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Kanchan Rai is an emotional and mental well-being coach also the founder of her venture, Let Us Talk that puts mind and wellness health at the forefront.
Kanchan Rai is internationally certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). She is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School that puts mind and wellness health at the forefront.
Having battled depression herself, Kanchan Rai has spearheaded a movement to spread awareness
about mental health which has led to the conceptualization of the Let Us Talk Foundation. Through this venture, she is innately able to connect to various situations and roles.
Kanchan Rai’s training in the varied facets of therapy and understanding of the human psyche drove her to create her own techniques to drive mind rejuvenation to an exponential level. In conversation with Icy Tales, Kanchan Rai spoke about her profession, her venture, and her opinion on post-partum depression.
Q) What is it like to be a mental and emotional well-being coach?
Kanchan Rai: On a personal level, it’s quite overwhelming. You have to talk and listen to people who are really in desperate need of shedding their emotions while talking about their mental health. It’s not at all an easy task but at the same time, it’s very satisfying as well that at least I could help someone come out of their dark zone. It’s like it’s a combination of both.
Q) What is the importance of mental health in today’s world?
Kanchan Rai: Mental health is absolutely a form of your health so you can’t minus mental health from your overall health and well-being. Just like how we keep track of things like, how we look, how we appear, how healthy we are, how good is our diet, or how good our physical health is, in the same way, mental health is also a very important thing.
You can’t minus your physical health from mental health to tell that you are healthy enough. So if a person is putting up with another person who is healthy enough yet suffering from any kind of mental health disorder, we don’t see him or her as a healthy person. So overall, the health of a person depends equally on physical and mental health. It’s a very important aspect of your health, which I often tend to tell people about.
Q) Tell us something about your venture, ‘Let Us Talk’ and the story behind it
Kanchan Rai: There is a very interesting story behind the name. When we talk about mental health, people often don’t tend to talk about it. They will all say it’s a phase and a temporary thing, which is just creating a fuss. We all need to have a person with whom we can talk and share our issues. At the same time, we should also be sure that the person to whom we are talking is a very nonjudgmental person.
So we need to have that assurance that we won’t be judged when we are talking, rather that person will be there to understand he or she will try to explain what I am going through along with techniques and ways to come out of it.
But I would say the reason behind getting this word, Let Us Talk, as the name of our company is because a person can not just talk but be rest assured that the person you are talking to is absolutely safe and trustworthy for you to talk. It is mainly to remove the stigma around mental that you should not talk about it and you should just shrug this topic under the carpet; its aim is to encourage people to talk more.
Q) Tell us something about post-partum emotional well-being
Kanchan Rai: If I talk about women in particular, of course, they are very emotional and they tend to show their emotions in a form like anyone would understand that there is something wrong with her. We have seen women crying more than men and one of the reasons is that they are so overwhelmed with their hormones or emotions which is why it becomes very difficult for them to hide those tears.
Mental health as a topic signifies both men and women. We usually say women are very delicate but in terms of mental health, men are also delicate. Men have a lot of responsibilities; they have responsibility for their families and they have to portray themselves as strong enough who can actually take whatever life is throwing at them.
Since they are the front face of a family, they don’t tend to talk much but they are emotional, too. And that’s when women come into the picture. There is no specific significance of your gender. If you are suffering from mental issues, it means you are suffering whether you are a man or woman.
Regarding postpartum depression, it goes to both. I’m sure you must have heard about women going through PPD. But you know there are so many issues of men also suffering from postpartum depression which is not at all spoken about. We have always understood that a woman is going through a lot of hormonal changes because of her pregnancy but the same goes with men as well.
There are factors that affect men’s mental health also. The time when your child is not born, it’s just you and your wife and then your baby comes in and your wife diverts all attention towards him. She’s busy creating a bond with a newborn child and somehow you feel left out. This is one of the biggest reasons why men suffer from PPD and the same goes for women as well.
When you give birth, you are obviously overwhelmed and there are so many emotions coming to you. This is the time when people tend to go into PPD and it generally starts in the first week, but it can last for one year also. One person in seven parents is suffering from PPD, and they never talk about it. So if you are feeling some drastic changes in terms of your behavior if you feel the bond is missing or if you are very negligent towards your partner or child, these are the indicators.
Your appetite and sleep may go haywire and you are not able to concentrate on things; these can also be symptoms that you have to be very careful about. If you often get thoughts like you are not good for your child or you are not a good parent, I would say that you definitely need some help in that matter, but it’s not that difficult to deal with; it is just a phase.
If this thing lasts for more than 2 to 4 weeks, definitely you need to seek help. You are supposed to talk to a counselor or a trusted person or else just a few things like eating well, sleeping well, going out in nature, and trying to bond with your child without forcing yourself would really solve the whole scenario or the problem.
Kanchan Rai aims to normalize and de-stigmatize mental health by spreading more awareness from her end. She aims to further establish the Let Us Talk Foundation while continuing to create a good space for mental and emotional well-being.
Check out the whole conversation with Kanchan Rai on our YouTube Channel.
Last Updated on by Sathi