Dr. K Fact Checks Ironic Mental Health Advice

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Alok Kanojia (1:03)

Hey, chat. Welcome to the Healthy GamerGG podcast. I'm Dr. Ollo Konoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So, let's dive right in.

Hey, y'all. Today, we're going to react to some of the funniest mental health advice on the internet. Let's see what they get right, what they get wrong, and what's actually going on underneath. I'm Dr. Ollo Konoja, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_9 (1:39)

You may have tried therapy in the past, but have you considered trying drinking instead? Therapy tries to get you to deal with the emotional issues in the past life traumas. But remember, you can't be anxious, depressed, or stressed if you're passed out in a bush somewhere.

Alok Kanojia (1:52)

Yeah, so...

SPEAKER_9 (1:53)

Bag of cans. And just remember, you're not an alcoholic, you're practicing pitefulness.

Alok Kanojia (1:56)

Pitefulness. Love it. OK, so the really scary thing about this is he's not wrong. And you know who else doesn't think he's wrong? Is the pharmaceutical companies. So we think about alcohol as a problem for mental illness, which it absolutely is. But alcohol works on the GABA receptor. And what basically the pharmaceutical companies did is develop a pill that works basically identically to alcohol. And you may have heard of this pill. It's called Xanax or Valium or Alprazolam or Larazepam or Clonopin, K-Pins. So this is the really scary thing is that alcohol in the GABA receptor actually do shut down and or numb parts of our brain. The problem is that this is a very short term effect. And over time, alcohol worsens our mood and anxiety. But it absolutely works very well short term to numb things out.

SPEAKER_10 (2:46)

Just feeling really down these days. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_11 (2:48)

Have you exercised today?

Alok Kanojia (2:49)

No.

SPEAKER_7 (2:50)

Did you go outside?

SPEAKER_1 (2:51)

No.

SPEAKER_12 (2:51)

Did you talk to anyone?

SPEAKER_1 (2:52)

No.

SPEAKER_13 (2:53)

Did you eat well?

SPEAKER_1 (2:54)

No.

SPEAKER_13 (2:54)

Do you limit your scrolling time?

SPEAKER_1 (2:55)

No.

SPEAKER_11 (2:55)

Do you make any plans?

SPEAKER_1 (2:57)

No.

SPEAKER_12 (2:57)

Did you drink enough water?

SPEAKER_1 (2:58)

No.

SPEAKER_10 (2:59)

Did you get enough sleep?

SPEAKER_1 (3:00)

No.

Alok Kanojia (3:00)

Wait. Yeah. So this is kind of hilarious. So we all know that we need to do these kinds of things. But I think the job of a therapist is not to tell you all the stuff that you should be doing to help you with your mental health. The job of a therapist is to actually help you get from any one of those no's to a yes.

SPEAKER_7 (3:19)

Oh my god. People's depression gets so bad, they can't brush their teeth.

SPEAKER_12 (3:23)

People's depression gets so bad, they kill themselves, Shannon.

Alok Kanojia (3:26)

Yeah. I don't know how I feel about this.

So I don't like the word can't when we talk about depression. Does people's depression get so bad that they can't brush their teeth? Yeah, maybe, but I think the moment that we kind of admit that, we have to be really careful because we're also opening the door to saying, okay, I can't brush my teeth. That's because I'm depressed. And so I think the tricky thing about psychiatry is, is your depression so bad that it may not be possible for you to brush your teeth? Yes. And does that mean we should stop trying to brush our teeth because we're depressed? Absolutely not.