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Welcome to my website! Here I share insights from my favorite health educators to help readers build a strong foundation for your mental and physical health. I introduce each expert's core concepts, provide resources for further learning, and supplement their words with my own experience. Misinformation is rampant within online health discussions, so I have limited my citations and sources to high-quality experts within the field.
My interest in mental and physical wellness started during COVID - there’s nothing like being stuck in a room that makes the trajectory of your life apparent. Looking back, it’s easy to observe my struggle with feeling confident, internet addiction (spending over 5 hours daily on screens), limited understanding of my emotions, and an even worse grasp of how to handle them. I faced difficulties in conflict resolution and most notably battled serial procrastination, avoidance of important tasks, ate a poor diet, lived a sedentary lifestyle, and consistently failed with time management. When I read my journal from that time, I see the struggles with getting my mind to do what I wanted and that I resorted to either a temper or passive sarcasm in resolving conflict with family and friends.
Most apparent now is how little I understood myself and others. These struggles originated in high school, but first two years of college seemed to swiftly pass by as my grades and relationships deteriorated. As I learned more to tackle these problems and gain control over my thoughts and actions, I started to understand that the body and mind are inextricably linked and dependent upon each other. Previously, I believed my lack of focus was due to a lack of willpower or time management. However, since learning more about physiology and neuroscience, I’ve realized that few issues can be solved solely by mental or physical interventions. This realization has been a game-changer for me, and since then, I have been able to take action to improve my mental health, energy, mood, and overall quality of life. And now, I am excited to share my experience with others looking to improve similarly.
My passion for health began during my sophomore year of college. I was having trouble focusing on homework, and my roommate suggested that I check out the Healthy Gamer channel on YouTube. The channel is run by Dr. Kanojia, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist. After watching a few of his videos on focus, I found the information neat, but did nothing with it.
The following year, while shoveling snow off my apartment driveway, I listened to an interview on the Healthy Gamer channel between Dr. Kanojia and a guest named Aba. In the interview, they discussed Aba's childhood, his relationship with his father before his early death, and his current relationships. I found that Aba and I shared many similar beliefs, such as our tendency to skip the initial stages of grief and move straight to acceptance. We also shared the belief that emotions like grief and anger can be harmful and a waste of time, and that it's best not to dwell on them. Dr. Kanojia challenged Aba’s perspective on this (indirectly challenging me too), resulting in a shift in my thinking on negative emotions. Before I avoided them (in the guise of not wanting to be controlled by them), but with that interview, I started to realize I was being majorly impacted by my dormant emotions.
After listening to Aba’s interview, I became hooked on the Healthy Gamer channel, where Dr. Kanojia has discussions with people about mental health, spirituality, and neuroscience. One interview that particularly resonated with me was with Minx, who shared her struggles with ADHD and borderline personality disorder. Through her story, I gained a deeper understanding of the sadness and frustration that comes with frequent emotional breakdowns, and many more interviews showcased how people can suffer from low self-worth, insecurities, avoidance of negative emotions, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and trauma, among other things. I learned about how the mind adapts when growing up in an abusive environment and how these adaptations can become maladaptive later in life, leading to challenges in relationships. These environments can teach a person to adopt certain identities, and then we carry these identities with us, where they harm our relationships, potentially causing physical health issues and affecting our concentration, motivation, and leading to a generally unfulfilling life.
However, the most remarkable aspect of this channel is the tools and new understandings that Dr. Kanojia provides to his guests to help them cope and understand their issues. He raises awareness about where those thoughts come from, and how to defuse the strength someone’s mind has over them. To this day, the interviews are my favorite thing to watch. With each one, I'm taken on an arc, not unlike a movie or book that has an exceptional character study. So far I've learned about effective communication, emotional intelligence, ADHD, personality disorders, depression, anxiety, trauma, and many other topics related to mental hygiene and health. I’ve learned how to ground these disorders into emotions and experiences I’ve felt before, instead of words on a page and following a sterile diagnosis manual.
Dr. Kanojia frequently emphasized the impact of physical health habits on mental well-being, leading me to explore those areas as well. I discovered that research from the fields of nutrition, gut microbiome, exercise, yoga, stress, sleep, and cognitive performance overwhelmingly demonstrate that no facet of the mind and body exist in isolation.
As a college student and a scribe in a cardiology clinic, as well as an observer in pediatric psychiatry, I have witnessed various types of struggles that people face, such as difficulty making friends, connecting with others, lack of motivation or the ability to achieve their goals, dysfunctional family relationships, and poor physical health. From my experiences, I have come to believe that helping people improve their emotional intelligence, emotional processing, physical health habits, communication skills, and motivation is the most effective way to support them. These are ideas that I am deeply passionate about and have a strong faith in their ability to make a positive impact. If I were to attend medical school and become a psychiatrist, I would have the opportunity to put these values into practice in a professional setting with the right resources and support network.
Above, I mentioned how Dr. Kanojia’s channel introduced me to the science and art of medicine and psychiatry. Through his videos, I learned how a physician can guide individuals towards growth by leveraging their medical knowledge and utilizing tools such as reflective listening, motivational interviewing, empathy, and compassion, to help a person implement positive change in their life.
I follow several physicians and PhD researchers who have deepened my understanding of physical health and medical research. Living in 2023 provides easy access to research papers and information, but it also means that there is an overwhelming amount of accessible data, making it challenging to discern good science from bad science. Since there is research to support nearly any belief it is essential to understand how to differentiate well-designed experiments with accurate conclusions from poorly executed studies with misleading evidence. There are various physicians and PhD researchers who have educated me in this area, so I hope to share high quality information on this site.