Empova 2-Gratitude pause for mental wellness
Introduction to Gratitude pause for mental wellness
Hello everyone i’d like to welcome you all today to our live event um my name is linda kobe i’m a public health nurse on the mental health team with ottawa public health and we’re very excited today to have dr raj with us dr is the psychiatrist and chief and chief of staff at the royal ottawa healthcare group he’s also the vice chairperson of consent and capacity board of ontario and is a member of the editorial committee of the journal of ethics and mental health as well locally
Dr batla co-chairs suicide prevention ottawa a network of 40-plus partners working together to prevent suicides i’d just like to let our viewers today know that we will not be taking questions online due to our time constraints but if you do have a question um you are invited to look on the royals website they do have an faq section which you can submit questions to and see what questions other people have have submitted and which ones have been answered and so uh have a check uh of their website
um we are also recording this event so it will this event so it will be on our ottawa public health youtube channel um before i pass things over to dr batla i’d like to acknowledge that ottawa is built on unseated anishinaabe territory the people of the algonquin anishinaabe nation have lived on this territory for millennia their culture and presence have nurtured and continued to nurture this place we honor the people and the land of the algonquin initiate nation and now over to you dr batland you might still be on mute dr betla apologies
Overview and Purpose of the Presentation
Yeah so uh thank you very much linda always a pleasure to work with uh public health uh they do a great job you do a great job in reaching out to the public and uh working with a variety of partners for the benefit of our citizens so it’s always a pleasure to do anything collaboratively with you so today we’ll be talking a little bit about wellness and in particularly uh wellness during the pandemic
so i’m going to give a little context and then share a screen shortly about what’s happened during the pandemic to our mental health and wellness in general talk a little bit about wellness in general but focusing on the pandemic and give a few little tips and tricks on what we can do to be well during frankly pretty difficult times
Clinical Perspective and Background
So i will move on to that but just a little bit before i will share some of my uh learnings over the past while come from my clinical work at the operational stress injury clinic here at the royal where we partner with veterans affairs canada and a lot of my clinical work now is really with veterans with rcmp and with um individuals transferring from the forces of national defense and becoming veterans.
so that is a lot of my clinical work and a lot of where my thinking comes from uh these days when with respect to wellness so i will just try to share my screen now should work just fine and hopefully you can see that now i’ll just try to get rid of there you go so that is the topic in general and i’ll start moving right away
Mental Health Impact During the Pandemic
So first of all what is the evidence i don’t think it’s uh news to anyone that in particular over the past while through the pandemic we have had uh growing issues in the population with anxiety with depression and importantly with substance use we do have at our institute of mental health research here at the royal dr rebecca robiard who is partnering with other institutions and we’ve done a good survey as to what’s happened to the population both the population that already suffers from mental health and addiction issues but also the general population.
it’s very clear that the numbers have grown with respect to all three of the major issues as described in this slide so i wanted to thank her for doing the research and it’s probably not all that surprising to anyone uh that you we know the data from lcbo we’ve had increased use of alcohol still the most prominent uh substance abuse and we hear in the news a lot about opioid overdoses and opioid deaths which has really taken a toll on some of our most vulnerable
Recognizing Signs and Symptoms
I’m going to move a little bit now on to signs and symptoms and i want to really emphasize before going down the slide that you know a lot of people aren’t feeling particularly great about things that part is normal so when i’m talking about signs and symptoms i’m really referring to changes that might require a bit more help and maybe guidance to more supports it’s pretty normal not to feel perfectly well these days that’s.
Fine a phrase we use a lot is it’s normal to not feel normal the other thing though is some people have actually done okay through the pandemic and if you’re feeling okay that’s all right too there’s no reason to feel bad that you’re doing okay but to the slide the things we look for when we’re thinking of changes in mental health
that might require more formal types of treatment are changes in the util usual patterns of thinking and the usual patterns of behavior so you know yourself best and you knows you know the ones that are close to you well so when there are those changes that are significant that’s the time to really consider uh seeking out more formal uh avenues of support and uh i think linda you’ll be describing some of those options later and i’ll be doing a little bit as well during the latter part of this presentation
Understanding and Managing Mental Health Changes
The next point is the excessive anxiety and i do want to be quite cautious there in emphasizing that anxiety has become pretty uh standard so to speak so anxieties that are fairly normal for the uh pandemic in terms of worrying about getting coveted worrying about loved ones that is pretty normal what i’m referring to is the excessive anxiety that makes one less functional less able to manage their needs.
Their work their obligations so when there’s excessive anxiety that might be an opportunity to really seek out more help the third one i have on the slide is the prolonged and i’d stress the word prolonged sadness and depression many people have felt sad during the pandemic more so than usual and always tough to figure out the word sadness versus depression whatever term you use if it’s prolonged and seems to be more persistent that’s also an indication that it might be best to uh reach out for more formal supports and evaluation
Behavioral and Emotional Changes
The third one actually the fourth one uh excessive and again i stress the excessive a lot of people during the pandemic have been uh more irritable um than usual uh a a patient of mine yesterday uh described himself as having cabin fever a term that i’d actually forgotten but uh a term that’s commonly used and he was really describing some of the irritability
He gets and and certainly uh that irritability can move towards anger which is a major issue then uh the next point uh mood swings um especially for people who don’t normally have mood swings if you start to see uh someone around you or if you notice yourself that you’re having mood swings that’s something that often uh could use a more uh formal uh assessment and evaluation
Substance Use and Loss of Motivation
The next which i’ve already alluded to uh become very common alcohol remains uh the most important substance of misuse overuse important to keep an eye on the alcohol consumption it tends to creep up on people so be cautious yourself and keep an eye on that but also for those around you the other ones of course uh the uh opioids are being used more uh cocaine and other things but i’d focus on alcohol the last couple are particularly important and may not necessarily really be a major indication of needing more formalized help have noticed during the pandemic with a lot of my patients
That there’s a certain amount of either apathy or lack of motivation to get things done and people have complained about i’m not as productive as i used to be especially if you’re doing things like working from home you’d expect perhaps to be more able to get things done you’re not traveling as much and you had projects that you might wanted to do either at work or at home and they’re just not getting done and that seems to be a pretty common phenomena during the pandemic
I wouldn’t be losing sleep so to speak but if it becomes problematic and really starts impacting uh things that should be done maybe something that needs an evaluation but i’d be uh cautious in um getting too self-critical if you’re not quite having the motivation to do what you thought you might uh do and get done.
