Hello, My name is Max vault and thank you for joining me in a conversation about mental health and wellness. I'm currently want to Judy's protect the flux didn't well-being ambassadors. And doing this podcast, you're going to listen to a great interview I conducted with Angela segueway, who was a part of the University of Delaware, is student wellness and health promotion. Throughout this interview, Angela answered some questions I had regarding mental health and wellness and gave great resources, tips, and ideas that all students can use. I hope you enjoyed the interview and without further ado. Here's my conversation with Angela C1. Today we're joined by Andrew at Seagram. Angela, thank you for joining us. Absolutely. Glad to be here. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure. So I am the Assistant Director for Victim Advocacy at UT's student wellness and health promotion. I've been at the university for full-time for 15 years. I work with survivors of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and sexual harassment. And I coordinate sexual offense support, which is operates through the UD helpline, Providing victim advocacy for students who are in crisis regarding sexual misconduct. Really great stuff. We really appreciate all the help that you are giving students on campus. So today we're going to talk about some questions. I'd go into mental wellness and mental health to go along with the podcast. So start off the conversation. The first question I'm going to ask, do you think therapy and speaking to somebody who is a licensed therapists is a good thing. And also why, if you do agree with that, it can be a wonderful thing. Yes, absolutely. You know, most most human beings at some point in time go through difficult to challenging situations. Experienced trauma or hardship or loss, or pain. And therapy can be an excellent tool to help folks navigate those situations and learn coping strategies that help them heal. You can have your feelings and your reality validated by another person, which can be powerful. It can help you examine the way that you're thinking about a situation and how you're reacting. And it can also help you think about and better understand other people's behaviors and reactions to you. So it really can be an opportunity to reflect on your own thoughts and feelings, to have a cathartic experience, a healing experience. And really there are a variety of mental health diagnoses that people can live with for a long time. Not knowing how to manage them in therapy can be a tool to help them better learn how to manage and cope with their diagnosis as well. But I do want to make sure to say there there are a lot of it's not for everyone. There are a lot of ways that people can navigate these kinds of situations. And, you know, some folks can afford to have therapy or don't have health care, health insurance coverage. And so I think it's important to recognize that there are many avenues. Some people go to support groups. Some people read a lot and read self-help books or read about the issues that they're struggling with and that can be really helpful to them. And there are some great organizations in our area. The National Alliance on Mental Health or on mental illness. Nami has a Delaware chapter that provides, right now during COVID some Facebook Live Events. And so that's a great opportunity. The Mental Health Association of Delaware as well is doing a lot of online groups that can be around issues or it can be like they even do a social Friday night, karaoke game night kind of event. But they have a they have a virtual group for people struggling with anxiety or depression, etc. So there are a lot of free options too, for folks who maybe aren't sure about therapy or for whatever reason can't seek therapy right now. Thank you for the answer. Second question I had was, why do you think there is a stigma behind speaking to a licensed therapist or just speaking in general with somebody and get your thoughts and emotions of your mind. Yeah, great question. I think that there are lots of different reasons for stigmas. So one thing can be that stigmas around therapy itself, misconceptions about what therapy is. Some people think it's just going and talking for an hour. But there are lots of different strategies and modalities and approaches to therapy. So no two therapists and no two approaches are the same. You know, it can come from misconceptions about mental illness and worries that what if I get diagnosed with a mental illness, and what does that mean? And will that be life-changing and when will I be able to cope with it? And really not understanding what mental illnesses are. Sometimes it's distrust of therapists and of the medical model, the medical community. And there's, in some communities, there's good reason for that. I mean, historically, there have been some unethical practices that have happened. And so some communities, if you think about communities of color in this country and what happened with Tuskegee or if you read a few years back, the common reader, the first year seminar, common reader about Henrietta Lacks and what was done with her cells. There, there have been lots of things through time in, in many communities that have caused people not to trust the medical community and the mental health community. And it can also be community norms and mores like, you know, in some communities, it's a community message that we don't go to therapy. We rely on ourselves or it can be a faith-based message of we only go to God with our problems. We don't seek help. We can do it on our own and we can talk to each other. And so it really depends, but there are, you know, for some, there are a lot of myths about therapy. And it's important, I'm glad you're asking these questions because it's important to clear them up. And one of them is that it's a sign of weakness if you go to therapy. And for sure I want to say that the absolute opposite is true, that it's a sign of agency and strength and resilience to go seek a therapist. I know as, as a male in this world, we definitely deal with stigma of having to go talk with somebody. I'm happy that you brought up that I'm asking you questions about this and that in a way we could try and add that stigma for everybody. And they can feel comfortable going to talk to somebody and getting what's on their mind off. So follow-up question to that. Do you think it is even more important now to talk to a licensed therapist during these challenging times of COVID and while living in this pandemic. I think it can be for some people. Certainly the pandemic has stirred up things for people who weren't struggling before. And it's amped up issues for people who were struggling before. You know, it's we're all, first of all, we're going through a community trauma. In a sense, there is a very real and present threat to everyone's physical health and well-being. And that can be really scary for people and can pull out anxieties that are in there. And it's isolating where we're all kinda stuck at home, not really supposed to go out. And, and for some folks, that's very, very difficult. And now we're hitting the one-year mark. So maybe it was interesting at first and then it got monotonous and then it got downright depressing for some people. I mean, I think so for, for some folks, therapy is a great resource. And there could be more need. Now I know there is more demand right now. I I have friends who are therapists in the community and they're telling me that there are long wait lists and there are high call volume, you know, lots of people calling to try to seek therapy. So I would just say to your audience, if, if you're one of those people who's looking to establish a relationship with the therapist to hang in there because they are trying to get through their waitlist and call people. And there are so many providers in our area. There's a great therapy finder on Psychology Today.com where you can put in different criteria that you're looking for. Gender of the therapist, therapy modality that you're seeking, race or ethnicity. You can put in what issues or concerns you want to deal with. You can put in your health insurance to see what matches. And it will generate a list of people. And then you can look at that list and check out their bios online and see who might be a fit for you. And so that's a great tool. But again, I'll reflect back and also say therapies and everything. Like. There are lots of strategies to maintain optimal mental health and well-being. That can be really crucial right now at this time, you know? And that comes down to things like, I mean, stuff we tend to know, right? But we don't, we're not always great at practicing it. So it can be things like exercise. I mean, exercise releases endorphins in our brain, which taps into the pleasure centers and makes us feel good. And to give context, endorphins are also released when we eat chocolate or we have a good belly laugh where we have sex. So I mean, endorphins are good things and exercises an easy way to feel good to literally it will boost mood to exercise. It also helps us complete the stress cycle. So if you haven't heard of, there are lots of situations where we have a fight, flight or freeze response or defense circuitry is enacted and Hormones are released in our body to help us cope with whatever the fearful or distressing situation is. And we can have a small response or we can have a giant response to something that could be traumatic. But whenever we have that response, we have to do something to complete the stress cycle and purge those hormones out of our system and move past it, right? And one of the ways, one of the best ways to complete the stress cycle is through exercise. I mean, other things work like a really good cry or venting with a trusted friend who's supportive. Or, you know, there's a list of things that are really effective, but exercise is one of them. And then sleep. Students don't get enough sleep in general, right? Butt. You talk to the head of the Counseling Center. Dr. Wall. Guests will tell you that that's like his thing, but yes, sleep is so incredibly important. It's so connected to our mental health and our physical health. And right now I think during COVID, a lot of people's sleep schedules are out of whack completely. Since we're just tell him anyway, we're staying up relayed and then we're just not getting the same number of hours of sleep that is optimal for our bodies. And there's a range, but it's like seven to nine hours for most people. So sleep can make a huge difference in how we feel in our mental health. And, and other things like, there's other strategies for mental health like daily maintenance practices for our mental health, yoga, mindfulness, deep breathing exercises, positive affirmations. Things like our relationship practices like communicating what our needs are to other people and setting good boundaries, boundaries around our body, boundaries around our time and energy, all kinds of boundaries in our life that people forget that you have the right to set boundaries with other people. But that can be so important to our mental health. So yeah, a whole bunch of stuff. Well, Angela, thank you for answering my question to you. Through giving us great information, great resources to use. Add a lot more clarity on therapy, on mental wellness and how the handler. So again, I cannot thank you enough for coming today to speak to me, to speak to all the students who will listen to this podcast. We really, really appreciate it. You're very welcome anytime. Good luck. Thank you very much. Have a great day. You too. Appointments for you dissent. Their counseling and student development can be made on their website or you can call them using the phone number 30 to 8312141. And student wellness and health promotion can be reached by either calling 30 to 31, 34, 57, or go into their website online. Again, I want to thank Angela for taking the time to speak to me, as well as thank all the workers who are a part of the student wellness and health promotion. All the work they do really makes a huge difference on campus. I hope Eulalia snare found this conversation to be helpful with questions you might have had about therapy or speaking to someone who is licensed. Please join us for our next podcast where we'll be talking about physical health and wellness and always remember to protect the flock. Thank you. Intro and outro music for the podcast is brought to you by Ville cause underscore sound on the freesound.org website.

Mental Health, Wellness and the Pandemic.

From Angela DiNunzio Seguin March 16, 2021

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A wellness focused mini-podcast series scripted and hosted by UD students about being well during the pandemic and beyond. Visit: https://anchor.fm/udstudentwellness to listen to the latest episodes of this mini-series, or to explore episodes from the larger (non COVID-related) wellness series as a whole.

Department Name: Student Wellness and Health Promotion
Date Established: March 15, 2021
Appears In: Student Wellness and Health Promotion Blue Hen Wellbeing Community