It's not just in your head: Why we need to take mental health seriously

We are each born with different physical abilities, health and potential. Many of us work, over our lifetimes to optimise our bodies through routine checks, regular exercise and when required, proper diagnosis and treatment. It is a bizarre state of affairs that at the same time we pay scant attention to our mental health. Just as our society has for years ostracised the physically disabled, the mere hint of a mental health ‘issue’ brands a person a ‘nutjob’ or a ‘whacko’.  In recent times, celebrities such as Deepika Padukone have opened up about their own battles with depression and even shared that they needed medication to recover. She escaped the censure and branding that so many others undergo, however a lot of what she disclosed was simply associated by the public with her sadness at the ending of her relationship with another celebrity. This propensity to trivialise a serious mental illness with an episode or a transient emotion is one of the most insidious biases that haunts our level of awareness and results in neglect of our core mental health.

So how many of us are affected? Reports suggest that 10% of our population suffer from depression, one in five women and one in 10 men. While all suicides cannot be attributed to depression, a WHO report claims that India accounts for 25% of all suicides in the world. With over 2 crore people affected, and only 43 public mental hospitals, a single psychiatrist for 4,00,000 people, no national level mental health survey, policy or legislation (the bill has been stuck in parliament since 2013), India is in a mental health crisis. The impact of this on physical health, the economy and wider societal issues, such as crime, has never been quantified. Many people report family and even so-called professional responses as ‘it’s all in the head’ or that they should try ‘meditation’ as a cure. While there are certainly positive elements to mental exercises, these cannot be considered cures for mental illnesses. The brain is a complex organ and one that requires extremely careful and expert diagnosis and treatment.

The most common mental illnesses to watch out for are depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse and epilepsy.  The last has several physical manifestations and so is often associated as a physical disorder. Given successful research on this disease, treatment is now both cost and cure effective.  Alcohol abuse in India is a much ignored issue. India has seen the third highest rise in alcohol drinking population over the last decade and it is estimated that 10 – 15% of the alcohol drinking population suffer from dependence issues. Lax underage drinking law enforcement, significant monies spend on marketing alcohol and increasing societal acceptance on consumption with no corresponding responsible consumption awareness make for a dangerous path ahead.

While life events do cause stress and such stresses can result in a variety of negative emotions that impact our physiology and mental health, merely feeling sad or anxious is not a sufficient symptom of depression or anxiety. To make matters worse, many sufferers of depression also experience some form of anxiety which makes accurate diagnosis difficult. So what are the symptoms to watch out for?

Depression:

• Prolonged and persistent negative moods that last days or weeks
• Loss of interest in previous hobbies, activities, including sex
• Decreased energy levels, being ‘too tired’ a lot of the time
• Lack of ability to focus
• Extremes in Eating and Sleeping, either eating and sleeping too much or too little
• Thoughts of death and suicide
• Physical symptoms such as headache, tummy issues and pain that recurs and does not seem to respond to treatment

Anxiety:

• Feelings of panic, fear, uneasiness
• Feeling cold while having sweaty or numb or tingling palms/feet
• Difficulty breathing, like shortness of breath
• Heart palpitations
• Irritability and unable to sit or stand still
• Dryness in the mouth

If you or your friends or family experience these symptoms on a sustained basis, seeking professional help is a necessity.

There is a direct correlation between mental and physical health. Poor mental health affects organs such as the liver, kidney and heart resulting in chronic diseases that impact quality of lifestyle in many ways. As the symptoms themselves show, very little of this is ‘in the head’ and depending on the extremity of the illness, there are several treatment options, including therapy, medication, physical exertion and nutrition available to those who need it. Did you know that there was a link identified between Vitamin D levels and depression? Which brings us back full circle – our focus on our bodily health without regard for our mental health is an incomplete and flawed approach. The route to wellness is a holistic one.