Mental Health, the new common cold for youth

Mental health doesn’t need mere conversations. It requires implementations and actions that turn conversations a reality.

Presently, the world is growing at a dramatic pace. It’s fast and full of stress and so are its implications on the modern life of modern people. In situations where stress and anxiety are more common than the common cold, mental health and its awareness become an integral part of the lifestyle to keep a regular check on. It issue itself is diverse and have multiple complications and consequences on an individual. Before understanding the mental health of an individual or a community it becomes extremely important to understand the affecting determinants.

It is not always about the ability to react in a situation or managing one’s thoughts and emotions or behaviour, rather it also included the social, cultural and most importantly environmental factors affecting an individual’s mind. Among these factors, the ones with the most adverse complications are poverty and lack of good quality education. This not only contributes to creating the rift in the social strata but also increases the mental vulnerability and inferiority complexes of facing the big ruthless world.

The debate on mental health in India is one of the most talked-about and promoted topics but is least taken seriously. Everyone likes to support the hashtags on mental awareness or utilizing social media to talk about it. But the million-dollar question arises are we actually doing something about it? The answer to this is a big fat, NO! We are only talking about it showing the world we are aware and we care but actually, we are doing nothing to change the situation.

In India, it has been estimated by the World Health Organization that the burden of mental health problems is of the tune of 2,443 DALYs per 100,000 population, and the age-adjusted suicide rate per 100,000 population is 21.1. 

As the development in the country has intensified, it has not only changed people’s work lives but has also affected their personal lives, individuals are moving away from the basic structure of the values and fundamental ethos.

The major change in lifestyle is the family structure that has adverse effects on the mental health of an individual. These unprecedented changes in lifestyle have isolated the individual in a bigger picture. The families are getting nuclear because we have started to believe that we are independent and are self-sufficient forgetting the interdependent law of nature. We, humans, are designed in a way that we need to be surrounded by people we know and care about. But this concept of elementary families is somewhere making us all alone.

Due to the varied working hours and work pressure, there is no time for anyone to sit patiently and talk about things and share the burden.

Merely talking about it or posting deep lines on mental awareness will not make a difference, inculcating and changing habits will.

The things around us are already harsh, we don’t want it to be harsher. The issue is much bigger and harsher than it seems to be. All we need to be is a little considerate about ourselves and others. Prioritising mental health is important especially when the world has already opened the pandora’s box!