So, I have a Facebook friend whose life seems perfect. She lives in a gorgeous house. And she has a really rewarding career. And she and her family go on all these exciting adventures together on the weekends. And I swear that they must take a professional photographer along with them because no matter where they go or what they do, the whole family just looks beautiful. And she’s always posting about how blessed she is, and how grateful she is for the life that she has. And I get the feeling that she’s not just saying those things for the sake of Facebook, but she truly means it. How many of you have a friend kind of like that? And how many of you kind of don’t like that person sometimes? We all do this, right? It’s hard not to do. But that way of thinking costs us something.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak on a panel, and the topic was the importance of mental health. So, the host asked me the first question, and she said to me, “Maya, do you think mental health is important?” And I sat there thinking, “Surely there’s only one answer to this question, which is yes, full stop.” But she was looking at me thinking, “You need to say something a bit more clever here.” And so the only response I had was, “Well, would you ever ask me if physical health was important? Probably not.” And I could tell I was getting a little bit frustrated because after seven years working in this industry, I keep getting that question. And so, after this event, I took some time to reflect. Why is this the case? And it made me think that when we’re young and we’re at

In 1847, a physician by the name of Semmelweis advised that all physicians wash their hands before touching a pregnant woman, in order to prevent childbed fever. His research showed that you could reduce the mortality rates from septicemia, from 18% down to 2%, simply through washing your hands with chlorinated lime. His medical colleagues refused to accept that they themselves were responsible for spreading infection. Semmelweis was ridiculed by his peers, dismissed, and the criticism and backlash broke him down, and he died in an asylum, two weeks later, from septicemia, at the age of 47. What I’m going to talk about today may sound as radical as hand-washing sounded to a mid-19th-century doctor, and yet it is equally scientific. It is the simple idea that optimizing nutrition is a safe and viable way to avoid, treat, or lessen mental illness. Nutrition matters. Poor nutrition is a significant and

In an attempt to distract my attention away from the dreaded teeth cleaning, my dentist once asked me, “What high school will you be going to?” I eagerly responded, “Gunn High School.” However, the excitement in my voice wasn’t reflected in my dentist’s expression. It suddenly flashed from being bright and cheerful to looking concerned and worried. Before he even said anything, I already knew what was to come. This wasn’t the first, or granted the last time, I would have the exact same conversation with someone. For as long as I can remember, each time I went to the doctor’s office or met family friends, this familiar interaction inevitably happened. As a young child, I never understood why adults became so worried and told me not to get too stressed over school when I told them I’d be attending Gunn. Whatever, I usually just shrugged it off. This was

Um, I would like to thank you first of all for allowing me to introduce to you a passion that I have. And, um, allow me to introduce a concept that we call, and you might have heard before, called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is nothing but the capacity the brain has to be able to adapt based on what we do. So you and I have the ability to change some of the structures that the brain has and also to change some of the processes. And I’m excited about this concept because the reality is that this concept is the basis for achieving optimal mental health. And these eight principles or habits that I’m going to encourage you to do will be challenging, will be out of the ordinary, but I believe will provoke you. And it will allow you to visit people and share these concepts, but it will

“Hi, how are you? Great. Do you think I care? How many times a day do you say ‘how are you’ without really caring about the answer? In English, ‘how are you’ is often simply used as an expression or a greeting, but it’s actually one of the most powerful expressions that we have to engage with those around us and improve mental health in our communities. I’ve spent most of my career as a researcher on mental health, and right now I work for an organization designed to create mentally healthy workplaces. But I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why mental health is so important to me. Was there an event or a particular person that needed help? I initially struggled to articulate it because there wasn’t one. There were many friends, acquaintances, loved ones who struggled with mental health problems self-harm, depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance misuse, and

Let’s start with a dirty word, shall we? Pandemic. As we transition out of the last pandemic, we’re entering a new pandemic of addiction that might be the most pervasive addiction in human history. Part of the world has yet to even acknowledge that this addiction exists, despite it being all around us and fueling our current mental health crisis. For today, we turn the tide on this new addiction. What if I were to tell you that in 2007, a new addictive drug came out and it took the world by storm? In less than 15 years, over half of the world’s population was using this drug daily. It was causing a rise in depression, anxiety, and suicide in all age ranges, but especially in young girls. It was also accounting for 3,000 traffic deaths per year in the United States from impaired driving. If this were happening, wouldn’t

I wanted to start by highlighting that although I am someone that identifies as a mental health advocate who probably shares too many personal details about my life online, I still really struggle with my mental illness sometimes. The thing about clinical depression, at least in my own experience, is that symptoms aren’t always triggered by a major life event. You can be successful, happy, and feel like everything is going right for you until that dark cloud appears. I first met my black cloud when I was 14 years old. Now, I do not consider myself an artist by any means, but this is my personal depiction of what it looks like. Sometimes on the outside, you would have seen a straight-A student, someone with a very active social life, and a promising athletic career ahead of her. On the inside, though, there was a girl who was battling

Mental health is having a moment right now. The moment us therapists were hoping for. It seems like everyone I know in the past few years has asked me for help in finding a therapist. And then every therapist I know is completely full, completely overwhelmed, and completely burnt out. You know, this is a problem that goes back decades in the making. There are just not enough therapists to meet the demand. And if we could magically double the amount of therapists that are out there in the world, we still wouldn’t come anywhere close to meeting the Mental Health crisis that is in front of us. Here’s the thing though, mental health doesn’t belong to professionals, it belongs to all of us. And I believe with the right tools, we can start to tell our own mental health stories. And once we do that, we can start helping

I’m fat. Wow, I’m fat. She’s only nineteen years old, what am I doing with my life? Hey! Two likes! Nice. Do I like this photo? Does she really need more likes? I hope I’m going to be invited to the wedding. One more like, nice! Welcome to the internal monologue of a typical social media scroll. A monologue that so many of us have every day, but we don’t think about it, we don’t talk about it. In fact, many of us can’t even recognize it happening. I’m Bailey Parnell, and I will discuss the unintended consequences social media is having on your mental health. I will show you what’s stressing you out every day, what it’s doing to you, and how you can craft a better experience for yourself online. Just over a year ago, my sister and I took a four-day vacation to Jasper, Alberta. This was

Now this may not come as a surprise to you, but did you know the average 18 to 25-year-old checks their phone 56 times a day? That’s once every 15 minutes. So what else are you doing when you’re on your phone? Well, nine out of ten young people tell us they’re using their phone when spending quality time with their parents. Seven out of ten are using it when hanging out with friends. Five out of ten when at dinner at a restaurant. Three out of ten when crossing the road. And one in ten are using it when having sex. Statistics like these never fail to impress me because they show just how much of our lives have become infiltrated by a device weighing a mere 150 grams. We now exist entirely in a digital world, whether we like it or not. As a mental health researcher, I’ve

Foreign mental health has received much attention from the mass media in the past few years. So why am I here to once again talk about Mental Health? We have read, properly you have, we have read, liked, shared, and talked about Mental Health on various platforms. But how many of us actually realize that personally we need professional help from Mental Health Specialists? Mental Health Specialists are not our friends, not our parents, not our content writers, self-help gurus, or coaches. They are not Mental Health Specialists. Five years ago, my answer would be no. I don’t need help. I’m fine. I could handle everything on my own, and maybe with a little bit of help from my friends, the internet, or self-help books. Yep, that was me, and most likely could have been you as well. So today, despite my hesitation and extreme introversion when it comes to

When I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was told that the best way to talk about mental health was to say nothing. My psychiatrist in the hospital warned me that I had so much to lose if I told anyone about my experiences. He said, “Dan, the stigma against mental illness is different from the rest. It cuts across race, gender, and sexual orientation. It is unbeatable.” Ooh! What a scary introduction to mental illness. I was 19, and out of nowhere, I had just been hospitalized for my first mania. I hadn’t slept for four straight days. Over that time, I became filled with energy. First, I was the life of the party. Then, I became obnoxious and irritable. And finally, after having not slept for so long, I was detached from reality. By the time my parents came to take me for help, I actually thought

To share with all of you, a story about an eight-year-old child who has other different her behavior. Her behavior was one of the things that set her apart from her peers. Not that she was mean or anything; she just happened to have different interests that were uncommon between her classmates. Her sense of humor didn’t quite meet the expectations of other eight-year-old children. Well, something was said to her and it affected her emotions slightly. She immediately started crying, and that’s what made her hold the nickname “crybaby” for years. She didn’t really care about about session; she wasn’t integrating the small booklets with designs of Barbie dresses. She was a bit of a tomboy, and maybe that’s because she had to sit in a desk with two boys for four years. But the one thing this girl was good at was writing. Every Monday, she’d get together

Loneliness can make you depressed. It can lead to early death, and it can make it more likely that you get Alzheimer’s disease. I’m sure you would agree that this is so interesting – the fact that loneliness can physically harm you. The problem is that more and more people are lonely today. In fact, it’s almost one in three. You’d think that with all of this social media, smartphones, and FaceTiming that allow us to get in touch with one another instantly, that we’d feel more connected. But actually, the opposite is true. We’re lonelier than ever, more depressed and anxious than ever, and people are turning to therapy and antidepressants to cope. The reason that loneliness has such serious consequences is that the human being is a social animal, and if it’s on its own for too long, it gets sick. Today, I’ll be talking to you about

The most powerful quote I have ever heard in my life is said by Mr. Roomie. He said, “Once when I was clever, I wanted to change the entire world. And today I am wise, so I’m just changing myself.” This is what I think we all should accept as soon as possible. When we grow in our life, it’s about me, myself, Amit Pandey, born and brought up in Kanpur. You people might not be able to even relive the kind of childhood memories we used to have in Kanpur. We used to have wonderful childhood memories, you know, all these things used to be our daily routine activities. When it comes to studies, I never wanted to be a good studious boy, never ever. I was good in studies. So, the full day was like, you know… And that is the first time when I got failed, when

Imagine that you’re getting ready to go to a party. You feel excited, but also nervous, and you’ve got this feeling in your stomach almost like another heartbeat. There’s something holding you back, holding you back from getting too happy. “No, you mustn’t get too happy. Better to be cautious, otherwise, something bad might happen.” You start wondering, “Who should I talk to when I get there? What if no one wants to talk to me? What if they’ll think I’m weird?” When you arrive at the party, someone comes up to you and starts talking with you, and as this is happening, your mind starts racing, your heart begins pounding, you start sweating, and it feels almost like you’re dissociating from yourself, like it’s an out-of-body experience, and you’re just watching yourself talk. “Keep it together,” you say to yourself, but you can’t. And it’s just getting worse: after