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IASA and COLAIAPA of California organized a virtual session on
Mental Health on 23rd August, 2020
Los Angeles, August 24, 2020
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IASA (Indo American Social Association) organized a virtual session on Mental Health during COVID-19 on 23rd August, Sunday. Rajbir Singh Husson , founder /president of IASA and Venkat Peddi, president of COLAIAPA (County of Los Angeles Indian American Professional Association) organized this event.
The Speakers for Mental Health during COVID-19 were:
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| Salonia Husson who is a Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) |
Dr Sanjay Vaswani, MD, is a Diplomat to American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Adult Psychiatry and is certified in Medical Quality by The American Board of Medical Quality. |
Dr Kasturi Singh, Community Leader and Respected Businesswomen and Hotelier. |
DR. Annie Joneja, is a Professor of Psychology and teaches at Mt San Antonio College |
Salonia emphasized on the fact that Mental health is health and it’s important how we handle stress, think and act. She also stressed on the importance of being Positive and well-being is a positive state of health! Paying attention to one’s body, feelings and behavior is very important. Encouraging the equality between physical and mental illness and it’s important to get rid of the Stigma of mental health.
Dr Sanjay Vaswani, spoke on the significance of Mental health care along with Health Care during COVID-19 pandemic. He emphasized the early recognition of depression is the key and it can be manifested via Physical, Thoughts, Feelings and/or behavior. Depression & anxiety is common and treatable. He emphasized that substance abuse disorders could be harmful and are a parallel Pandemic.
Kasturi discussed regarding the common causes for poor mental health. She emphasized on PPD(Postpartum Depression), to look for warning signs and how family can be instrumental in mitigating this.
Dr Annie spoke on Therapeutic Lifestyle Behaviors which includes Preventing Depression and Anxiety and Building Resilience. She emphasized the importance of self-study to engage to live a balanced and healthy life! She discussed about the therapeutic lifestyle change which includes physical activity and social engagement. She mentioned that exercise reduces depression and anxiety and equally important is changing out thoughts through awareness and smiling always helps.
During this session various resources for like suicide hotline (DIAL 988), National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Toll-Free: 1-800-273-TALK, National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4AChild (1-800-422-4453) NAMI, CDC etc.
The moderators were Aman Kamboj and Anju Multani.
IASA plans on a continuous discussion and more future sessions on mental health to help the community during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, this was a very successful, mindful, soulful, and insightful session on Mental Health touching the heart and soul of many who attended. It provided a retreat from all the challenges our daily life throws at us and especially with this pandemic.
IASA urges people in the community to join this renaissance movement of change and to build a better & stronger community by joining IASA. This was insightful discourse on Mental Health and a great mission by IASA for unity, help and solidarity in the community.
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