Health and Healthcare Systems

5 quotes from Deepika Padukone about mental health

Deepika Padukone, Founder, Live Love Laugh Foundation, India; Cultural Leader, speaking in the "An Insight, An Idea with Deepika Padukone" session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, January 21,  2020. Betazone\r\rWorld Economic Forum / Boris Baldinger

Deepika Padukona is raising awareness about mental health Image: World Economic Forum / Boris Bal

Briony Harris
Senior Writer, Forum Agenda
Share:
Our Impact
What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Health and Healthcare Systems?
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Global Health is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:

Global Health

  • There is huge stigma surrounding mental health in India.
  • Depression can affect anybody without any warning.
  • The most important thing is to seek professional help.

In order to break the stigma surrounding mental health, actress Deepika Padukone has decided to speak publicly about the clinical depression and anxiety she faced in spite of a happy home life and an extremely successful professional career.

She told her story at Davos, where she also received the Crystal Award for her work to raise awareness of mental health issues in India.

This is how she described her illness.

"What I was experiencing was this hollow, empty feeling in my stomach. I would break into a sweat. I would suddenly get into these panic phases where I felt I needed to get out and gasp for breath. And I would just cry - out of nowhere, break down and cry."

Deepika was able to seek professional help from a psychiatrist.

"The toughest part in the journey for me was not understanding what I was feeling or experiencing. Not being able to explain to people what it was. The diagnosis itself felt like a massive relief."

Deepika Padukone on stigma around seeking help for mental health

And she talked about the stigma surrounding mental health in India. .

"Parents don’t want to take their children to counsellors or psychiatric treatment because they are concerned what other family members may think, concerned about what society may think. I’ve come across situations where people who are experiencing mental illnesses want to seek help but the family won’t allow them to do that."

Loading...

She also spoke about how to protect against the depression returning.

"I have to take care of myself on a daily basis, what I eat, how much I sleep, exercise, mindfulness - to ensure I don’t go back to that dark space."

And she conveyed a message of hope to anyone who may be suffering in the same way she did.

"There were days I wanted to give up, but hope everyday would push me to the next day. I kept saying, this is going to pass. So there is hope."

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:
Health and Healthcare SystemsWellbeing and Mental HealthArts and Culture
Share:
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

6 surprising ways soil and human health are linked

David Elliott

October 2, 2024

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum