Anxiety, depression bog down Mumbaikars, kill happiness Mental Illness Is A Cause For Misery, Says UN Report

Mumbai: If you walk on the road, you could be hit by a speeding car. If you are wearing a gold chain, you could be assaulted. If the rupee doesn't improve, your EMIs could touch the roof. Such constant, daily anxieties could be making Mumbai a sicker and unhappy place to live in. 

    It's not only the recent spate of rapes, murders and assaults; it's the underlying mental health problems—be it anxieties or depression — that are making Mumbaikars uneasy. The newly released United Nations Happiness Report underlines this overall picture of misery. India has been ranked 111th among 156 nations in the happiness survey. 
    The UN report has, for the first time, spelt out the rising burden of mental health as the major contributor to unhappiness. "Mental illness is a highly influential—and in the countries we have assessed, the single biggest—determinant of misery," said the UN Happiness Report, adding that 10% of the world's population at any one time is either depressed or suffering from anxiety disorders. 
    "Mumbai is the scene of chronic disaster syndrome," says psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty. "Women no longer feel safe on roads. There are not only accidents but reports about suicides, riots, thefts, murder and rapes that have to be digested." 
    Experts said the numbers in Mumbai could be higher at 12% given the daily stressors—the wait at railway stations, the queue for rickshaws, the lack of pavements, the overcrowding—that trigger anxiety disorders. "Your smile is broadest when on the bicycle, but it keeps decreasing as speed increases and the bicycle is replaced with a bike or car," adds Shetty. In other words, stress and anxiety increase as the reading on speedometers increases. "When peace is destroyed, happiness is reduced and stress increases. Worse, this triggers anxiety," he said. 
    Dr Kersi Chavda, psychiatrist with Hinduja Hospital in Mahim, said the World Health Organisation's 10 from mental illness are in receipt of treatment and care; in lower-resource settings, the situation is considerably worse. This is serious discrimination; it is also unsound economics.'' 
    Dr Chavda says the city's "creaking infrastructure, the high corruption factor'' make it a difficult place to live in. "There is overall frustration about good people getting shunted and, frankly, happiness goes well with wealth that is not possible for the majority.'' 
commonest causes for loss of manpower hours include four psychiatric reasons such as depression, alcoholism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. "In India, it is worsened by the fact that there are an enormous number of people who need mental health interventions but there are only 4,000-odd psychiatrists to attend to them,'' says Dr Chavda. 
    The World Mental Health Report notes, "Even in rich countries, less than a third of people who suffer