Hairs To You Podcast: Why mental health is so prominent today

The second episode of the Superhairpieces podcast Hairs To You is now out! In this episode, Superhairpieces store manager and podcast Tara is joined by Dr. Monica Vermani, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating trauma, stress, mood & anxiety disorders.

We will be recapping many of the topics discussed in the podcast including hair loss and its connection with mental health and anxiety, children dealing with hair loss, how parents should approach that situation, which gender gets affected more by losing their hair, why people feel the need to make remarks about someone deciding to wear a non surgical hair replacement, and much more!

In this particular recap, Monica gives us an introduction to herself and explains why mental health is more prominent today compared to the past, and how people are starting to address their own mental health issues much more frequently.

If you prefer, you can also listen to the full episode below:

Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Monica Vermani: So I'm a clinical psychologist. I pretty much specialize with mood, anxiety, stress, and traumas. I've worked in correctional facilities with abused women and children with mood and anxiety at CAMH (The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) at UHN (University Health Network) with brain and spinal cord injury. Lots of work working with the populations of mood, anxiety, stress, and trauma. And I can do everything in the middle; couples counseling, adjustments to moving, transitions with illness et cetera.

Mental health is a much bigger issue today compared to the past. Are there more issues today or were we just not noticing it before?

Monica Vermani: So, we all have symptoms and all human behaviors have a purpose in our lives. To me, human suffering is the fabric of life. Each and every one of us do go through some level of suffering throughout our lives. And suffering is to me, a catalyst for change. It's the only way we shift in life. And so when you have symptoms or you have suffering and pain in your life, it forces you to reflect and pause on what needs to change in my life. Do I need a new job? Do I need to shift partnerships? Do I need to get some counseling? Do I need to go see a doctor? Do I need to improve my self care? And so to me, all our symptoms have a purpose to be a catalyst for change — to shift you and get you to a better place for yourself, learning better coping skills, getting resources on board, learning from other people on how to cope better or to become a better version of yourself.

And so, we've always had mental health concerns because we're people that have suffering. And so, mental health has always been throughout our years something that's prevalent. The only difference is we don't always speak about it. There's always been a focus on different fads and many times, like physical fitness has over the last 50 years, improved in its awareness. People are working out more, there's more attention on yoga classes, meditation classes, but when it comes to mental health, it's always your moods are dictated by the thoughts you have and the way you feel. And so, many times we're bringing physical fitness as a focus, because it's a little bit easier to talk about mental health stuff.

There's a faux pas to it, there's a taboo to it. There's a stereotype of how you're judged and seen as maybe weaker. And so, many times people shy away from talking about it, but each and every one of us are perfect and a work in progress. And so, it is important for us to recognize that our symptoms have a purpose and mental health might be more focused on today because with the pandemic, a lot of people are finding mental health symptoms being more prevalent and louder than some of the physical symptoms they suffer with. But again, mental health brings on a lot of physiological symptoms and maladaptive, unhealthy behaviors we do in accordance to mental health issues.

So it’s not that society has gotten soft like the older generations say. We were just hiding it…

Monica Vermani: It's awareness. Like I think many people weren't aware. It depends on your generation you've been born in, things like this. Like I have immigrant parents and when it comes down to it, they were all about scarcity and survival and trying to make it work. So when you're so busy trying to fit a new country and make it work, you don't focus on your mental health symptoms. They're there, but you're so busy on that rat race of trying to adjust and form relationships and get a job and maintain survival. You know, a lot of us stay distracted, which is why we don't address mental health. And in today's world, there's a lot more conversation, normalizing there's different levels of mental health. It's like there's different levels of traumas. And so, sudden changes many people go through various sudden changes in life — we don't recognize that that does affect our mental health. Some of us have better coping skills and some of us have coping skills that can be fine tuned and polished. And so, it's important for us to recognize mental health's always been there. Just sometimes we stay so distracted or we're brought up in a society or a time where you're taught to just suck it up and push through and endure things with distress versus actually address them.

And today, we're in a much better place of, ‘you gotta address it’ because it's focusing on issues that affect you day to day. Mental health, everybody struggles with. The difference is ,when are your symptoms so loud that you have to address it. Many times when our symptoms inhibit and hinder our functioning in work, social intimacy, self care, spirituality — when it's hindering your life tasks, then we know it's a problem.

And today, there's more people addressing that. ‘Wow, my work's not as efficient. I'm not, you know, the happy camper at home.’ So we're starting to address, how can I be happier? How can I deal with my symptoms and be better? There is a change in a movement right now of people trying to be healthier, not only physically with their fitness, but also with mental fitness now. So there's more conversation. There's more addressing symptoms for steps to treatment. There's awareness. There's more awareness out there that everybody deals with things. We're just at different magnitudes and it's important for us to address it in order to be higher, better versions of ourselves.

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Stick around as the next blog recap will see Monica Vermani talk about hair loss specifically and how it affects one’s mental health, interactions with people in public and which gender is affected more by hair loss!

You can also listen to the full podcast on YouTube below:

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