treble hook. | Maintaining Mental Wellness: Stop Negative Thoughts
February 16, 2023
Dear Dr. Reese,
I felt honored to receive the letters your students wrote to me after they listened to my talk on anxiety.
I am touched not only by the overwhelming amount of appreciation and support your students have shown me, but by the clear commitment to mental wellness their responses have reflected. The interest in bettering the mental health of their entire academic community that your students have shown me through their responses reaffirms to me the power of dialogue in creating change. It is responses such as these that inspire me to keep reaching out to wider audiences and spreading information in a way that is informative, offers hope, and encourages people to stay engaged with all aspects of their mental health.
Your academic community serves as a shining example that where there is intention to do good, positive change flows naturally as a result.
I like to remind people that good mental health is not just the absence of mental illness. It is the ability of a person to cope with stress, learn and work well, make good decisions, build healthy relationships and contribute to the world in a meaningful way. Healthy doses of anxiety can help us attain these goals, if we find a way to befriend it.
It is not the anxiety itself, but the emotions it generates that are uncomfortable to tolerate that makes us want to get rid of the anxiety, which is our greatest evolutionary survival tool!
In a world that tells us to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions at all costs, learning to tolerate healthy levels of distress is an important component of good emotional health. Feelings are just that-for feeling. Once we approach our emotions with non-judgmental curiosity, we can begin to make friends with our worst fears, and realize they aren’t so scary after all.
I wish you and the student community at Mount Marty University the very best.
With warm regards,
Seema Sehgal, M.D.
VIDEO PRESENTATION: ANXIETY - STOP NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
About Dr. Seema Sehgal
Dr. Seema Sehgal is a board certified Psychiatrist in Fremont, California, with over 25 years of experience workingwith an ethnically diverse population. She is keenly interested in the role of immigration and cultural stress in causing psychological distress. Dr. Sehgal donates her time to local schools and nonprofit organizations to increase awareness on a variety of mental health issues.
Photo from Washington Township Medical Foundation