Sanchita Agrawal: Breathing through life’s challenges

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? What happens when something triggers you?

In this very first episode of our new podcast series, The Therapy Room, we talk to Sanchita Agrawal, a licensed Clinical Psychologist at DocVita for some answers. Very often, every day, we are all dealing with unresolved emotions, past experiences, and behaviors that act as triggers. We then get anxious, angry, and feel disturbed by many stimulants around us. 

Sanchita shares insightful tips and outlines grounding exercises to calm ourselves in difficult situations. She also takes us through a powerful relaxation exercise that helps in regulating our heartbeat, thoughts, and breathing. 

But that’s just the long and short of it. Listen to the full episode to get in-depth answers to how you can cope with anxiety, overwhelm, and difficult emotions with mindfulness.

About The Therapy Room

The Therapy Room is a segment where our host Smitha Murthy talks to mental health professionals for insights on life’s challenges, which range from managing everyday stressors to chronic anxiety. Tune in as we explore topics around mental health issues, emotional wellbeing, and techniques to help you heal. 

Quote from the conversation

“Triggers are beautiful indicators of things of other thoughts and feelings that we have been trying to get away from, that have been so uncomfortable that we have in our own ways tried to cope with but have ended suppressing.”

Details of the episode

We talk about:

• How to manage anxiety in everyday life
• Understanding triggers and how to cope with them 
• What to do when you feel overwhelmed and panicky
• How to perform a grounding exercise and what tools you can use
• A breathing exercise that brings immediate relief when stressed

Sanchita’s bio

Sanchita Agrawal is a licensed clinical psychologist with experience in both in-patient and outpatient departments in the government and private sectors. She practices cognitive behavior therapy, motivation enhancement therapy, behavior modification, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and her aim is to help individuals of various ages with emotional and behavioral difficulties such as depression, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, autism, ADHD, and others. 

Connect with Sanchita

Website | LinkedIn

Our partner

This episode is made possible thanks to support from Docvita, a platform that aims to make mental health more open, supportive, and accessible through their services.

Resources

• The difference between counselors and psychologists
• Lack of mental health professionals in India  
• Tap into the 5-4-3-2-1 or Five Senses grounding/coping technique for anxiety
• Manage anxiety with these 5 grounding techniques
• A guided video demonstrating the five sense technique
• Understanding triggers
• Using mindfulness to improve your mental health
• Finding calm with the 9 breaths purification technique
• Core emotions in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
• How to do paced breathing for relaxation 
• A guided video demonstrating paced breathing
• Building an emotional vocabulary
• Emotional regulation strategies you can use
• Ways to take time out and practise self-care

Loved this episode?

Write to us to be part of the conversation to make mental health cool – podcast@myndstories.com

Find us on Instagram and LinkedIn.