Author: Rabindra

Happiest Health Opens Vital Discussions Around Mental Wellness in Mind Matters Summit – 2023

BENGALURU, December 11, 2023: Health and wellness knowledge platform Happiest Health hosted the Mind Matters Summit – 2023 today at the NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bengaluru. The day-long event was graced by an array of mental health experts and professionals and offered them a platform to create meaningful dialogue around various aspects of mental health. Speakers from multiple fields joined the event to share their thoughts around the theme Connecting Minds for Change! The summit was inaugurated by the Minister of Health and Family Welfare for Karnataka, Shri Dinesh Gundu Rao, along with Ashok Soota, Chairman of Happiest Health, and Anindya Chowdhury, President and CEO of Happiest Health. The minister also presented SKAN Research Trust’s annual report and unveiled the latest issue of the Happiest Health magazine. (SKAN is a not-for-profit medical research trust headed by Ashok Soota).

The day’s conversations focused primarily on nuanced and specialized insights on prioritizing mental health in different environments. Talks also shed light on empathetic approaches to depression, fighting addiction, and even using dance as therapy, besides other subjects concerning the wholeness of the mind.

Shri Dinesh Gundu Rao, Minister of Health and Family Welfare for Karnataka graced the event with his presence, commented on Happiest Health’s progress, saying, “We need transformative initiatives towards well-being. Happiest Health is doing that through its commitment towards exchanging case studies, tips, and guidance, reflecting a holistic approach to health. Also noteworthy is the company’s inclusiveness, allowing users to engage in the Kannada language with its platform. This ensures accessibility for our local communities and addresses a significant gap. And the recent launch of the magazine is yet another milestone in our collective journey towards a healthier society. I hope to see plenty of future collaborations and continued growth together.”

Anindya Chowdhury, CEO and President of Happiest Health, said, “Happiest Health has always maintained the importance of total wellness, going beyond the physical. Providing platforms like Mind Matters Summit is significant in engaging with our communities to give them cutting-edge insights and workable approaches from some of the best minds in the field. We’re grateful to all the speakers and experts who joined us here. We hope their ideas will lead to fruitful conversations and open perspectives on finding inspiration and resources to navigate a complex and challenging world.”

Dr A. S. Narain Naidu, Director-General, Mission-COVID, Head – Global Nutrition Healthcare Council, was the keynote speaker and opened the summit with a presentation on how host metabolic reprogramming (HMR) causes long COVID. The presentation covered potential nutritional strategies to reset HMR, going into evolutionary biology to describe our bodies’ susceptibility to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the unique way it affects the body to reprogramme it. Dr Naidu elaborated on how the virus hijacks different systems and affects markers like fertility and neurocognitive ability. He also explained why young people are succumbing to cardiovascular failures and myocardial infarctions and called for individuals to respond to these challenges by asking questions and seeking answers. During his closing remarks, Dr Naidu asked the audience to specifically watch for human metabolic reprogramming and dysregulation (HMRD) in the coming months.

Dr Naidu had the following to say about long COVID: “Despite being in the clear, COVID symptoms will continue and amplify and bring new symptoms. There are 200 of them worldwide. And it’s not just as simple as long COVID there are four categories within. Every system is involved, causing a lack of sleep, energy, and alacrity. These are things we easily brush away, but they have other consequences. For instance, it will leave a mark on your age and shorten your lifespan. Instead of living to 80, you only reach 60. This is something the West and Japan are particularly concerned with in terms of research, so we’re hoping to combat it soon.”

Dr Vivek Benegal, Professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bengaluru, followed with a session on understanding mental health. He acknowledged how mental illness was deeply stigmatised and a profound problem. Dr Vivek’s session covered learnings over the past decade on the reasons why human beings develop mental illnesses, concluding with a novel conversation around whether we are at a stage where we can discuss preventing or preempting mental illnesses using universal public health records. Speaking on developments, Dr Vivek explained, “Psychiatric symptoms are associated with abnormal connectivity between different brain regions. We are now in a position where we can look at different networks that subserve different functions, from walking to thinking. And we’re able to distinguish these individual regions. Studying different people’s networks determined a common set of networks which were common to almost all psychiatric disorders. This means we can now predict whether a person is going to have a mental illness or not. Another vital study that we’re actually involved in is mapping the development of the human brain to look at deviations as it grows. It’s a first-of-its-kind brain growth chart to track individual brain developmental delay and to predict early vulnerability to neurological mental illness. All this bodes well for the long-term fight against overcoming mental illness.”

A panel discussion on the topic ‘Gentle Approaches to Tackling Depression and Anxiety’ was held by Dr Shyam Bhat, Psychiatrist and Chairperson, of LiveLoveLaugh, and former president and committee member of Parkinson’s Society of Karnataka, Ameeta Patel. The exchange spanned mental health basics and the inherently human nature of mental frailty as a result of how we’re wired. Dr Shyam touched upon the prevalence of clinical depression and stress and how social media culture is stifling young people’s feelings and placing undue expectations on them. He encouraged people to seek help once they crossed a two/three-week threshold. Dr Shyam also raised the issue with diagnostic criteria as men aren’t covered the way women are. He added that the general reluctance to talk about depression among men and the inability to seek help is a problem.

A panel session on workplace mental well-being closed the summit. Dr Jini K Gopinath, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Shirin Salis, vice president of human resources at Trane Technologies, joined LiveLoveLaugh’s CEO, Anisha Padukone. Anisha shared her thoughts, saying, “I think the awareness is definitely increasing. A few years ago, anecdotal data was aplenty. We at LiveLoveLaugh decided to verify this with two studies to understand knowledge, attitudes, and practices in India—primarily metro cities—towards mental health and wellness. Both studies show a significant improvement in various factors—awareness of mental health, attitudes, and help-seeking behavior. And most importantly, the perception of mental illness. While we still have a long way to go, this is a start. But from an organizational standpoint, deeper challenges exist. A lot of it depends on the culture that is within that organization. And a lot of that culture has to come from the top. So, there’s still sort of a long way to go.”

The awareness around mental health has been in renewed focus in recent years, as technology has facilitated greater access to resources and highlighted the need for people to take better care of themselves. Innovation is also allowing individuals better mental health outcomes. Mind Matters Summit – 2023 showcased how modern challenges can be conquered and reiterated the need to destigmatise labels and create safe spaces for people.