Psychological Stress In Day To Day Life

Hi everyone!

I am Dr. Atul Aswani, so when you think of psychiatry or you think of psychiatrist, many times you feel that psychiatrist only give medicine and you do not want to take medicine. Now the reality is there are some conditions where medication is important but let me emphasize that medication is not everything. Let me give you an example if someone has pain in his teeth and he goes to a dentist, the dentist might fill the cavities in his teeth and the dentist might do a procedure but I am sure the dentist will say to that person that from now on you have to brush your teeth twice a day religiously, you have to floss, you may also need to do a mouthwash, avoid things which are sweet and sticky and so on. So, in the same way in my branch sometimes when stress is too much and people are finding it very difficult to have a normal day, a little dose of medication can reduce your anxiety and discomfort within 24 hours but then you cannot be on medication all your life to manage the anxiety or discomfort which you should be able to manage on your own.

So, this is where it becomes very useful to learn how to think better and that is your whole domain of psychological therapy or what we call as cognitive behavior therapy. So cognitive behavior therapy basically says that more than the events in my life it is how I interpret those events that make all the difference. For example, all of us know that a traffic jam is part and parcel of modern day urban life but two people stuck in a traffic jam will have two very different responses to the traffic jam. 1 person in a traffic jam might gradually become more and angrier and stressed and he may begin to say what is the government doing, where is my tax money going, why are there potholes on the road and he might say how did I get stuck up here; however, the other person might use the time in the traffic jam to make phone calls to friends, cousins and relatives whom he has not spoken to and he might even use that time to listen to music or read a book or if you have the ability and the space you might even go to sleep in the traffic jam.

Now both these people will spend the extra money and extra petrol in reaching their destination but let me assure you the second person will reach his destination more happier and less uncomfortable than the first one and this shows to us that medication is not the solution for all our psychological discomfort. We even need to learn how to think better, to be able to actively selected thoughts which are better than some other thoughts, so we call them are helpful thoughts and unhelpful thoughts. So just in a similar way if I were to tell you people who have high blood pressure may take medication to reduce their blood pressure but they should also exercise, they should also reduce salt in their diet, they should also have a good night sleep and the same thing applies to my branch. Medication may be required in some cases but good thinking, better thinking, positive thinking, helpful thinking applies in all cases.

Thank you very much!