In many cultures, corporations and countries, mental health was talked about in whispers before Covid. Not any more…now it is talked about more openly.

Today, thanks to Covid, social media has been able to shed to some extent the stigma around mental health, and the younger generation (the Millennials and the GenZ or Zoomers), at least talks about it without fear, shame or guilt; however, even their number is quite small.

The contribution of Indian celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Dilip Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Hritik Roshan, Karan Johar, Varun Dhavan, Tiger Shroff, Anushka Sharma, Yoyo Honey Singh and many others in raising awareness about mental health is worthy of an appreciation.

Vulnerability normalizes mental health.

Awareness brings out people to seek help early on rather than delaying it with serious implications. All days are not the same. We all do feel a bit low sometime; but if this is more often, then one should seek help, sooner the better.

In May 2020, cricketer MS Dhoni, India’s Captain Cool said it well when he offered his perspective about mental health in a press release issued by MFORE. He said, “In India, I feel there is still a big issue of accepting that there is some weakness when it comes to the mental aspects, but we generally term it as mental illness.”  MFORE, founded by former Indian batsman S Badrinath and Saravana Kumar is an initiative offering mind conditioning programs to achieve peak performance in sports.

Virat Kohli gave a sage advice when he was going through a low phase. He said it was important for athletes to rest and recover from the pressures of sport and reconnect with their “core self”. “If you lose that connection, it wouldn’t take very long for other things to crumble around you.” The comments came after he had struggled with depression after failing to score runs during an England tour in 2014. “It’s not a great feeling to wake up knowing that you won’t be able to score runs… I felt I was the loneliest guy in the world,” Virat said.

When a celebrity talks about personal mental health issues, the common man realizes and understands that it is something that can affect everyone; he or she is not alone. This creates a lot of hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel and makes the person find ways to come out of it.

We need to explore easier, simpler, cheaper ways to mitigate mental health issues to reach out to majority of the population.

To the best of available information, none of the celebrities reached out to an app, because there weren’t many or any then. And all of them recovered reasonably well. They must have reached out to friends, sought timely medical advice or did introspection, yoga, meditation, mindfulness etc.

I am not against an app to manage mental health but the big question is: are we prepared to tackle the mental health problems faced by the majority of the population and not a select few? An app reaches a select few due to its cost.

The lucky few who work in multinational organizations get apps to deal with mental health. In the Indian context, the users of this app usually lose interest after a few days or weeks. On the other hand, smaller companies can’t afford to provide such apps to their employees due to its prohibitive cost. This leaves you with the majority of the population to look after their mental health on their own and fight it back with their own resilience and infrastructure, however, meagre.

We need to explore easier, simpler, cheaper ways to mitigate mental health issues to reach out to majority of the population.

Mental health issues are multi-factorial. They arise from various quarters. To blame work alone may not be always right. Of course, we spend one-third of our day at workplace so work does contribute but within those work-hours are thousands of things that the human mind is thinking, many of which are personal.

Mental health issues include anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma, and Post Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD). The mental health experiences differ in individuals according to many factors – age, past experiences, financial opportunity, job type, job loss, parenting and caregiving responsibilities etc.

For example, not many must have thought that one of the reasons why the older generation these days develop mental health issues is due to activities of the younger generation in their families that they had never imagined.

To understand how mental health issues be sorted needs us to be open about every possibility that can impact mental health. It is not right to blame work (overwork and underwork) alone for mental health issues. It could be due to workplace or working conditions. The role of management is important, however small the company size.

The MSME (Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises) business owners must be aware that mental health issues can arise in their workers and take steps proactively. One of the steps they can take is to talk to their employees and try and make their work interesting.  

Mental health issues can also arise due to unrealistic expectations from people, company or life in general and everyone should be mindful of these. One should have realistic expectations.

Financial position is also responsible but one should know that not all rich people are happy and that not all with limited financial means or poor are unhappy.

What are the options other than mental health apps that can help people from staying away from mental health issues or managing them?

First and foremost is to encourage employees to talk and never feel isolated. As colleagues we should be able to find out any behavioral changes. The senior management should talk about mental health in townhalls and share experiences, if any; be vulnerable. Vulnerability normalizes mental health.

Talks on mental health by learned men and women help, especially if interlaced with interesting examples. It is important to note that examples should also mention failures that led to successes. Examples of only successes may dampen the already damped spirits.

The role of manager or business owners of MSME is in recognizing, addressing, and advocating for mental health and aggressively promoting it. A lot is achieved when a manager demonstrates empathy and maturity to members of the team.

Be simple, realistic, talk to your friend, manager or employer, utilize EAP (Employee Assistance Program), try your best while being reasonably competitive, understand that all cannot reach the top, minimize social media, be around positive people. If you get opportunities learn yoga, meditation, mindfulness etc. Being a little spiritual helps you calm and introspect and yet allows you to grow.

I have a real story to tell. Years ago, I met a Commanding Officer in one of the army cantonments in India. We started talking and somewhere the topic of how does one become the Chief of Army came up. He was very realistic. He told me that there are roughly 200 officers in my batch, 200 senior to me and 200 junior to me, and potentially any one of the 600 can become the Chief of Army. So why worry about it. Live now and enjoy the so many other things life has to offer.

Learn to give up anything that you are not able to achieve before it hurts you. It could be the wrong vocation that you have chosen. For example, every child playing cricket cannot be in an IPL or Indian team. Similarly, everyone cannot be a singer of repute. The wisdom is to realize it early after giving it a whole-hearted try. Remember, every person has a role in this world – may be your role is different than what you are pursuing, and changing it in time might help and allow you to grow elsewhere.

Talking about mental health issues and finding ways to address it in the younger generation is necessary as it is going to affect them the most in the years to come. 

Mental health is not entirely occupational (work-related), however, there could be an element of it and hence it is an opportunity for Occupational Health Physicians working in industries to work closely with management and foster a culture where the workplace encourages dismantling of stigma surrounding mental health discussions by open dialogue, empathy, mental-health talks etc.

Management must know that providing access to an app may not always help solve the complex problem of mental health and think of other methods to manage by interacting with the Occupational Health Physician.

Finding methods of robust human interaction (which includes accessibility of managers, EAPs etc.) may help manage mental health issues more realistically, and on a large scale to benefit the majority. Focusing on meditation, yoga, sleep, vulnerability, nutrition, mindfulness, and empathy in addition to human interaction and being realistic may produce the desired results as they all affect mental health. ME-MY-HIS-RAVAN (meditation, empathy, mindfulness, yoga, human interaction, sleep, realistic approach, vulnerability, accessibility, nutrition) includes most of the elements to manage mental health and is reasonably simpler, easier and cheaper; hence worth a try.

Dr Ajay Sati

To know more, contact

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Dr Ajay Sati is an Occupational Health physician who prefers to describe himself as an Occupationist, to denote, ‘an expert in diseases and other concerns of occupations’. Dr Sati has managed health and wellness programs in industries he worked, like the atomic energy, and energy (oil & gas) in India and overseas. An experienced virtual consultation expert he was involved in many greenfield and brownfield projects providing inputs from health point of view.