This year World Mental Health Day on October 10 was centered around the theme of “Make Mental Health and Wellbeing for all a Global Priority.” DR AMIT DIAS of the Department of Preventive & Social Medicine at the Goa Medical College tells us that in this fast-paced world, surrounded by all kinds of challenges, stress, disease, economic meltdowns, we need to start with making our own mental health a priority by being kind to our mind and follow the ‘HAPPY’ mantra.
By Dr Amit Dias
Learn something about what goes into the making of mental health and wellbeing in this Question/Answer session:
QUESTION: How can you be kind to your mind ?
ANSWER: Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide being the second leading cause of death in 15-29 year-olds. Mental illness is the cause why one in five live with disability. The situation worsened during the COVID pandemic. We need to start making attempts to make mental health a global priority by first making mental health and wellbeing a priority for one’s own self. It is rightly it is said that charity begins at home. Similarly, kindness is closely linked to happiness.
Q: What is the joy of spreading happiness?
A: Imagine an incident where a schoolboy helped an elderly gentleman cross a busy road. When the task is completed, it is not only the elderly man who will be happy and thankful, but the boy himself will feel happy and contented and the positive energy generated will propel him to happiness all through the day. Happiness does not end here. Imagine, a bystander happened to witness the incident. The kind incident will bring joy to that person as well and he in turn will be willing to make someone else happy. Kindness is infectious and has the potential to snowball into a positive movement influencing the environment around you. There is more happiness in giving than receiving. Unknowingly, it is this contentment that will bring satisfaction and put the person on the right path to be kind to the mind.
Sometimes we find ourselves on a wrong path. A path that we don’t want to be…. but we seem to get stuck in it like quicksand, feeling that there is no way out. Sometimes our experiences in life and childhood, which we may not even remember, weigh us down and have a lasting influence on us — we realize that we have ended up becoming people we do not want to be. We lose our ability to be kind, we thrive on finding faults with people around us and are always seem dissatisfied and empty.
The good news is that it is never too late to change your path. Let us free our mind of the insults, defeats, struggles, guilt, our past mistakes, nasty things that people said to us, our inabilities…. we need to de-clutter our mind from the past and look forward to a brighter future for ourselves and the people around.
Your failures are just milestones on the path to happiness. It’s OK not to be OK, it’s OK to talk. You need to make the right choice to be happy with a capital H! Remember we need to work to get happiness, it will not fall in your lap…as you tread this path, you will realize that there is no actual “path to happiness”…. happiness is the “path.”
Q: What is the way forward?
A: The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development emphasizes mental health as a fundamental human right and essential to the development of all countries. It suggests the need to invest in mental health services as part of universal health coverage, and better integration of these services into the global response to other health priorities. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a large and uneven impact on global mental health and we are yet to recover from it.
Physical and mental health are interrelated. There can be no health without mental health and therefore achieving mental health is ultimately going to ensure we achieve physical health as well. This also means that prioritizing global mental health ultimately helps us achieve our objective of achieving global health.
When it comes to mental illness, the biggest barriers to social inclusion and appropriate care, have been stigma and discrimination. We need to collectively play our part in increasing awareness about early detection and prevention and fight stigma and the misconceptions that surround mental illness. The World Mental Health Day was an opportunity to do that collectively and engage with the government, NGOs and health care providers.
We all deserve a world in which mental health is valued, promoted and protected; where everyone has an equal opportunity to enjoy mental health and to exercise their human rights; and where everyone can access the mental health care they need.
(About the author: Assistant Professor Dr Amit Dias at the Department of Preventive & Social Medicine at the Goa Medical College & Hospital has been working in the area of promoting mental health and wellbeing in Goa. He was former honorary chairperson of Sangath, an NGO dedicated to making mental health a priority in society.)