DR.SPEAKS

20 ways to care for your mental health in the COVID times

  1. Be Regular with your sleep habits
  2. Take care of your physical health – ‘Healthy mind resides in a healthy body’
  3. Regular exercise releases ‘Happy Hormones’ in your brain
  4. Be mindful of your eating habits
  5. Avoid binging on food. It may be a sign of underlying stress
  6. Use substances in moderation. Never as a stress buster
  7. If you think you cannot control your substance use – Seek Help!
  8. Work is not worship! Remember to ‘switch off’ outside your office
  9. Like exercise your mind also needs constructive activities. Give yourself new experiences
  10. Devote at least 2 hours a week to your passion that makes you truly happy
  11. Be mindful of your thoughts and feelings. Negativity hurts you and others around you
  12. Judge others by their intentions and not their actions
  13. Temper your expectations from others. What you cannot control hurts you the most
  14. Best way to deal with stress is to anticipate it. Be prepared
  15. Manage your time effectively
  16. Show gratitude to others. Be grateful for what life has given you
  17. Don’t bottle up your angst. Share your thoughts and feelings with those close to you
  18. Listen to people around you. Maybe they need your help
  19. Take a conscious effort to reduce your use of gadgets
  20. Make time for your family and friends. They make your life what it is!
DR.SPEAKS

Mental health – A silent pandemic

The whole world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has brought countries to a standstill and has stirred up the whole health care infrastructure into action in a matter of a few months. In contrast, a silent pandemic has been forever raging globally and in India. This is the pandemic of suicide and depression. It is estimated that 15% of India’s population i.e around 150 million people will experience depression in their lifetime. Annually around 200,000 people commit suicide in India. Many of them in the young age of 15-35 years. And unlike a viral pandemic which is a time limited event; the mental health pandemic has always been around us.

The approaches to these infectious pandemics include – Test, Trace and Isolate. An active approach to go after the virus and contain the spread. The mental health pandemic needs a different approach of spreading compassion and empathy, to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. The mental health pandemic does not need ‘social distancing’ but ‘social openness’. Provide an enabling environment where a person with mental distress can feel comfortable and reach out for help. Ask and Listen, Talk and Express, Share and Care.

An immediate threat such as a viral infection seems more daunting and galvanises the whole public health machinery. No doubt the world needs to come together to fight COVID-19 and overcome it we shall. Let us fight the new virus in town but can we show the same resolve, galvanise the same resources, gear the public health machinery to fight a much larger silent epidemic?

⦁ Dr Rishikesh V. Behere
⦁ Consultant Psychiatrist, Manoshanti Pune

DR.SPEAKS

Our personality and mental health – The secret to wellbeing

The science of wellbeing is intertwined with our personality which determine how we
interact with the environment. One of the strong factor about wellbeing stems from
one’s personality style. When we look at personality, it is strongly biological (which
means we have certain style of personality by birth) and there is a constant
interaction with the people around us and the situations which shapes our
personality.
Personality is the consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behavior over a period of
time, while our ‘Mind’ is the face of our personality! Each individual has a unique
personality just as how our face is unique to each individual. Its shapes during our
childhood and adolescent period and becomes constant when we become adults.
We are not born with all the skills to navigate the ups and downs of life and our
personality factors determine how well we adapt and learn while we live through our
lives. It is very important to understand one’s own strength and limitations and to
learn to adapt to situations within the limits of our personality. As the famous saying
goes “One man’s meat is another man’s poison!”. Hence do not try to ape other
people. Be comfortable with who you are as a person and you will find that once you
accept this fact you will be able to modulate your thoughts and feelings better to your
advantage. This a key secret to achieving emotional well being.

– Dr. Girish Babu N.
– Associate Professor of Psychiatry, SDM Medical College, Dharwad

DR.SPEAKS

Why is mental health important?

The World Health Organization defines health as “A state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity” and there can be no health without mental health. Yet when we go for a
health check up we are are only concerned about our BP,  sugar and cholesterol
levels. If they are normal we think we are healthy.
But have you ever paused to think “How stressed am I?”’ “Am I sleeping well?”, “Am
I happy with my life?”, “Do I feel irritated easily and snap at people more?”, “Which
way are my personal relationships headed?”, “Do I get a sense of relief if I smoke or
consume alcohol or pop sleeping pills?”, “Do exams and deadlines give you
nightmares?” Your answers to these questions may make you pause and rethink!
Mental health is essentially defined by 3 components – the way you think (thoughts),
the way you feel (emotions) and the way you behave (behavior) and these need to
be in perfect sync with your physical health for you to perform effectively and
efficiently as an individual. A disturbance in any one of them can disturb the sync
and seriously undermine your efficiency as an individual.
If you want to be healthy it is equally important to care for your mental health

as well!

– Dr Rishikesh V. Behere
– Consultant Psychiatrist, Manoshanti Pune

SURVIVOR STORIES

A BREAK UP AND A NEW JOB LED ME INTO DEPRESSION….

My name is Anisha and I am 25 years old. I have completed a degree in mass communications from Pune. I am doing a job and currently live in Bangalore. I wanted to share my story so that it may help others like me. I moved to Bangalore about a year and a half back for my first job. It was anyway a tough time for me as I had recently had a break up with my boy friend. But moving to a new city where I had no friends made things even more difficult.

I remember that I was very happy when I was offered the job, but by the time I moved to Bangalore, there was something different. It is difficult to explain, but I was not feeling good at all. Initially I thought that it was only because of my break up, but slowly I realized that I was losing interest in work too. I would not sleep at night and then the next day would be so sleepy that I could barely get any work done. I was also very worried about it, because this was my first job and I wanted to create a good impression at my workplace, but it just wasn’t happening. I would suddenly start crying and would feel low most of the time. Now, I am an educated girl, and I knew about depression, but for some reason, it didn’t strike me that that was what I was going through. A senior colleague noticed that I was struggling and recommended that I see a psychiatrist.

Initially I was very hesitant…why should I see a psychiatrist? Was something really that wrong with me? I decided to see a psychologist first, because that seemed less threatening. So I met a psychologist. She was extremely patient with me and heard everything I had to say. Over 2-3 meetings, she convinced me to see a psychiatrist and told me it was important. I went with her advice and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The doctor was also very kind and put to rest my fears about taking medicines. She told me I had moderate depression and with medicines and sessions with the psychologist, there was a great chance that I would feel much better. And she was right!

The medicines slowly helped make my mood better and in my sessions with the psychologist, I gained a lot of clarity about the way I think and how that was causing me to feel so anxious and low all the time. My work performance also improved a lot. I won’t lie and say that it is all very easy. Even with medication, there are days when I don’t feel very good, but now I know how to deal with such feelings. The feelings do not overwhelm me anymore. I also realized that what I was going through was quite common among people my age. That made me feel less alone and less guilty.

I have now had a lived experience of how mental health is as important as physical health. I have also learned that there are many good days and some bad days, but that’s okay. It is okay to talk about it to friends, family and/or your therapist. I am genuinely thankful to my colleague who put me on the path to recovery as well as my doctor and psychologist.