Your Mental Wellness Checklist in 2026
January 27, 2025 | Episode 55
Producer’s Note: The following is an AI-generated transcript of The Wellness Conversation, an OhioHealth Podcast
SPEAKERS: Marcus Thorpe, Lindsey Gordon, Vismai C Sinha, MD
Lindsey Gordon 0:06
Look we get it, it's hard, like really hard, to prioritize your mental well being. How do we do all the things and still make time to do the stuff that clears our minds? We're about to have a very real discussion with Dr Vismai Sinha, who practices family medicine and Sports Medicine at OhioHealth, because this is a topic she is deeply passionate about. I'm Lindsay Gordon, thanks for joining us on this episode of The Wellness Conversation Podcast.
Marcus Thorpe 0:32
I'm Marcus Thorpe. Now before we jump in, we ask you to give us a rating on Spotify or Apple. It certainly helps us reach more listeners. Dr. Sinha, it's good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us. I think this is going to be a really good discussion, but I want to talk first, just a little bit about yourself, kind of how you landed at OhioHealth, and why is this topic so, so really important to you.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 0:52
Absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I am very passionate about this topic, both as for myself and for my patients too. I think so much of what we deal with now is just overload, mental overload, and we need to figure out ways to de stress from that. I landed at OhioHealth. Oh my gosh, you guys are gonna make me say my age here, 21 years ago as a resident. So right across I love that I was family medicine resident at Riverside. That's great. And so I spent three years here at residency, stayed for a year of fellowship. At that point, I was married. My husband was living in Dayton, so I moved to Dayton. Practiced down there for eight years, but this was always home. So called my previous fellowship director, who was still with OhioHealth, and they said, Any chance you guys can bring me back home, and they made it work.
Marcus Thorpe 1:38
That's amazing. I didn't know we let residents start at like 11 or 12.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 1:43
No, actually, you're not wrong. I had cried I I was 22 when I started residency, so, wow.
Marcus Thorpe 1:50
Yeah, wow. Well, we're lucky to have you here and have part of this discussion. I think it's going to be great.
Lindsey Gordon 1:55
I think it's so great too, that you're all about being real. You know, you are a physician, you're a mom. I mean, I feel like in your world, I don't I haven't known you for a long time, but I feel like those two roles have equal weights to you, right? And you feel that tug of war, and I can't imagine what you manage on a daily basis, but I love that you're so real about it, and you talk about it like, let's normalize this, right? Like we are in overload mode all the time. I love that you said that. Why are you so passionate about it?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 2:28
I think for me, and I don't know if it's because I have daughters, and there's just so much stress of being a professional mom, right? You're a professional mom, but then you're also a professional too, and you have to execute both of those perfectly. And I think with having two daughters, I'm like, I want them to see that it's not always going to be pretty, it's not always going to be perfect. You're going to need to ask for help. And if you try to do too much on your own, it's you're going to suffer. So trying to model good behavior for my own kids, I think is important. But then also that's on the mom side of things, but then also on the physician side of things. I want my patients to know when I'm telling them things like I'm telling them because it's coming from a place of love and caring and also personal experience. We've all suffered. I don't think there's a single person who went through the pandemic and said, I'm good mentally. I'm great, right? We all suffered, whether it was social withdrawal, whether it was anxiety, everything. And so when I talk to my patients about, hey, I'm asking you to do these things for yourself. Those are things that I'm trying to do for myself. And we're all human. No one's going to execute any of these things perfectly, but if we at least try, we make strides forward.
Marcus Thorpe 3:39
I think sometimes on this podcast, we can be really narrow with our scope of what we talk about, right? If we talk about a specific kind of cancer, it impacts a certain amount of people, but when we talk about mental wellness, if you're listening to this, it impacts you, and I think that's why I'm excited to have this discussion. Let's talk about barriers that people face when it comes to their own mental wellness, some landmines that you see people maybe getting in their own way as they're kind of doing this, and how it's different for men and women, I think there is something different about what we all feel as genders, just a little bit differently in this space, isn't it?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 4:13
Absolutely this is not to discount a male's experience at all. Men absolutely suffer mental health, but women have this cultural aspect to them too, where they are given that caretaking role, right? So they're seeing well, the mom has to take care of the kids. I can tell you, in my family, we split roles very equally, but I am still seen as the caretaker, at least, even by my own kids too. But I can tell you, my husband and I split things 5050, I wouldn't be able to do this without my partner in crime, but we have that we need to be perfect. I'd mentioned that before, but it's true. We have to be perfect. Whether it's in what we do, it's how we look, it's how we behave, we have to be perfect. We can't prioritize ourselves. We have to make sure we're sacrificing ourselves for other people. So if I try to prioritize myself and. Say I need 10 minutes, I need 15 minutes. I need an hour. You feel guilty for prioritizing, because, especially if you're working, I've been gone to work all day, and I'm coming home and telling my kids I need another hour for me. Yeah. So there's a lot of those barriers, and I think men feel that too. I think fathers feel that too, but I think women just feel it maybe a little deeply, because there's that unrealistic expectation that we put on ourselves.
Lindsey Gordon 5:23
Yes, unrealistic expectation. I love how you you mentioned the word overload. We're just in a day where there's so much going on. I had a moment this fall where I was like, I need to cut something out. What can I cut out? Like, all the notifications that go off, right? So I actually just got rid of my social media. I was like, Okay, goodbye. Haven't looked back. Haven't missed it. What are some ways, some practical ways that people can just like, really take charge and cut out some of that sensory overload?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 5:55
Yeah, I, you know, I think it's amazing that you were able to delete it completely and put it aside. I have tried to do that, and I find myself creeping on. Yeah, I friend my family. That's like, I have family all over the country, all over the world, and that is the best way for me to keep in contact with them. So and I have two teen girls and so viral things and viral recipes, right? I've got to get my viral recipes. I spent the whole last two weeks just cooking viral recipes. Let's try these things. So knowing the content that they're looking at, I want to make sure my oldest is on social media. So I really need to monitor her social media too.
Lindsey Gordon 6:34
So you're stuck. Like, what do you do then? I mean, that's that stinks.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 6:38
You're right. It does.
Lindsey Gordon 6:39
You're stuck in that, so stuck in it. So like, what else can you cut out then? Right?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 6:44
You can still have digital detox, but in shorter increments, right? So having one hour screen free before bed, not only does it's great for your mental health, but it's great for your sleep. Yeah, so one hour before bed, put that phone down, don't look at it. Plug your phone in in a different room. Don't even have it in your bedroom. I know some people use alarm the alarm clock on their phone. There's these things called actual alarm clocks that you can put in your room that are not your phone. I know going back now, but they still sell them, so you can still get an alarm clock. You don't need to depend on your phone for your alarm clock, because those notifications, even if it's on silent, if it lights up, that could be disturbing, too. So keeping the phone out of the bedroom, I think is a great idea. Even dinner time with your family. We were visiting my cousins in Colorado, and we learned that they do this thing called a phone stack. So at dinner time, everyone stacks their phone on the table. Oh, cool. No one's allowed to touch it. We don't care how many dings, anything notifications, you do not touch it during dinner, but that's a great way to connect with those sitting with you. So it's great for family time, great for meal time, great to have those conversations. Your phone is there, so it's not like, oh my gosh, I don't know what's happening. It's there, yeah, not going anywhere, but you at least get to disconnect from that and connect with the people in front of you.
Marcus Thorpe 7:59
So bad about telling my kids, hey, no electronics, an hour before bedtime, and then I'm sitting there scrolling 15 minutes before I go to bed. Right at practice, what I preach? I never, ever even think about that.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 8:11
But why do we do that? I mean, why? Big reason I think that we do that is it's our way of checking out, right? So we can say, I'm putting everything behind me. I'm just gonna scroll. But every time we scroll, we're used to those quick dopamine hits, right? So every time you hit, every time you post something, and you get a like it's a dopamine hit, you're scrolling really quickly. You're trying to block out all the other things that are happening. And so we're Doom scrolling for that reason. Two hours later, we're Doom scrolling. It's 11pm you should have been in bed asleep a while ago. It continues to stimulate you. So you're right. We do it because it's way for us to check out of the day. But there are other ways that we should probably be doing that instead. Agreed.
Marcus Thorpe 8:50
I think another one of my shortcomings, and I know Lindsay's packed with things that she does on an everyday basis, which means she has to give her attention to one thing while doing another thing. I do the same thing at home, right? I'm doing laundry, but I'm also looking at something online. I'm watching a video, trying to have a discussion with my wife. Dogs are barking. Yeah, dogs are barking, and the kids need something too. So the multitasking, right? How bad is that for our mental wellness overall do you think?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 9:16
Multitasking, and I'm gonna get shot for this? I'm sure is a myth. You cannot multi task. You do task switching. So you are doing one task, you get distracted by something else. You switch to that task. You're not still completing this other task over here, you just kind of left it. And so that actually increases the chaos in our brain. It causes too much distraction. You have focusing. You have different priorities, trying to compete for your focus. It's really not good, and you're actually not accomplishing anything in the end that you couldn't have accomplished by doing one thing at a time. It creates a sense of chaos, and it creates that anxiety of, oh, I got to get back to this, and I've got to get back to that instead of completing one task and then the other. Other thing, it's interesting because I was talking to one of my nurses, who is ex Marines, and he says, We are taught not to multitask. We have to finish one task at a time, and they teach it that way for a reason. You need to focus on the task. You need to complete the task before you can move on, so that you know you did the job, well done.
Lindsey Gordon 10:19
Yeah, that's so interesting.
Marcus Thorpe 10:20
I think when I split myself that many different ways, I shortchange something. There's no way I could give my kids everything if I'm not focused on what they need and what conversation we're having. So it makes total sense.
Lindsey Gordon 10:32
I think so too. Like I'll miss something. I won't be listening. I'm not truly listening. And then I and then it hurts me later when I didn't act on the thing that my son was telling me he needed for school, and I was too busy cooking dinner and distracted.
Marcus Thorpe 10:47
Finally having a breakthrough Dr. Sinha, it's about time.
Lindsey Gordon 10:54
I know. There have been times where I don't listen to you. You know, this selective listening? Yeah, I know it's okay. At least I know it so okay. We talked about sensory overload. We talked about ways you can kind of take charge during your day. It doesn't have to be like a big time commitment, but little, you know, just situations where you take charge and have more awareness and, you know, set a boundary for your mental well being.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 11:20
And I think so many people have a hard time with that, because it's just one more thing they have to do. Yeah, and we already have too many things on our to do list every day. But let me ask you a question. I'm assuming the answer is yes, but do you guys brush your teeth every day? I know I do, right? We brush our teeth every day. There are certain things in our routine. We change our clothes, we shower, we take care of ourselves every single day. Why are those part of our everyday routines? And those are mandatory parts of our everyday routines, but why can't we put five minutes for mental health as part of our everyday routines? If you can brush your teeth, you can do five minutes for your mental health.
Lindsey Gordon 12:00
I love that, even just like I know, for me, getting outside, even if it's cold, you know, it's just a nice like, the fresh air feels so good. And just committing to that.
Marcus Thorpe 12:11
Just the movement too, just getting into work. You know, work is a lot sometimes, but when you're leaving your house, and then you get to work, and you've got all that kind of adrenaline pumping, and it just, it doesn't have to be work. Just find something that really gets you going. That's a big part of this.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 12:26
So you mentioned movement, and that's actually one of the best things that you can do, is move your body, right? So, but move it with intention. So move it that you're you're actually paying attention, so you're not again. We're going to go with Doom scrolling again, right? We're not doom scrolling and walking the hallways, because you have completely lost everything around you. What just happened if you're walking, if you're going outside, find a bird, find a leaf, find something. Focus on that. Focus on how each foot feels as you're striking the ground and you're rolling through your foot. Pay attention like make that connection to something. To focus on whether it's your own internal body, what are the sensations I'm feeling, or something else? But when you do that, you're starting to learn how to block out the other intrusive thoughts that are trying to come in.
Lindsey Gordon 13:09
Bocking intrusive thoughts. Wait, let's talk about that for a second. Yes. What are some more strategies for that?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 13:17
It sounds hokey, and I tell my patients the same thing every time. I know this sounds hokey, but meditate, meditation is a great way to block intrusive thoughts. Now, meditation doesn't have to be how we always think of meditation, right? So we think of meditation as Let's sit and Let's chant, or let's, you know, whatever it is. There's so many different ways to meditate, whether it's through breath work. So there's a technique that I learned called the 478 breathing, okay, where you take a deep breath in over a count of four. So you're doing 1234, you hold it for seven and out for eight. And you can just repeat that. You can repeat that as often as you want to. You can do it as many times during the day as you need to. But when you start feeling overwhelmed that 478, breathing, you're focusing on your breathing. You're blocking out the intrusive thoughts. You are focusing on the walking. You're blocking out the intrusive thoughts you are doing that mind body connection. So you're sitting there in a chair, or you're laying down, if you're able to, but otherwise, even just sitting in a chair, close your eyes. Start at your toes and start, what do my toes feel like right now? What do my feet feel like? What do my heels ankles? Bring it all the way up to the brain and then do an overall body evaluation, all of those things you have now focused on something else that you've blocked out those intrusive thoughts. But when you start meditating, and then the other thing is, there are apps that you can use. I love guided meditation. I there's a guided meditation app that I use anytime I'm just feeling overwhelmed. I'm like, All right, two minutes. I need my app for two minutes. I just need to unwind. But when you start learning how to block out intrusive thoughts, truthfully, you're going to fail. There's always those thoughts running through our heads. So if you like visualizations, the best way to visualize it is. Is you've got this thought train trying to come through, try to run through. Let that thought run through. See the back of that train going past. You know when you're sitting on like a train intersection and you see trains passing, that's your thought. Let it go through, let it pass, then move on that. And then your time. That's your time, but as you are, but acknowledge that it is an intrusive thought. So acknowledge, okay, yes, I realize I have to put that on my grocery list. Okay, yes, oh, I just thought of 10 other things I need to add to my grocery list. Listen, I am going to think about that, but I'm just going to block it for right now. So you're making an effort to say, I realize it's an intrusive thought, but I'm going to block it out. The more that you learn to do that, it becomes easier.
Lindsey Gordon 15:42
I love that.
Marcus Thorpe 15:42
I think stress is such a big part of what we all deal with on a regular basis. And we talk to our kids a lot about stress, right, the big feelings or the small feelings. I think as adults, sometimes we struggle when we get those. We know what big feelings are because we see them and we feel them. But I think what we all struggle with, to some degree is more of the the low grade stress impact, right? Something that constantly is always on your mind, what's the, what's, what's the problem with that, and how does that really impact us from a health perspective, if we're always living in that just raised level of stress that doesn't ever get past us?
Dr. Vismai Sinha 16:19
You know, I had an interesting conversation with my husband the other day about this, and he goes, Well, you need some stress to be able to perform, right? Like some stress drives you to a good performance. There's no argument for that, but I agree with you that low level stress that's always there, it's not a good thing. Can't be it's not because you're again, those intrusive thoughts. So let's liken the low level stress to those intrusive thoughts, right? So when you have that low level stress, you keep having all the thoughts of here's what I need to get done, here's what's on my to do list, and it's just those trains constantly going. Your brain doesn't get a chance to rest. You don't have that mental clarity. You start losing connections with the people around you because you're always in your head. You start getting short fused, like you're going to become a little bit more irritable, because someone just added another thing to your to do list, right? You've got one more thing you have to take care of. You start feeling numb. Just I'm I just don't care. I just don't care anymore. That's also not a good thing. But then there's also physiologic things with that too. So cortisol is our stress hormones. We're going to constantly have this level of cortisol that's always running well for those of us who are trying to get fit, you know, trying to get ready for our new year's resolutions, and that does not help that low level cortisol makes it impossible for your health to get back on track. Blood pressure. You know, if we has cardiovascular effects too, your blood pressure starts going up. It has gi effects. It helps, has immune system effects. So there are the mental aspects of it, there's the physical aspects, but none of it is good.
Marcus Thorpe 17:54
Yeah, you can't live in that state the whole time. It is not healthy. It doesn't make you feel good. So I love that.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 17:59
There's an analogy that I saw that said It's like wearing a backpack and adding a little bit more weight to it, a little bit more weight to it, and you just get used to that backpack, and it just, it becomes heavier and heavier over time, but it's just that one last weight that's finally going to make your back break.
Marcus Thorpe 18:15
Yeah, and then, and then you wake up in the morning and it's not lighter. No, no, you've worn that all day, and now it's time to do it again. Yep, not a way to live.
Lindsey Gordon 18:23
No, I love this. I think these are all great practical things. And I love that you have these discussions, because as a primary care, family medicine, physician, sports medicine, I mean, you're, you are with families of all ages, you know, all the time, and it's so nice to know that you're hat, you're probably having these conversations with your patients. You know, I love, I love knowing that
Marcus Thorpe 18:48
Now more than ever, too. I think that's part is that seem to be a culture now that is okay talking about right where we haven't been in the past.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 18:57
It's generational. We definitely talk about it more. But I have, I have that generation. We know which generation we're talking about that is still really stoic, that doesn't want to admit to mental health, and even even my generation, I feel like still has a hard time seen as weakness, right? Yes, right. It's seen as a weakness. If you have a broken leg, you can wear a cast. People know what's wrong with you, and they can they have sympathy for you, but why are you so irritable? Why are you so cranky? Why are you so mean? Why are you feeling anxious about it like there's something seen as being wrong with you when, when there's a mental health struggle?
Marcus Thorpe 19:33
Love the thought that mental health is just like physical health, like if you have it's the same, it's different.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 19:38
It absolutely is the same. And that's the hard part, and I am glad that we're having more conversations about mental health. We're not seeing it as a weakness, but we are seeing it as a chronic illness. It's a chronic disease,
Lindsey Gordon 19:48
And it affects everything. The title of this episode is about, you know, creating your mental wellness checklist for the new year. So what would be like a checklist we can. We can activate today, like, if you're listening and you've loved some of the things we've talked about, what what are like the top three things you would advise to have on your checklist today.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 20:10
So I think the digital detox in short bits. You know, we're not, I'm not telling someone to completely get rid of it if you can. Amazing. But do the no screens one hour before bed? Do the phone stack at dinner actually connect with your family over a meal? That actually goes a long way in your family dynamics. I think those are two things around the digital aspect movement. I think movement is absolutely important. There's actually a lot of great scientific evidence about the benefits of exercise for mental well being. So I don't need you going out there and training for a marathon. I would love for you to train for a marathon if you want to do it. But even just going out and getting a 10 minute walk does so much good for you, for you mentally and physically. So there's benefits to both of that. So again, going back to you're going to spend time to brush your teeth, you're going to spend time to shower and get ready. Spend that 10 minutes moving your body, and the more that you start doing it, your body likes it, and it's going to want more, and it's going to build more healthy habits, too, the breath work. So a great way to do that is even before bed. It's kind of a great way to fall asleep, actually. So you're laying in bed, you're thinking, I've just had an hour of no digital time. I am bored. What do I do? You know? So do the breath work? Do the 478, breathing. So four counts in, seven counts hold eight counts out. Do that as much as you want, until you fall asleep, but it's a great way to block out those intrusive thoughts before you go to bed.
Marcus Thorpe 21:34
I think this is good, not just for the individual, but building those relationships back with the people that you're living with, right? And setting an example of what you're doing, and then what your kids can, or your partner can, kind of build into and make these habits. I think that's the really important thing, right?
Lindsey Gordon 21:50
Making the habit, yeah, there's a saying about like, it takes how many days to make up
Dr. Vismai Sinha 21:55
It takes 3 weeks to build up a habit. So you almost have to force yourself for three weeks to do that thing, yeah. And it doesn't have to be the same thing every day. So one day could be about I'm going to do I'm going to spend five minutes on breath work. One day can be I'm going to do five minutes of a guided guided meditation app. And I keep saying five minutes because there's even science that shows five minutes of mindfulness really has a huge impact on your mental well being. So if you could dedicate five minutes to doing something, and five minutes even might be decluttering something, right? So that night stand, let's just spend five minutes decluttering that night stand.
Lindsey Gordon 22:30
It's so satisfying.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 22:31
So satisfying, but it's you might knock off something on your to do list, but it probably wasn't even on your to do list, because there's just so many other things. But spend five minutes decluttering a little corner, spend five minutes. Well, I'd like 10, but even five minutes just going for a walk, but just do something five minutes for yourself.
Marcus Thorpe 22:49
I think it's great. This has been a helpful conversation. Hopefully, for anybody that's listening, we're gonna have you back, because there's a lot of ground we can cover with you, but we only have a short amount of time with you. Sounds good, but it's been really great and and I hope that a lot of people I know I have, yeah, a little bit of help out of this.
Lindsey Gordon 23:04
I think this, this episode's a gift, right? Because it's stuff you probably have heard before, but it's in a way you're hearing it, I'm learning it now, in a way that's I can act on it.
Marcus Thorpe 23:13
Dr. Sinha, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Vismai Sinha 23:15
Thank you for having me.
Marcus Thorpe 23:16
It's been great. And if you want to read more about this episode in the transcript sections, you can just go to ohiohealth.com/the, wellness conversation. From there, you can also check out our other topics. We have lots of topics on mental health there that have been great. And of course, this one you can add, we now have more than 50 episodes total. So find what works for you in the time that you're with us and enjoy Absolutely.
Lindsey Gordon 23:36
We appreciate your support and helping us grow the conversation. As always, thanks for joining us.