This suggests that maintaining “early to bed and early to rise” sleep habits in patients with mental disorders, especially in adolescents, is beneficial to their condition and may be beneficial to their brain function recovery. Therefore, we hope that our patients should, first of all, work at sunrise and rest at sunset, and go to bed before 10:00 pm and get up before 8:00 pm. If they have to work overtime, it is better to go to bed early and get up a few hours early the next day to finish such overtime tasks. At the same time, we would like patients to refrain from drinking beverages that may cause excitement in the central nervous system before bedtime, such as coffee and tea, and from engaging in activities that may increase the excitability of the brain, such as watching movies and TV programs with twisted plots or thrilling content and reading certain books and magazines that cause active associations. For patients who need more sleep (including patients with excessive sedation and sleepiness caused by drugs), go to bed as early as possible, get up as early as possible, and never “stay in bed” after waking up, but engage in some activities that can increase excitability, such as physical exercise, which is conducive to the cultivation of good habits and reduce the weight gain caused by excessive sleep. Second, take medication on time and in the right amount. In the treatment of mental illness in all means of treatment, the most important is drug therapy. This is an analogy: having a mental illness is like having a fracture in the lower limb. In the case of a fracture in the lower limb, the orthopedic surgeon will put a splint or cast bandage on the patient and provide the patient with a crutch, which provides the patient with the possibility of walking. Patients with mental illness taking therapeutic drugs are equivalent to patients with lower limb fractures who need the support of splints, plaster bandages and crutches in walking, both to promote recovery and to provide the possibility of participating in normal social function activities. Once the condition has recovered and the patient is functioning as well as a healthy person of the same age, the patient may discontinue the medication. One can think of it this way: the ultimate goal of taking medication is to stop taking medication, to turn the patient into a normal person. The first thing is to take the medication on time. Whether you are an inpatient or an outpatient, once you have established a better, regular medication taking habit you should maintain it and not change it easily. A better medication habit is generally the appropriate time interval between two doses, such as taking medication twice a day, once at 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., and also at 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. in the evening, so that the time of taking medication is more balanced. If you need to take medication three times a day, it is more reasonable to take medication after breakfast, after lunch break and after dinner, one is a more even time interval, and the other is not easy to forget to take medication after meals. The benefits of regular dosing are obvious: first, after a certain period of adaptation, each patient will establish a temporal pharmacological pattern and temporal drug metabolism pattern in line with individual dosing habits to ensure that there is a sufficient and stable drug concentration in body fluids. This is the same as eating three meals a day regularly, at the corresponding time, the corresponding organs of the body will be ready for eating, such as the secretion of digestive juices, gastrointestinal motility, etc. Similarly, if you take the medication at the right time, the relevant organs of the body will also have the corresponding functional adjustment to adapt to the therapeutic activity of taking the medication. The second thing is to take the medication according to the dosage. Most psychiatric drugs have a so-called “therapeutic window” concentration, which is generally between the lowest and highest effective concentration. In the treatment of mental illness, doctors will determine the corresponding therapeutic dose and corresponding blood concentration according to the patient’s current condition (for example, the effective blood concentration of valproic acid is between 75-125μg/ml, and the effective blood concentration of lithium carbonate is between 0.8-1.4mmol/L), and drugs that do not reach the corresponding blood concentration often fail to achieve the corresponding therapeutic effect, and Above this concentration, side effects are often increased. Therefore, the physician will select the appropriate drug type and dose according to the patient’s current stage of treatment (e.g., acute treatment, consolidation treatment, and maintenance treatment). When the patient’s social function has fully returned to normal, the physician will naturally consider reducing the dose and eventually discontinuing the drug. It is important to emphasize that no matter what the patient’s condition is, the medication should not be discontinued abruptly, as such discontinuation often leads to a relapse within a short period of time. In addition, if you need to take other medications for a physical illness, consult with your treating physician to determine if there are any adverse interactions between the two types of medications, and if your physician is certain that there are adverse interactions, it is recommended that you consult with your psychiatrist to determine if you can temporarily discontinue the medication. Conversely, if the doctor is not sure whether there is such a risk, I recommend taking these medications together, especially for short-term use in the treatment of comorbidities that do not pose a risk of damage to the body. In the course of treatment, any discomfort that may be related to taking the medication should be seen as soon as possible rather than discontinued on your own. This is because, firstly, such discomfort is likely to be caused by other factors rather than side effects of the medication, and only a doctor has the experience to make a correct judgment; secondly, even if such discomfort is a side effect of the medication, only a doctor can make a judgment and provide guidance on the next step of treatment, and avoid the risk of relapse due to self-medication discontinuation. You can say this: if you don’t take your medication on time and in the right amount, you can’t guarantee the efficacy but you can’t avoid the side effects, which is the same as spending the money and eating the medication, but it’s not effective. Of course, going to the hospital on time to see a doctor who is familiar with your condition is a prerequisite to ensure proper medication. Third, actively participate in various social activities to promote social function recovery. As mentioned earlier, patients with mental disorders need medication, and the ultimate goal of treatment is for patients to not need to take medication anymore. Patients with mental disorders, especially those who start in adolescence or even childhood, often have an extremely similar characteristic, that is, there is a large gap between the degree of psychological maturity and normal people of the same age, in short, the psychological maturity is not enough. The most direct consequence of insufficient psychological maturity is an unhealthy coping style and insufficient ability to cope with mental stress, pressure or stimuli. The same mental stress or pressure may not constitute a great frustration response for healthy peers, but for people with insufficient psychological maturity will lead to a greater frustration response, the emergence of our proverbial “bull’s-eye” response, or the Zen concept of “can’t let go “This will eventually lead to a failure of psychological self-regulation and the occurrence of mental abnormalities. Therefore, if we want patients not to relapse or to relapse as little as possible after the disease, in addition to reasonable and appropriate medication, promoting the recovery of social functions and further development and maturation of psychological functions to the standard of healthy people of the same age during the treatment process is the only way to eventually eliminate the need for medication. In both the acute inpatient treatment period and the outpatient maintenance period, we emphasize the importance of restoring function and returning to society and the population as described above. In addition, most patients with an adolescent onset tend to have another deficit, namely a relative lack of interest. Under the current stage of China’s education system, many adolescents may be high-achieving or outstanding students in school because their interests are focused on the educational model of reading for exams and judging by test scores. In their good state, parents and teachers often fail to detect the possible psychological and emotional problems of patients during this period, and once their state becomes worse, especially when they fall behind in their academic performance that they are proud of, patients are not able to get out of the feelings and emotions of failure, so that they become potential triggers for the onset of the disease. At this time, it is almost impossible for patients to establish new hobbies, and they can only sink and collapse in the bull’s eye of failure. Therefore, patients are encouraged to gradually establish new hobbies when they start to recover from their illness, including interest in beautiful nature, happy friendships, etc., so that they can eventually integrate themselves into the normal life pattern and enter a normal life track. To achieve these goals, it is only right to actively participate in various forms of social activities, to establish and form hobbies that enable patients to seek abundant resources for happiness, and to become socially connected enough to function as a fully normal social being. From this perspective, if the patient achieves such a functional state, it is entirely possible to discontinue the medication and maintain a completely normal state. Fourth, adequate and appropriate amount of physical activity and healthy dietary patterns. Humans are animals, and those in their natural state must be advanced animals with sufficient adequate exercise. Although humans no longer need to be busy running for food, but exercise is still one of the most necessary activities for humans. Not only does exercise provide the most basic way for humans to stay fit, but it is also a basic form of human social activity. Sports that truly have a large following or fan base are multi-participant, fully competitive sports, such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. Therefore, we recommend that people with mental disorders should participate in these types of group sports with multiple participants whenever possible. This addresses both the need for social activities and the need for physical exercise. In addition, patients gain weight during treatment with psychiatric medications. This is partly due to the accumulation of subcutaneous fat due to the side effects of the medication itself, and partly related to the patient’s reluctance to engage in physical activity after the illness and after taking the medication. Therefore, increasing physical activity can also help to reduce weight and improve physical fitness. Of course, effective control of diet, especially high carbohydrate intake, also plays an important role. Because alcohol can cause changes in hepatic drug enzyme activity, especially increasing drug enzyme activity, resulting in reduced drug efficacy, we oppose patients to drink alcohol during treatment to avoid affecting the efficacy. Moreover, alcohol may also increase the sedative effect of certain psychiatric drugs with sedative properties, leading to the side effect of excessive sedation. In particular, it is worth emphasizing that alcohol has a so-called “de-stabilizing” effect, which may also lead to fluctuations during treatment, and there have been many cases of recurrence of the disease due to alcohol consumption.