 The most interesting, most revealing and gravest conversations about mental health, self-care, and vaccinations are the ones we typically never get to hear because they percolate in private spaces, in the locker room, across dinner tables, at workplaces, in civic and faith organizations, and even with ourselves. Let's talk about uncomfortable truths with Dr. Deborah Mosley Heath, licensed clinical professional counselor with Capitol Hill Consortium for Counseling and Consultation, Dr. Teresa Jacobs, Medical Director, Georgia Primary Care Association, and I'm your host, Sharon Thomas-Yarbrough. Welcome to Sister Power Ladies. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha and welcome, Dr. Heath and Dr. Jacobs. Aloha. And I need to welcome you back, Dr. Jacobs. You were here before when we were, we discussed people need to fear the virus and not the vaccine. And a lot of people are saying, when are you going to talk about that again? And it's here right now. And you know, I am so proud of the gymnast, Simone Biles. She said, I have to put my pride aside. I have to do what's right for me and focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being. That's why I decided to take a step back. I mean, how for someone to acknowledge what they're going through on a public stage, you know, around the world, I want to ask you, Dr. Heath, what causes mental health? Well, mental health is actually a state of well-being. And we have to take a time to actually take care of ourselves. And that's not jizzically, but it's mentally as well. And many people will step back and say, well, if it's not something that I can see happening, then it's not something that we can do. We have to deal with. Well, it is. And mental health, while you cannot put a thermometer to it or anything like that, it is so needed to take care of yourself mentally, your brain, your body, your mind, all of that works together. And so when we have difficulties, as you were saying about Simone, she recognized that, you know, something's not right. And that's usually how it starts. Something's not right. And I'm not doing what I need to do. And I'm not physically, I'm not mentally there. That is what is the mental health piece. That is involved. What is the importance of mental health? The importance is that it helps to rule your body. Your mind controls your body. And if you're not taking care of that, that muscle, then you can't take care of the rest of the muscles. Wow. Well, Dr. Jacobs, mental health, what have you been seeing with this vaccination, the Delta variant, and people now who, how is it affecting their mental health when they do not want to take the vaccine, but they see people dying all around them? Yeah, it's caused us a lot of anxiety. We still have people now that don't want to go out of the house. They're afraid to even go to church or to the grocery stores, saw text messages earlier, there are people now starting to put on gloves again, just to go out to get gas to put in their cars because they're frightened at the Delta variant. They're going to get it on their hands and bring it back home after pumping gas. So the anxiety is there. And once you, unfortunately, mental health will also affect physical health as well. We see more diabetes, more high blood pressure, insomnia, obesity, unfortunately, depression, of course. So these are things that will manifest themselves as a result of mental strain or mental health. What is the Delta variant? So now the Delta variant, it is the way I describe it to patients is that you have the original COVID virus, right? And when it gets into a body and it loves an unvaccinated body, by the way, to do what it does. So because there are no antibodies to fight it off. So once it enters into a person's body, it starts to multiply, replicate, it takes over some of our genetic material because it needs that in order to multiply. And unfortunately, when it does that, there are going to be some genetic changes. It's not going to be perfect. So those genetic changes are called mutations. And so there's those changes that occur. So once those genetic mutations occur, it is no longer exactly like the original virus. So now it's a variant or it's something different than the original virus. Now, when that variant starts to behave a little bit different, it's more infectious. It doesn't cause the loss of smell or the loss of taste, but instead now it's causing runny noses, sore throats and muscle aches. Then it's behaving differently. So now it's a strain. It's a variant that is now a strain acting totally different. And unfortunately, viruses want to live. So when they find these unvaccinated bodies so that they can multiply and replicate, they change themselves so that they can be stronger and more virulent, unfortunately. Wow. You know, we're living now with people who care and people who don't care. You know, Dr. Heath, what can we say and do to get people to realize that they could infect or harm their aunt, their sister, their children. You know, I just read across an article that said younger people make a larger share of COVID-19 hospitalizations in U.S. The vaccination is free. It's effective. What else can we tell them? We can also talk about sometimes history and really clear it up and understand that that was then and this is now. And what we're doing now is that we have to take more information and we have more people that look like us that are giving us this information and that we can start looking at how we can trust that because historically we've been told so many different things and people don't trust in the government and that trust is a feeling that we have. It says, oh, they're not telling us the truth. So why should we even believe that? And I didn't get sick. I've gone a whole year. I've gone a whole, you know, year with this and I didn't get sick. So it's like they don't believe it. And so the more that people that even look like us can tell people that look like us and other folks of color as well and to get vaccinated, you know, it will help us move into an era where we're not having to fight, but we're just managing. We're managing the virus instead of fighting it. Right now we're in a fight. We're in a fight for our life. That's the difference. We're in a fight for our life and I like what you're saying. Managing. Managing is such a key word. So Dr. Jacobs, are masks still needed? Oh, absolutely. Mask is still one of the top ways that we fight this disease. So even if you're vaccinated, because, you know, I get that question all the time, well, if I'm vaccinated, can I still get COVID? And the answer to that is yes. But what the promise is, is that you will not get severe COVID disease, which means then that you won't be hospitalized, not in the ICU, and you will avoid death. So masks are still one of the top ways, aside from vaccination, to help decrease the spread of this virus because it's respiratory, you breathe it, you're coughing, you're sneezing, it enters into the nears. That's how it gets into your body. So masking is still very, very important in order for us to stamp out this virus. Yeah. You know, Dr. Heath, when Simone was speaking on the first stage of the platform about mental health, they were saying she was getting the twisties or something, is it called, where you don't know up from bottom or you talk from the bottom. How anxiety and fear impact performance? It definitely impacts performance because your emotions and your feelings, all of that drives how we perform, how we can actually do what we need to do to function. And that leads to healthy functioning. If she was already in the air and she couldn't tell up from down and where she was and where she's going to land, she could have easily harmed herself. And that's where we have to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. She knew that some things, like I said earlier, it's not right. It's not good in my body and it's not good in my mind. We have to remember when she stepped into that stage, not only did she feel like she had the weight of the world on her because she even mentioned it, but she was stepping back into an arena where there was harm. She was harmed and that just triggered some of those emotions that came back. Maybe they didn't talk about that because that wasn't something that was presentable at the time. But we have to remember the triggers that she could feel. Now, the world is looking at me back in my litard. The world is looking at me to do my best when I've been hurt by this organization. And nothing seemed to have happened for that. And so all of that playing on her mental health and she's getting out there and she's getting in the air and those other chemicals are going in her brain and then she's like, well, where am I now? It's almost like if you've been on a merry-go-round. And this is how I explain it to little kids. And you just push them around and around and around on a merry-go-round. And when they get off, they look like, whoa, what's going on? Or even you don't even know if you stopped at the right side or not. You can do that even in roller coasters that they get, let you off on one side where you've gotten on on another. And then when you get off, you're like, wait, where am I? How do I get out of here? That's what she was feeling in the air. I think you were talking about, that was a good way, a good example. When the gentleman who's serving a couple of life sentences molested her and killed the gymnast and people, this is serious people. Her life was in jeopardy and I applaud her. I really applaud Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles. That takes a lot of courage for these young, we remember these are young women who are courageous and stepping on stage and saying, well, it's okay not to be okay. And it is okay to not be okay. It is okay. All right. So, Dr. Jacobs, how do we stop the Delta variant from spreading? We have to get more people vaccinated. We really do. It is the best tool that we have to combat this virus. So, we need to get at least 70% that's called herd immunity. That way we get that many folks with all of those antibodies. Then it'll be hard for that virus to find bodies to multiply and to continue to change. So, we've got to get more shots and arms. Even our children, it's Pfizer. It has been approved down to 12 years of age. So, let's get those 12-year-olds and those teenagers. Let's get them all vaccinated. And those 20-something, 30-something-year-olds, those are the most mobile folks that are out there. They're the ones that are actively spreading this virus because they're so mobile. So, if we can get them, the millennials, all of these other generations, we need to get them vaccinated. Yeah. This is so important. Dr. Heath and then Dr. Jacobs, I want to come back to you. What is your feeling about now there's a mandate now, a vaccine passport that we may have to show to fly, to go into a restaurant, into the gym. What's your take on that? It's hard for people to think that you're infringing upon their rights. It's difficult for them. But it's also important to protect those that need to be protected. And that includes even younger people. I know it's like you were saying, the 20-year-olds and the ones in that kind of age range that are going about, still going and going. But sometimes we have to help those that are not able to help themselves. And that's even the younger ones. And so it is important for them to actually share what the vaccination status is. And so that we can know how we can protect others. It may be that they can go into a restaurant and then it's the same way we did with smoking. There's some this section and this section if we needed to really do that. And so I think it's important that we are able to show it. But it's also going to be another piece that's going to instill some fear and some anxiety in people. So we have to be prepared for that too and have those conversations. Because that conversation can lead to more understanding, if we just at least have the conversation. And hear them. Tell us what's the reason you're not getting vaccinated. And not just that cursor kind of thing of the history. But tell me why you're not getting vaccinated. Yeah, Dr. Jacobs, do you want to weigh in on this? Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, I've been in healthcare for over 30 years. They mandated that we get the flu shot every year, unless you have some sort of religious exemption or allergies. They mandated that I had that series of hepatitis B shots. Those are that's three vaccines that we had to get over a period of six months. They mandate we get TB skin tests every year. So when my daughter did a mission trip to Peru, they mandated she had to have yellow fever and a bunch of other vaccines or she would not be allowed to come. And for them, there were no excuses, no exceptions. And she wanted to go, she had to comply. So it's not that, you know, this is something new that meningitis vaccine has been required now for many years for those folks that are going to college, because meningitis, once you get on campus, it will spread like wildfire. So it has been mandated for most colleges here in the US. So this is nothing unusual for the for there to be a mandate when it comes to certain vaccines. Wow. Can pregnant women get vaccine? Absolutely. This is one of some of the fascinating information that has come out. Some of the women in some in the trials and some of the women early on that were vaccinated. Oops, they got pregnant between the first and the second vaccine. And so those folks, they were able to track them. It's been over a year now and they've got some fantastic data that they've actually been able to duplicate around the world that pregnant women pass along what they call passive immunity to the unborn child. So let's get that. So mom now has antibodies against COVID and the unborn child now also has antibodies to COVID. So more protection. And they also found out that once baby is born, that those antibodies come out in the breast milk. And so breastfed babies also get that passive immunity as well. So absolutely pregnant women can get vaccinated. I'm loving this conversation. That is the title of our episode, the difficult conversations. And I think the difficult conversation as you were speaking about the women who get pregnant women can get vaccine. But Dr. Keith, you pointed out that parents, teachers, professors need to have this conversation with their children, with their husbands, with their wives. Why do you have the fear of getting the vaccination? And that is very key. So Dr. Keith, what type of conversations are women, I'll just say women having with you about taking, first of all, let's go back to self-care. What should people do for self-care? First, they need to breathe. And we say that even though we're walking around and we're doing it every day like a natural thing. But if we're not breathing purposefully, then you're not giving though your time to relax your body. And that's part of self-care, it's just relaxing. It's important to give your brain time to rest. Like we said, that same muscle right there in the head is important to be used in a way that we relax it to and we rest it. Same way that we rest our body when we are, oh, we're tired, I'm tired. And then you go and lie down and rest. Well, you need to rest your brain. So breathing gives that chemical that needs to go throughout your body so it can first relax. Next, you want to actually do something that you might enjoy. Maybe read, listen to music, give yourself time just to be in that moment in the here and now. And that's what I've talked to people about when we're doing our sessions is stay in the here and now. We know things have happened in the past. We can't change the past. We don't know what's going to happen in the future. That's anxiety provoking. Let's stay in the here and now. Because if you live in the past, I'll equate that more to depression. You live in the future, that's more anxiety. And those two are like sisters, like sisters here. It is like sisters that have depression and anxiety, they go together. So you have to come back and stay in the here and now. And think about maybe doing even body scans, like how my hands feeling, how my legs feeling, my feet. And you go through your body and just relax each moment of it. Each muscle in your body, rather. And then exercise, that's another way. That also, as Dr. Jacobs could tell you, releases those same some chemicals in your body that helps you not only relax, but it also helps your whole system, your digestive system. It helps your endocrine system, everything. If you actually just get some exercise, that's why they'll tell people we talked a minute of diabetes or some of those other things that come up. Diabetes, blood pressure, all those things that are common to black women and black people. It's about exercise, making sure you're moving and allowing yourself to get some movement. Thank you. I feel like I've been in a session already. I feel better already. I love it. I appreciate you on that. I read an article and Dr. Heath, you and I were discussing this in the National Geographic from Dr. Celeste Green. And I want your take on this, Dr. Jacobs. Green, who is admitted and is now in gynecology, she said, it's too often harmful to women who think they must always live up to that expectation that we're always strong is what she's referring to. And it's dangerous when people think black women can handle just about anything without help or respect. That stereotype has become so fixed in the popular imagination that is often considered as a kind of you go girl compliment. Let's talk about that. Dr. Jacobs. Yeah. Well, you know what? I call them the martyrs and usually they're considered the matriarchs of the family and they take care of everybody else except for themselves or they put themselves last. And unfortunately that seems to be a badge of honor that they prepare all the meals. They do all the cooking, the washing, the cleaning, they do all of the running here and there. And when I, I always stop with a woman that I sense, I feel that anxiety and they're just worn out and tired. And so I stop and sit down and I said, let's just breathe. And I just love it, Dr. Heath, what you just said, because I'll, you know, give them permission. You know, if you don't pray, meditate, do yoga, you know, Tai Chi, sit down and just take a five minutes and just breathe. I say that to my patients all the time. You must take care of yourself because, you know, I say this and I said, this is a horrible way I'm going to say this. But if you jump there today, guess what's going to happen in your family? Those folks are going to pick up and they are going to continue to live. They'll go to your funeral, say, oh, we're going to miss her. Oh, boohoo boohoo. But I promise you, they will continue to eat. They will continue to function in life without you. So it is crucial that you take care of yourself. Crucial. And exercising, as Dr. Heath said, is one of the number one things that I tell you to tell folks to do. You can sit in a chair and exercise. I'm not telling you to go run a mile, but you need to do some sort of physical exercise. Those pheromones and hormones and chemicals that are released help you sleep better, help you digest your food better. You just have more energy. It gives you more brain power. You're more creative when you do that. And so it just helps you overall that you take care of yourself. And then you're better able to help take care of others if you take care of yourself. I love that. And Dr. Heath, in a minute or less, give me your take on self care, mental health, and people get the vaccination. Yes. I would definitely encourage everyone to get the vaccination. That's my first day. Secondly, I encourage you to actually take care of you. You're the most important person to you. Do that. And because as was stated, if you don't take care of yourself, you really can't take care of others. You could be gone tomorrow. And you need to be able to say, well, I'm going to give you all this while I have it. And I can give you this by taking care of me. So me first is important. And then actually, with just the self care piece, I want you to think about like she was saying, breathing, taking that time to just take in that breath through your nose, out through your mouth, and relax yourself, give your brain a rest, give yourself a rest. It's okay to talk to people. I think it's so important that that's one of the reasons I even got into this field is because I saw so many people hurting. And I was like, you know, that family business doesn't have to just stay family business. It can actually be discussed with people that you can trust with it that ethically, they cannot even tell anyone else. So let people share that with you. Share the burden. It's okay. Wow. Take care of yourself, everyone, Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Keith. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for your wisdom. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Aloha.