Youtube is full of videos that entertain you. In fact, I always create informative videos. But today, I want to talk to you about yourself particularly if you deal with mental health conditions or offer support to someone with mental health conditions in India.
This is absolutely no exaggeration if I say that Mental Healthcare in India is literally scary. The percentage of available psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses is horribly below the margin.
Although Covid made many realize the need for mental health support, the number of startups is mostly money-driven under the pressure of investors. And these private clinics are mostly counseling centers than diagnosis, which is essential to figuring out your actual ailments. Otherwise, you are forever in the swing of financial stress.
Within Mental Healthcare in India, when you don’t have adequate RCI registered mental health professionals, you suck up to what is available without many choices and that leads to exploitation of various kinds both on the part of patients and doctors and allied mental health professionals.
What happens to a country’s development when people suffer from mental health conditions that get ignored and brushed aside? It impacts economic growth, slows down productivity, and most importantly, the brain starts losing itself.
So, what is your role in this? It is to understand that a crucial link between psychiatric ailments, food, lifestyle, and your well-being as a citizen of India contributes to India’s growth. It is to realize that we have to do our best before the current mental health situation in India puts us in a baffling situation.
We have to realize that when mental health professionals are low in count and the demand is enormous, it is a demand-supply crisis causing obvious financial pressure for people like you and me to avail quality psychiatric or psychological care. So many households are exposed to catastrophic health expenditures due to mental health treatment costs. Some households fall below the poverty line after dealing with mental health treatment expenses.
So what can we do? We should blame the politicians and policymakers, won’t we? Listen, activism needs a healthy brain too. We have to start with ourselves to prevent some of these mental health illnesses through our daily choices! By understanding the vital link between nutrition, exercise, and mental well-being, we can to a huge extent control the need for psychiatric or psychological intervention.
Don’t get me wrong. As I am recording this video, I got my daily antidepressants. So, I am certainly not against psychiatry. I am not lecturing you about mental health care as an outsider. In fact, I am now studying to become a clinical psychologist someday triggered by my own experience of being wrongly diagnosed with psychotic condition and related medicine by a registered psychiatrist. I could help myself eventually but not everyone can. The plight of homeless people with mental illnesses breaks my heart when they can be easily rehabilitated. So, believe me with immense confidence that Psychiatry and psychology are essential if we hit such conditions that need their care but if we can be cautious, we can prevent it.
What is worse is that now people with depression in mid-age are at triple the risk of dementia, which is absolute loss of your brain. So, won’t you pause and revisit your lifestyle and diet plans to reset it all? Our brain and body are connected. It would have helped me if I knew this early on but better late than never, which is why while I work on my everyday life, I want you to work on your life and diet too without any excuse.
I recommend you check these two short videos for a comprehensive summary of where depression or mental health crisis actually begins other than in the loss of neurochemical balancing in the brain.
Check this video to know everything you have to mind before randomly visiting a psychiatrist.
In general, my ask in this video on mental healthcare in India is to have you be mindful of your actions, how you treat yourself, and how you treat others, to come out of your sedentary lifestyle with at least 2 hours of daily exercise, and eat food that definitely excludes SUGAR or anything with high Glycemic Index.
You know what? I love you guys. I care for your health. So, your well-being is the well-being of all of us. We all are connected whether you believe this connection is through belief in Gods or Quantum Physics. A person, a family, a society, a state, a country, a world. So, now If you find my video informative, like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell to stay updated on my upcoming videos. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. Until next, Wish you good health and take care!