REVEALED: Gulf CEOs, entrepreneurs face hidden mental health problem – expert

The problem is not new but is growing at an alarming rate, according to experts who treat high-net-worth Gulf clients overseas.

“We see a lot of drug problems, especially in women,” said Dr. Sarah Boss, Health Director at The Balance Rehab Clinic – which operates centers in Mallorca, Zurich, London and Marbella – tells. Arabian business. “Most people from the Middle East come with a bipolar diagnosis.”

What Boss sees is a disturbingly repetitive pattern. High-net-worth clients from the Gulf arrive heavily medicated, often carrying prescriptions for multiple drugs with dangerous interactions. The diagnosis is often bipolar but the real problem is often something else – it often comes from an out of control nervous system that is struggling with stress, overstimulation and a fast paced lifestyle.

“They feel like they have mood swings and they get really angry, but that’s from an out-of-control nervous system that makes us feel tired one day and tired the next. That’s usually not bipolar,” Boss explained.

Dependence on pharmaceutical drugs shows broad patterns of self-medication across the globe. Patterns include the use of sleeping pills at night and stimulants in the morning. Shopping addictions are also common. Individuals turn to compulsive behaviors that temporarily relieve the underlying problem, which is the inability to stop, slow down or be present without constant stimulation.

“We’re seeing a lot of addictive behaviors that don’t work,” Boss said, describing patterns common to Gulf clients. “A lot of self-medication, for example, with sleeping pills or morning stimulants, or smoking, or alcohol.”

The pattern represents a failure in the way of mental life, he said. Their doctors often describe the symptoms as bipolar disorder, and prescribe medications correctly – and incorrectly. The result is a cycle that makes the situation worse.

When clients arrive at an overseas rehab facility, the team is faced with the challenge of determining which symptoms represent true mental states and which are side effects of a combination of medications.

“Most of the time they take more than three things, we have so many potential interactions and side effects that we don’t even know what is coming from the drug and what was there before,” said Boss.

He says that the root cause is rarely found out. It is usually the result of a nervous system under constant stress without adequate rest or control.

Balance founder Abdullah Boulad understands this well. He was working with a secret balance and maintaining the relentless pace that successful people often make the mistake of producing when his life is falling apart. He kept pushing until his heart stopped, which led to a heart attack.

“It was time to wake up,” he said. “This was the beginning of trying to understand why.”

That confusion led to psychology and holistic medicine, and eventually to the creation of Balance. “I was pushed from one place to another, from one specialist to another,” he recalled. “I didn’t get the right, proper help when I needed it.”

“I ran other institutions before, and I felt that there was a lack of humanity in what was done, a lack of compassion. It was too efficient, institutions were installed,” he explained.

Mental health stigma in the Gulf remains so deep that families here often choose to send members to institutions overseas rather than seek treatment locally. For high-net-worth individuals, disclosure of information that becomes public can be seen as a major risk.

The balance applies to one client per institution rule. Staff do not use surnames, even internally among therapists. No one outside the organization knows where the treatment houses are located and seriously, the locations (Mallorca, Zurich, London, Marbella) allow clients to seem like they are on vacation rather than returning to life.

His Lebanese background helps provide cultural context. “I fully understand the cultural background of the Gulf,” he said, adding that Balance has rejected clients where the risks of disappointment or medical treatment outweigh the potential benefits. “We try to protect our customers at every level,” he said.

The need for this level of discretion, and the willingness of families to send members thousands of miles away rather than seek local care reveals a gap in the region’s mental health infrastructure and cultural acceptance.

“This world is getting too busy and too fast, with social media, with smartphones, with this overstimulation all the time,” Boss said. “Our minds are not made to be able to deal with so many things and so much light and sound and sounds and information and distraction.”

Symptoms appear predictably in almost everyone who suffers from Boss, from severe sleep problems, eating disorders, anxiety and concentration problems. Anhedonia is also often present which is the inability to experience pleasure despite material success.

“Many people today say, ‘There’s nothing I can enjoy, not even good food or time with my family, because I can’t disconnect,'” explained Boss.

The manager points to something missing that many people see as lacking – real downtime. Those times when the brain produces alpha waves, which are associated with creativity and recovery, are rare.

“We don’t have free time anymore. For example, when we have to wait for something, like planning something in a certain place, what we used to do, like in the waiting room or at the bus station, sometimes we just looked somewhere and cut off. That’s gone.”

“Now everyone thinks they work very well. Every time we have, we take out the phone, check emails, and we know from the studies already that this is harmful to the brain,” he said.

Boss does EEGs on patients and sees fatigue even in people who aren’t aware of it. They work on depleted nerve reserves, pushing forward with stimuli and energy until collapse is inevitable. “When we do EEGs with people these days, we see how tired our brains are, even though we may not see it.”

Children today sleep one hour less than children slept a hundred years ago, explains Boss. “How can that be? We still have the same brain, it’s not like we need an hour less. That has a high cost to it.”

Costs show widespread ADHD symptoms, although Boss distinguishes true ADHD from the symptoms any sleep-deprived, overstimulated person would show. “Everyone who doesn’t get enough sleep has symptoms of ADHD, because we’re tired, we have a tired brain.”

The balance approach differs from traditional psychotherapy in that it moves away from reliance on medication. The clinic uses neuromodulation techniques and technology-based interventions with what Boss describes as “level A evidence” from the World Health Organization.

The clinic also makes extensive use of physical therapy. Boulad himself maintains a weekly schedule of somatic work, massage, acupuncture, craniosacral therapy or sound baths. “I have at least one physical therapy session a week. If I miss one week, I feel it. I feel like something is missing. My nervous system, my allergies, my stress level is different.”

The philosophy of treatment rejects one-size-fits-all interventions. “I’m often asked, ‘I tried this 10 times and it didn’t work, or, I tried it 10 times and it worked.’ Yes, it is, because you can’t eat 10 carrots as a comparison and think that you have a good effect of eating it, “said Boulad. “The carrot needs to meet the fish.”

When clients arrive, the first focus is to establish safety without stressing people from critical situations. The manager supervises everything, creates a complete picture before deciding on a treatment method.

“It is also important in the first test to get an idea of ​​where we are going,” explains Boss. The method is customized based on personality and preferences.

The team deliberately avoids asking patients to repeat their stories to multiple staff members. “We don’t want them to feel like seven people know the same story,” said Boss.

For Gulf customers, the challenge is to maintain progress after returning to the areas and pressures that caused the collapse. The balance continues to provide remote care rather than referring clients to local therapists.

“We usually keep up with all our customers from the Gulf online,” Boulad said. “If you start this program with one therapist or two therapists or a team that knows it well, of course you can give it up, but it’s not the same.”

For celebrity and high-profile clients, relapse prevention requires extensive preparation to return to areas full of traps.

Balance receives frequent inquiries about opening additional locations. Boulad’s answer is no. “Every few months we get asked, don’t you want to open a place here? Don’t you want to open a place here? My answer is always no, no, not now.”

The reason is quality control. “It’s not just about a house, a beautiful house or a luxury villa. That’s not what we offer. We offer a team, a team that works together to provide individual care and this takes time.”