“People who are depressed react in two ways. The first is they become quiet and do not interact with others at all and the other is they become aggressive. I would say aggression is much less common and passiveness is more common.” – Dr. Mukesh Batra
Q 1. Your new book, ‘Feel Good, Heal Good’ is your 10th book. How do you find the time to write books as you practice homeopathy and entrepreneurship as well?
A. When you have passion you can do anything. People who say they don’t have the time to do something, actually don’t have the inclination of doing it. For the last 5 years I have been writing 1 book every year. It took me 2 years to write ‘Feel Good, Heal Good’ but it was done while I was doing all my other work as well. Very often what I do is, I go to my home in Goa and shut myself totally from the world. That is when I pen down my thoughts. I do that for a couple of months but then I have to re-edit it multiple times. Publishing a book means that it has to be perfect. I am happy as I want to leave my legacy behind for people, I want my experiences known to people. I want them to benefit from what I experienced in life so that they don’t have to go through the same problems I had.
Q 2. Why this book right now, as in at this point of time?
A. I think the time is very appropriate because we are going through a major mental health crisis. This is across all age groups. Whether it is in kids, teenagers or elderly people this is of major concern. In the elderly people we can see loneliness, in young people we have digital addiction. For example, a person says that I went into depression because one person ‘unfollowed’ me or because, you had more likes than I had. In children there is a vast amount of competition clubbed with parental pressure. There is a lot of stress and anxiety and other problems, so we can see that mental health has become a major issue. There were 3 to 4 reasons as to why I wrote this book. The first was that I wanted to open a conversation on this topic, and in spite of celebrities and sportspeople coming out in the open about their mental health issues, it is still a very hushed topic. Even today it has been reported of a place in Maharashtra where outside a mosque, mentally ill people are chained and left there with no one to look after them. The second reason, as you said I have got 50 years of practice in medicine and most of the patients I see have NCDs (Non-Communicable Disorders). Modern medicine has done very well to control infections by using antibiotics. However, for chronic problems they don’t have anything to offer. Homeopathy is safe and goes to the root of the problem, hence offering good treatments. One of them is also mental health. Many problems that seem physical are actually stemming from mental issues. These mental problems might not have a cause in the present, it might be due to suppression of emotions as a child also. I have treated girls today who have had acne, PCOD and other menstrual issues and the reason was that they had strict fathers who didn’t allow them to go out at all. I have healed several cases using homeopathy which are due to emotional causes. Today, the number of psychosomatic problems that are there are absolutely unbelievable. Finally, homeopathy is holistic medicine. And in my practice I have seen that a lot of chemical medicines that are given are addictive and have side effects. Homeopathy is non-addictive and is safe. I am giving people hope that they shouldn’t panic and go to a good homeopathic doctor.
Q 3. How do you diagnose a person who is suicidal and how do you prevent suicide?
A. First of all, there is no way you can diagnose it. Mostly, it is depression that causes such thoughts and suicide is a form of depression. There are 2 basic kinds of depression – one is endogenous depression, and one is exogenous depression. Exogenous depression means from external causes, and mostly from my experience I have seen that it stems from family conflicts. Endogenous depression comes from some chemicals in your body, which gets generated, sometimes if there is a family history of depression. Conditions such as wanting to be alone, wanting to be by yourself etc. are also forms of depression. Suicide is actually one moment of madness. You can prevent depression and you can prevent it going to that stage but it is difficult to prevent suicide as it can just happen in one moment of insanity. The only way to prevent it is by getting medical attention or counselling, when you are feeling depressed. If you are spoken to during that phase of depression, you don’t need to go over the wall.
Q 4. How can you understand that you have anxiety and how can you lower it?
A. Certain symptoms such as a high pulse rate, heart starts beating faster than normal, you start sweating, you get a high respiratory rate, feelings of panic etc. happens at a stage to a lot of us but there are different types of anxiety. The most common one is anticipatory anxiety which occurs when the person thinks that I don’t know what is going to happen. Whether it is exam results anxiety, how will an interview go, etc. is anticipating in my life something that is going to happen, either good or bad. That is the most common reason for anxiety. After some time it becomes a nervous disorder. It can hence then even happen without a reason as your nervous system breaks, hence you don’t need a reason. Then it can happen anywhere and with anything. When it becomes very severe we call it a panic attack. Then you start sweating and thinking that you are going to get a heart attack. There is also performance anxiety. People get an irritable bowel syndrome as well in this case.
