The Truth About Our Mental Health Crisis ft. Dr. Ali

The Truth About Our Mental Health Crisis ft. Dr. Ali

– We currently find ourselves
in a very weird time. Weird times have strange
effects on our mental health. In fact, this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever needed to
seek out professional help and begin therapy. So I sat down with two mental
health experts on this video to talk about the effects that
the pandemic has been having on our mental health. First up, we have Dr. Ali Mattu whom you may know from his
awesome YouTube channel. This has taken a mental
toll on us, hasn’t it? – So much sir, I mean, we’ve
all learned ways of coping with this pandemic, that
sort of map onto a trauma. What a trauma really is
in a psychological sense is when your core beliefs about the world, about other people, about
yourself have been challenged in some way. And we’ve all learned
how to be hypervigilant around other people,
how to socially distant, how to be on guard. And for a lot of people wearing a mask has been something that’s
created a sense of safety. All of that can’t turn off now that at least in the United States, we have a lot of
vaccinations in the public. There’s no vaccine for the
psychological impact of COVID-19. – Is it gonna leave a permanent
mark inside of our psyches? And how will that mark change
whether we were doctors at the time, children at the
time, not going to school, like how will it change between
the different population? – That’s a great question. And it’s really gonna
depend on the individual. One of the things that
we know about COVID-19 is it hasn’t impacted
everyone the same way. Some people have had more resources to navigate the pandemic. They’ve been able to live in places where they have more space,
more access to the outdoors. They’ve got better internet connections. More computers, so all the kids can be on their online classes
without any problems and have had jobs where
they can work remotely. Other people haven’t had that opportunity. They’ve been essential workers. They’ve been exposed more to
the danger of getting COVID-19 or they live in communities
where more people have died of COVID-19 or
been impacted by COVID-19. Some people have actually had COVID and we’re still learning the
long tail effects of this, the sleep problems, the
breathing problems, the anxiety, the difficulty with
focusing and attention. We don’t wanna 100%
understand the mental health consequences of COVID-19. – I like that you focus that
it’s different for each group, that it’s different for what
each individual went through because you have students
who were perhaps introverted and had anxieties in classrooms,
and then at home thrived. Then on the other end, you had students who were socially isolated and thrived in a school environment, but now suffered at home. – I know, people who have
learning disorders, ADHD, difficulty organizing, focusing, and for them being able
to have recorded lectures that they can move slower or faster watch again is incredibly relieving of a lot of the struggles that they have. And then I know other people who also have learning disorders, ADHD, these difficulties with executive
functioning and focusing, and for them trying to
do this all in their room when they have all their
other fun stuff around them is a complete disaster. So even with the same problem, COVID-19 has created opportunities and challenges for people. – We’re always quick to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. And I think we’re gonna be
talking about that years to come because of this pandemic. But there’s also the other side of this, which is that post-traumatic
growth component. And it’s a field of positive psychology that I really liked
discussing on the channel. Where do you see the differences
between the individuals who fall into the post-traumatic
growth sort of group and then the ones who suffer with PTSD? Is this a genetic thing? Is there something that
we can do to help us go more towards the PTG group? – Most people are
probably going to recover from the psychological trauma of COVID-19. And that’s when we talk about resiliency about this is where you were your functioning kind of
dipped during the pandemic and we’re kind of getting you
back to where you were at. Back in terms of your mental
health, your physical health, your social connections,
your ability to sleep. Post-traumatic growth is about
pushing things above that. It’s about clarifying your
new values of rediscovering, who you are, and maybe realizing some of these things I cared about before, they’re not important to me anymore. Or getting a better understanding
of what your strengths are, the people in your life
you can really connect with. Rely on. I know a lot of us have developed
new mental health skills during the pandemic. One thing I wanted
everyone to understand is it’s possible to both be struggling and growing at the same time. You might be going through
some pain and suffering and getting a better
understanding of who you are, your values, who’s important to you. These things can both
occur at the same time. One of the key things that
seems to be a predictor of post-traumatic growth
is to develop a narrative and understanding of the
experience you’ve gone through. And that’s something we
all can do. Dr. Mike, we can all get a better understanding of what this experience has been like. For some people that might
mean diaring about this Diaring, is that a word? Can we make it a word? – Yeah, I think so. – Yeah, let’s go with it. – I don’t know if it’s making diorama’s or writing in a diary, but it works both. (laughs) – You can make a diorama? I would actually love to see your diorama. Post it at social, I wanna see this. You can write in a diary. You don’t have to do it forever,
but write for 20 minutes for four days in a row. That’s what the research has shown is kind of the minimal amount you need to form a narrative that really helps you to get unstuck with what
you’re going through. And you can write for 20
minutes about how this pandemic has impacted you, how it’s changed you. You can write a song, you
can create a photo project. You can tell your story to other people, anything that helps you to reflect on what you’ve gone
through and create a story is really gonna help you
move closer to growth. – That’s such great advice
because it’s practical, it’s achievable, it doesn’t cost money. And really the only barrier
to doing it is doing it is thinking you need motivation to do it when the reality is, if you just do it, the motivation will follow after. – Dr. Mike are sure you
are not a psychologist because I see that, like I see that every single day motivation follows behavior. And the more you do something, the more motivated you
feel to keep doing it. – We always talk about breaking stigma of talking about mental health. And I love when a person
like yourself does it because you’re coming in with
quality, accurate information. And then I see sometimes
with good intentions, some young folks, as you mentioned earlier in our conversation, we’ll put out a video about mental health, trying to break stigma, but we’ll put out perhaps information that isn’t quite great
for a lot of people, or perhaps will lead
people to label themselves, self-diagnose, self-treat and it creates and spurs a whole new set of problems. What’s your stance on
breaking mental stigma, mental health stigma, while respecting the accuracy
of mental health information? – Mental health is so diverse. The way we experience
emotions is so diverse. You know, mental health
is about your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, how
you deal with stress, your connection to other people, how you bounce back, how you grow. It’s about all of these things, and we all experience
these things differently. And that is why it’s
so important for people to tell their stories at the same time, what has worked for you might
not work for someone else. Yes, tell your story. Yes, talk about what worked for you, but definitely include that caveat that this is what worked for me and mental health is diverse. It’s strange, it’s weird. It’s unique and definitely
get the help of a professional instead of taking my advice
and kind of running with it. – My follow up question to that, I don’t want it to come off insensitive because I’m very plugged into how important mental health is, how much my patients
suffer when they truly have a mental condition going on with the uptick in media
coverage, around mental health. With the social media
outpouring of support, for those who are going through
mental health struggles. I have seen in some patients
where I feel like the attention that they’re getting
from parents, relatives, friends on social media perhaps if they have somewhat of a following has impacted how quickly they
recover from their condition or their understanding of the condition. How do you as a
psychologist go about that? And what advice do you have for me as a family medicine doctor and how I should approach these patients? – What are the most important
mental health skills that’s out there across every single type of mental health problem is
this idea of social support. Getting help from other
people that you trust in a way that you want to be helped. For some people that might mean venting to your close friends, about what you’re going through. For other people it might
mean being with your friends and not talking about the
thing you’re going through, but just feeling their support. For some people it just means playing
“Halo” with your buddies. This is the most important thing we can do is be there for other people in the way that they want to get help. Sometimes you might not ask for help when you really need it. You might feel like you can’t get it. You might feel like you’re
not deserving of it. And that’s where it
becomes so important for us if we notice someone might be struggling, we might notice that they look different. Our gut just doesn’t feel good. Maybe they’re not texting
us as often as they used to, or maybe they’re texting us a lot more or they’re liking a lot of
content that might be concerning. These are the times
where we wanna reach out and have those awkward conversations. Hey, are you okay? I’m worried about you. You seem a little different,
is everything okay? Can we talk? Dr. Mike, one of the most important things I think people need to
know is when you ask if something’s wrong, or if you’re worried someone might be having thoughts
about hurting themselves, asking them about it does not
put the idea in their head. Asking them if they’re struggling, doesn’t make it more likely that they’re going to struggle. – Specific point that you mentioned, which was help people in the
way that they like to be helped or want to be helped. I find that interesting because
as a family medicine doctor, I don’t only see obviously
mental health conditions, I also see physical health conditions. Oftentimes patients come in specifically for physical health manifestations, knowing that they want
a specific treatment. Then the most common one here is “Doc my sinuses are bothering
me, I need an antibiotic. My throat is bothering
me, I need an antibiotic. And I will, with a fair
decent amount of confidence, know that they perhaps
don’t need an antibiotic. If a patient wants something in a way or treatment in a certain way that I know might not be beneficial, does that mean I should still support them in the way that they see fit? – This gets to the idea of a coping skill and what that actually means Dr. Mike is something that helps
you to make contact with the stuff that’s difficult for you and you can stay flexible. So I know that kind of
sounds like a lot of jargon and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but a real true coping skill
helps you to move forward. So for example, if playing
video games with friends helps you to talk to your friends, then that’s a great thing. If playing that video game
is now getting in the way of your life, and you’re
not taking care of yourself, you’re not meeting the other
responsibilities you have at that point that’s no
longer effective coping skill. And this is why coping
skills are really complicated because they can both be very helpful and effective in helping
you to move forward and they can also cause problems for you. – How should our level of
communication here change when we’re asking or inquiring about someone’s mental health status that we’re perhaps worried about when we’re a family member,
when we are a friend, a distant friend, an acquaintance or something we see on social media, should there be different levels to this? – Your responsibility as a
friend is to be a friend. It’s not to be that person’s therapist. Your job is to be a good friend. What good friends do they
listen compassionately and they help people to get help. That might mean help them to talk to a actual healthcare provider. It might mean be there with them as you make contact with
the crisis text line or a suicide hotline. If the person is talking
about the thoughts that they’re having
about hurting themselves and one you to take action, or they have taken action on them, get them to ER, get them
to that immediate support. So that’s a responsibility as a friend. As a family member, it’s
a little bit different. If you’re a parent, your responsibility is
to your child’s safety. You got to orchestrate events
that are gonna get them the help that they need. If you’re a aunt, uncle,
a cousin, an older cousin, talk to that person’s guardian best to do it with that person
that you’re concerned about, have that conversation, express
your concern, work together, to get that person to help that they need. – In talking to friends
for me, for example, I oftentimes make a distinction
between whether or not this individual who is
going through something is truth seeking, or are they venting? Because if someone truth
seeking, they want advice. If someone is venting,
they need an ear to listen. If you’re being this ear to listen, but you perhaps may not
agree with the route that they chose, their
actions that they’re taking, you feel like they’re being
unhealthy to themselves, to their goals. When is it appropriate
time to point that out, if you feel like there
are in the venting stage? Is it never, or is there a time where you should still let
your opinions be heard? – I think you just summarized every single couple
therapy session I’ve had. (laughs) We need both validation
and problem solving. We both need to be heard
and listened and understood. And sometimes we need help
solving these problems. The first place you always wanna go to is listening to understand,
not listening to respond. And what that means is, as people are describing
what they’re going through, if they’re venting, listen, reflect it back in your own words. What that does to the other person it shows you’re listening. It shows you’re giving
them your full attention. It helps you both to understand
actually what’s going on. Almost every single time I see a patient I’ll reflect
back what I think I heard and I got it wrong. And I do this for a
living, this is my job. This is what I was trained to do. It’s not because I’m a bad therapist. It’s because I’m a human. And everything I hear it gets filtered through my own biases and
that’s why it’s so important I just gotta reflect back. Keep reflecting back until we actually get to the shared understanding. For a lot of people
sometimes that’s enough to get over whatever challenge
they’re going through. My first day of my internship
at Bellevue Hospital in New York, I missed the bus. Not only did I miss the
bus, but the bus ran over one of those dirty New York City puddles. That’s probably been like sick… You know what I’m talking about? It’s been like sitting
there for like months ’cause it’s always in the shade. It’s sprayed the water all
over me, I smelled like mold. I smelled like disgusting
New York City street. So not only was I late to that meeting, but I smelled like crap. And I was so angry and ashamed all day. And then one of my
colleagues at lunch said, “Hey Ali, are you okay? Like you seem like something’s going on?” And I told her the whole story. And she said, “Man, I would’ve been so
pissed if that happened to me.” And you know what Dr. Mike? That’s all I needed. I felt like, oh, my emotions make sense. I’m not experiencing something that’s like out there and weird. I’m experiencing something
that’s totally normal. If my friend had told me, “Well, have you tried just going home and changing your clothes?” Yeah, I know I can do that. I know I could go change my clothes, but that’s not gonna help me. I’m in the middle of this day. I just need a little validation. The other thing you mentioned, Dr. Mike is like, when do you kind of
point out some of the problems or some of the challenges with
what the person’s thinking, when do you kind of go into cognitive behavioral therapy mode? One thing I’ll tell people is like, whatever emotions the
other person’s feeling, they’re valid, they’re real emotions. You might see things in
a very different way, but they’re mad because they’re mad. They’re sad because they’re sad. They’re happy because they’re happy. Like those emotions are real. – Next up we have Dr. Dua who is head of WHO’s Brain Health Unit. Dr. Dua, this has been an incredible year, incredibly difficult year
for the entire world, because this is a worldwide pandemic. And I’m curious to have your thoughts. Do you think this event will be remembered as this very strange year of life, maybe even a two year period
of life for some individuals, or will this be something
that will impact us for the rest of our lives? How do you feel that that’s
gonna go in the future? – Everybody around the
world and I mean everybody is facing new psychosocial stressors, fear, worry, impacts due to the measures that have been put in place, such as quarantine, work from home, leading to social isolation, all of these are risk
factors for short-term or long-term mental health problems. We also know that when you have COVID-19, you have mental health consequences, anxiety, depression, insomnia, sometimes some of these
are acute emergencies as you very well know. Plus then we can have also some of these as long-term impacts such as what is known as in
the post-phobic condition, there could be potentially
cognitive decline brain fog. In addition to these, there has
been disruption of services. So if you look at many parts of the world, mental health services are limited. I’m talking especially about the low and middle income countries. And we have seen disruption
of these services. There’ve been two pulse
surveys carried out by WHO. And mental health services are one of the most severely disrupted. The world is clearly telling us we need to focus on mental health, much more than what we have been doing. – As we emerge we’re going to
be entering social situations that we haven’t faced in a year. And that can perhaps come
with some social anxiety, even if you’ve never had that before. Do you have any tips for individuals who perhaps are battling with
some of the social anxiety as lockdowns are lifted? – In terms of validating
some of these feelings, some of these findings, I think it’s extremely important that we talk about how
we are doing everyday in terms of how are we feeling and also how are we
available to support others who may not be doing so
well in their family life, in their work life and what kind of community
support that can be provided. I think my advice is that
these are temporary phenomena. We will overcome these and it will be absolutely back to normal. It will take some time to adjust, but ultimately I think if we have somebody that we can talk to, a
friend, a family member, or even if sometimes you
need some professional help, one can overcome these anxiety. – Check out my full interview
with Dr. Fauci here. We talk all things,
COVID-19 vaccines and more. (somber music)

World Health Organization’s Mental Health Tips during the pandemic: https://www.who.int/campaigns/connecting-the-world-to-combat-coronavirus/healthyat[…]dTNEQ-QW1pMGbOsCnzo4gmBVOw1mMe_vs6sR5aBZnScEB3_DYUaAv2GEALw_wcB

COVID-19’s impact on the globe can’t be understated, and while the vaccine has dramatically reduced the spread of the virus in nations that are lucky enough to have access, the global toll on our mental health, vaccinated or not, will be felt for years to come. To better understand the ramifications of the global pandemic on the hearts and minds of humans everywhere, I sat down with two experts, Dr. Ali Mattu of The Psych Show here on YouTube, and Dr. Tarun Dua, the head of Brain Health for the WHO.

Subscribe to Dr. Ali Mattu’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePsychShow/videos

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