mental health problems : Children and working professionals

Easy targets

Children and working professionals are the most vulnerable when it comes to mental health problems, say experts

Niharika Sen, 5, refused to go to school and started displaying cranky behaviour. Psychological tests revealed she had school phobia, her family history of depression aggravating her woes. Children as young as four and five are facing psychological complications these days. Psychologist and school counsellor Neha Patel says the reasons are parental pressure, teachers' expectations and competitiveness. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has become prevalent among children. With nuclear families and working parents, the latchkey syndrome has also come into play — children returning home from school with nobody to greet them except the maid. "Children are spending more time with their maids; this creates a communication barrier between parents and children," says psychologist Seema Hingorrany. According to Malini Shah, senior counsellor at Aavishkar Centre, childhood and teenage are two phases of life that need critical attention. She says the breakdown of the social system is making city teens anxious and vulnerable to mental disorders. "The desire to adapt to western ideas despite societal pressure to stick to indigenous values is leading to confusion," says Shah. The other vulnerable group is working professionals, who are constantly seeking greener pastures, which takes a toll on them. Just like it happened to Sonia Karkare, 26. Her quest for perfection and a better-than-others attitude at work did her in. Karkare, overworking her mind to avoid making errors, ended goofing up more. She kept switching jobs one after the other to a point where she slipped into depression. Hingorrany says that most of the time, working people are ridden with a sense of insecurity and feel incompetent. The way out, she suggests, is not to pin the blame on oneself. Grow your deposit in Brain In many ways, our brain is like a bank. You can only take away what you put in. The thoughts that you put in becomes a part of what one could call the hard disc of your brain memory. So, it all depends what kind of thought you are depositing. Your brain's hard disc can only give you solutions that you have put in just like the kind of software you have loaded into your computer. So, grow your memory bank deposit in such a way that you will benefit. Deposit only positive thoughts. Successful people wire their brain differently. They know it is the best tool that can keep their success going. So they work on it, examine all the inputs that go into it and keep growing it. Day after day. They know that negative thoughts can pull them back and so have to be kept away. In an interview, I asked Peter Harper, one of the top oncologists, as to what had made him so successful. He said: "I never give up." This is the input that he put in his brain. So when he has a tough case, his brain gives him an output on never giving up. Whenever you are free from the usual pressures, take time off to put in positive thoughts. It is a good idea to do it as soon as you get up. You will see how your day stretches out. Then, do it again just before you go to sleep. During the day, you will have negative thoughts. Stop them. If you don't, they will grow so fast that you will find yourself in a dark corner. Negative thoughts have tremendous power. They find place in the brain to fertilize and grow. That is why it needs a strong mind to fight it. It is a virus. Don't try to suppress negative thoughts as it will get stronger and come back. Destroy them. You can forget unpleasant memories if you do not succumb to recalling it. It will delete itself. Reboot your mind today. Clean your memory bank. Put in positive files, happy memories, dreams and good images. Let this be a web around your brain.