5 Mental Health Tips from a Psychiatrist Living with Parkinson's disease

Who better to give tips for mental health than a psychiatrist who has Parkinson’s disease. We had the privilege of sitting down with Gunvant Patel MD for a discussion and to get his top 5 best tips for better mental health in Parkinson’s disease.

Gunvant Patel is an Australian forensic psychiatrist who was diagnosed seven years ago at the age of fifty five with Parkinson’s Disease. He is married with two adult children and keeps busy making mediocre beer and bread. He believes that the right approach to managing Parkinson’s starts with supporting the person and their loved ones with psychological support and good mental health strategies from the point of diagnosis.

Dr Gunvant Patel is a psychiatrist who has Parkinson’s disease

Tip #1: Exercise, exercise, exercise!

Staying as physically fit as possible is a no brainer (pardon the pun). Exercise is a great mood booster and stress reliever as well as having a direct benefit on the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Push yourself as much as possible and make it a priority in your day.

Tip #2: Doing less of what you love is better than

doing more of what you don’t.

Parkinson’s is progressive and requires continuing adaptation (the true sign of intelligence according to Stephen Hawking). That doesn’t have to mean giving things up altogether, but it may mean having to find novel solutions to allow you to keep doing it. In my case, I shifted from face-to-face work (shaking and looking half asleep tends not to inspire confidence in your patients!) to tele-health. It also gave me more flexibility around what times I worked in the day, the ‘Uber’ model of psychiatry you could say.

Tip #3: Be more self-compassionate and less

concerned about others.

Self-compassion is not being self-absorbed or selfish or even weak. It means showing kindness to yourself as if it were someone close to you that you were trying to support. It is OK to feel embarrassed about how others might see you, it’s OK to have what I call my ‘Robin Williams moments’ when I’m up in the middle of the night and thinking “can I keep doing this?”. But you don’t need others to make you feel embarrassed or bring you down. You get to realize who has your back and who is riding your back. In psychiatry they’re called High EE relationships (EE stands for Expressed Emotions) and they are bad for your mental well-being. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself like you would treat close friend or loved one.

Tip #4: ‘That which does not destroy me, makes me

stronger’ F. Neitzsche.

Once you are faced with the enormity of the disease and what it means for every waking moment of the rest of your life, it can feel overwhelming. You are confronted with the frailty of existence and that your existence can change in the blink of an eye. It’s understandable to push back against this and to want to pretend that life can still be the same. However, if you can see it also as a gift and lean into it, the reward is a heightened sense of life’s preciousness and sheer awesomeness. Gratitude and joy in the things you have flows from this realization and you loosen your grip on the envy and resentment for what you can’t accomplish. You feel bolder on personal level and, in my case, have I been able to achieve things I would not have been able to do were it not for having Parkinson’s.

Tip #5: The journey continues…

Stay curious and engaged. It feels easier at times to withdraw from the world, but your presence can still make a difference and your new-found status can act as a source of inspiration to others. Even this cloud can have a silver lining and you may discover new opportunities, like being invited by Michael Okun and Indu Subramanian to write for this blog!

To read more books and articles by Michael S. Okun MD check on Twitter @MichaelOkun and these websites with blogs and information on his books and http://parkinsonsecrets.com/ #Livingwith Parkinson’s #EndingPD #Parkinsonsecrets #LessonsFromTheBedside

He also serves as the Medical Advisor for the Parkinson’s Foundation.

To see more on Dr. Indu Subramanian she does live interviews of experts in Parkinson’s for the PMD Alliance.