Depressed, alone and ignored
rising for the past decade while other countries such as China and Sri Lanka have achieved the opposite. As a priority, the Centre must launch a national programme with active youth participation to address these causes of death and illness,” said Dr Vikram Patel, professor of global health and social medicine at the department of global health and social medicine, Harvard Medical School.
Teenagers are more reckless than children and adults as their brains are wired to react rather than retreat from danger. This proclivity for risk due to changes in the brain during teenage and early 20s explains why more young people die in suicides and accidents than people in other age groups. Gender plays a role in impulsive response, with men more reckless, perhaps because the male hormone testosterone peaks during late teens and early 20s. This corresponds with the ratio of crime, substance abuse and road accidents in men versus women, reported a study in Development Neuroscience.
LET’S TALK
“We need a discourse on depression but to do that, there’s need to de-hyphenate distress from psychosis. Bollywood icons such as Deepika Padukkone and Karan Johar have made a start but we need far more people joining the conversation,” said Dr Shidhaye.
In a run-up to the World Health Day, PM Modi also underlined the need to bring depression out of the closet in his Mann Ki Baat on March 26. “We (in India) are afraid to talk about it (depression) openly,” he said. “Suppression of depression is not good. Expression is good. If depressed, share your feelings with others, it will make you feel better.”
It’s not that people are not seeking treatment — antidepressant sales are up by more than 30% over the past four years — from ₹760 crore in 2013 to ₹1,093 crore in 2016 —but those getting help is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Psychological first aid from friends and family can help youngsters be more resilient. “In the absence of specialists, drawing support from the existing evidence-based cultural resources and social support mechanisms — yoga, mindfulness/vipassna — helps lower distress,” said Dr Shidhaye.
“We can’t wait for specialists or government to provide solutions, each of us has to do our bit to improve mental wellbeing in whatever way we can,” he said.