A National Stage to Address a Modern Mental Health Challenge

Dr. Noorul Hasan was invited as an Expert Speaker to a prestigious national mental health conference held in Hyderabad, where leading psychiatrists, psychologists, medical professionals, and mental health advocates gathered to discuss emerging issues in the field.

His session, “Social Media Influence & Changing Presentations of Mental Health,” explored how digital habits and online environments are reshaping emotional well-being, behavior patterns, and clinical presentations among today’s youth and adults.

The event brought together experts from across India, making it a significant platform to highlight the evolving relationship between technology and mental health.

Core Focus of the Session

1. Rise of Social Media–Driven Stress

Dr. Hasan explained how constant online comparison, information overload, and digital validation cycles are contributing to rising anxiety, depression, and self-esteem issues.

2. New-Age Clinical Presentations

He shared real-world observations of how symptoms are changing:

• Difficulty in emotional regulation

• Social withdrawal despite online hyper-connectivity

• Behavioural addictions linked to reels, gaming, and online attention

3. Impact on Adolescents & Young Adults

The talk highlighted the increasing vulnerability of teenage groups due to:

• Cyberbullying

• Algorithm-driven content pressure

• Unrealistic body image trends

• Sleep disruption from screen exposure

4. Practical Solutions & Preventive Strategies

The session offered practical, actionable suggestions:

• Digital hygiene habits

• Structured screen time

• Mindfulness-based coping strategies

• Early detection of online-triggered symptoms

• Parental and institutional intervention models

A Well-Received Knowledge Session

The audience appreciated the clarity, research-backed insights, and practical approach of Dr. Hasan’s presentation. His ability to connect clinical psychology with modern digital behavior made the session particularly impactful.

Organizers and participants acknowledged the importance of bringing such discussions to national platforms, especially as India sees a rapid rise in social media usage among all age groups.

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A Meaningful Initiative for Employee Wellness

In today’s fast-paced work culture, stress, burnout, and emotional exhaustion are becoming increasingly common. The HR Conclave focused on creating awareness among HR professionals, managers, and leaders about the importance of addressing mental health proactively within their organizations.

Dr. Noorul Hasan’s session highlighted simple yet powerful mental health practices that can help employees stay balanced, motivated, and emotionally healthy.

Key Highlights from the Session

1. Understanding Stress & Its Impact

Dr. Hasan explained how chronic stress affects both mental and physical health, and why early intervention is crucial.

2. Practical Tools for Emotional Well-Being

He shared easy-to-apply techniques such as:

• Mindfulness

• Breathing exercises

• Positive coping strategies

• Time management and work-life balance tips

3. Breaking the Stigma

The session emphasized that mental health is as important as physical health, encouraging companies to create open, stigma-free environments where employees feel safe to seek help.

4. Role of HR & Leadership

Dr. Hasan provided actionable insights for HR departments:

• Introducing wellness policies

• Conducting regular mental health sessions

• Offering counselling access

• Building empathetic workplace culture

The post Mind Your Mind – Session by Dr. Noorul Hasan at HR Conclave, Tirunelveli first appeared on Dr Noor.

Written &  compiled by :

Dr Noorul Hasan MBBS., MD in Psychiatry (NIMHANS) Consultant, Sneka Mind Care, Tirunelveli.

Introduction :-

Sleep is a state of rest for the entire body including brain. Every living creature enjoys sleep. What protects those migratory birds from fatigue, flying all day long with average less hours of sleep per day. Fish sleep in water while swimming. So it only takes mental rest and not physical. When do fishes rehabilitate their body? Aquatic mammals like seal, dolphin sleep with one lobe of brain functional and other lobe at rest. So, irrespective of their anatomical make up and adversity in living pattern, nature makes sleep as an immense cyclical phenomenon in every living macro-organisms for better mental-physical rest and to liaise the body functions with nature.

Ancient Tradition of Early Morning Rise:-

Nearly every ancient religions ranging from the west to east, have legislated prayers & rituals in fixed hours. Islam insists on Pre-dawn prayer called Fajr. Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism promote the practice of Surya Namaskara. As quoted by Benjamin Franklin, “Early to bed and early rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. Our ancestors were found to have a healthy & long life span. This can be greatly attributed to their Biological Sleep Pattern.

Man has accustomed his day for work and nights for sleep. The agricultural communities cherish their routine even before dawn. None of the archeological inscriptions and old paintings testify social activity at late night excluding festive occasions and reading. Notably, busy readers and researchers alone utilize night hours with candles in search of wisdom. The discovery of artificial light (i.e. Electricity) sparked man to work in the absence of sunlight. Sleeping at right phase of day is as important as sleeping adequately.

Chronobiology ?

The term Chronobiology literally means “study of life in relation to time”. Human requires an average sleep of 8 hours a day (varies depends upon the individual biological make up). The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by Supra-Chiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) in association with Reticular activating system (RAS) which causes sleep onset and wake up. This rhythm at which the sleep operates can be termed as ‘circadian rhythm’. Circadian Rhythm is an in-built clock in the human body operated by myriad of complex mechanisms. It works in accordance with temperature and light. It drives the pattern of change in behavior, body temperature, feeding, sexual drives and hormone balance.

 On the basis of eye movement and electrical activity of brain, human sleep is divided into Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and Slow Wave Sleep. After the initial

90 minutes of rest, REM sleep begins. And it occurs at regular intervals in between slow wave sleep. The entire muscles remains relaxed during REM sleep where a man dreaming of kissing the Miss world won’t even acts out physically for it, however the consolidation of memory takes place during the same phase (1).

Precision in Sleep :-

The range of sleep-wake cycle is determined by number of polyglutamate repeats(…Q) in a gene named  CLOCK located in chromosome number 4 for humans. The genetic code repeat is constant for every human being irrespective of his/her surviving locality. The constant genetic code repeats depicts amount of sleep required by a particular genus on earth. For example, number of CAG repeats in CLOCK gene of humans is 6 whereas the non-human primates have more CAG repeats, Drosophila has 25-33 repeats, numbers inversely proportional to the sleep duration (8).

The protein produced by this gene is believed to affect both persistence and period of circadian rhythms.

Researchers often differentiate and name genes specifically. When the gene responsible for sleep in rats was silenced, it resulted in aggressive and coarse nature of the rat. The rat lived a short span. Genetic researches in PER and other genes showed altered morbid sleep patterns when silenced. This gives strong insights about our sleep patterns and circadian rhythms. Sudden onset of sleep while your spouse speaking to you in bed  is neither due to the musical rhythm of his/her speech nor due to a chill breeze from A/C, but the sentinel operation by your genes (1)(4).

Sleep, melatonin & Cancer:-

 Melatonin, a hormone secreted by Pineal gland. Its secretion occurs from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in coordination with exposure of retinal cells to light. When the retinal cells get triggered by light, it reduces Melatonin secretion of Pineal Gland. So, Pineal gland functions effectively only when the retinal are inert. It happens only when we sleep in dark. Ultimately, those who sleep at 12 a.m. constrict their Melatonin secretion to half. And places where even nights are brighter, compel it’s dwellers to generate ineffective Melatonin. Hence, cancer rates soar. How?

In order to attain maturity a cell must pass through four main stages namely, G1 > S > G2 > M. Between each two stages researchers found that, Melatonin hormone regulates apoptosis (programmed cell death) by its regulatory actions at check points. Those check points ensure the cells for correct composition of chemicals before DNA synthesis and cell division. Melatonin restricts the cells from being abnormal and consequently causes the death of abnormal cells. So those people who sleep at right time will enjoy healthy melatonin concentration which thwarts the emergence of cancer cells (2)(3).

Obesity and Sleep:-

Modern man has developed fitness apps, footsteps counter and a lot more. But still the obesity rates soar. Highlighting that overeating is not the lone factor of weight gain.

Researchers have reported a disorder named Night Eating Syndrome (NES). NES is characterized by improper feeding time especially at night. The victims are used to a heavy meal after 7 p.m. Their 25% of their food intake would be at night. Studies have proved the positive association between NES and Body Mass Index (BMI). People affected with NES consume more at night and wake with lack of appetite in the morning (Anorexia). They feel a strong hunger in the evening and eat more at latter half of the day (Hyperphagia). As the dinner gets late, so will the sleep. The Circadian rhythm changes and leads to late morning wake with stress. Researches prove that weight gain through NES is 6 times more than the weight gained through non-NES obese persons. Our sixty years fathers are observed to be more healthy with erect physique than us  even though we are  technologically ahead. The difference is their scheduled sleep habits which is a lost treasure for our generation (5).

Sleep & Mental health :

Sleep is the prerequisite for mental health & stability. Sleep deprivation acts both as vulnerability factor and consequence of a mental illness. Social rhythm therapy is still a well proven strategy for prevention of bipolar episodes (7). Sleep deprivation is one of the strong criteria to assess the severity of any major or minor mental illnesses and effective management of sleep with both behavioral / medical techniques will obviously delay the psychiatric episodes. Altered sleep rhythm impairs memory, alertness, concentration, planning and decision making leading to occupational dysfunction. Consequently, constructing a stressed sleepless life ending with alarming mental illnesses.

Students are advised to sleep early and have a good sleep on the examination night. REM sleep plays an important role in effective functioning of brain. It is responsible for the transformation of information in short term memory to long term memory called Consolidation. This depicts the importance of having a good sleep for those who  race through the pages on examination eve.

Have Good Sleep:-

The international sleep hygiene (6) has made a protocol for sleep to lead a peaceful life. Here are some tips that make your sleep beneficial.

• Set a Sleep Schedule

Have a fixed sleeping time which may range for 7 – 8 hours.

Remember to backtrack from all duties and tasks about 30 minutes ahead of bed.

• Conductive Bed

Make your bedroom dark, quiet and calm. Use it only for sleeping.

• No Electronics and Technology

Turn off all the electronics may it be phone, TV, computer, earphones and place them away.

• Have a Bedtime Routine

Before bed you can have a hot shower, read book, color, listen to natural sounds and practice some stretching which relaxes your body.

• Cut off Caffeine

Avoid having caffeine or bitter tasting foods before sleep, generally after 7 p.m.

• Avoid Night Sessions

Conclusion:-

Every soul on earth is obsessed with something till the eleventh hour. Men and women busy with commerce, students with studies, doctors with casualties, some with women and wine, drivers with logistics, editors with hot news and everyone one is busy and every eyes are in lighted mobile screens. Moreover the COVID lockdowns  almost confused our innate circadian make up and at times we sleep very less like a drosophila . Consequently, alarming proportion of industrial development and technology growth had deviated human beings away from their own ‘fithra’ (meaning ‘natural disposition/innate’ in Arabic).

Technologies are meant to ease our life and not our extinction. Life becomes meaningful, when we enjoy it. Life is enjoyable when we discover the gifts bestowed on us i.e. good pattern of sleep.

Our transition from healthy sleep pattern makes our life dangerous and vulnerable to unknown complications and hence “Dangerous transition and vulnerable life.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ……Dr Noor

References :-

1. Chronobiology .,Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry by Kaplan & Saddock., 10^th edition
2. Melatonin & the sleep-wake state : Ganong’s review of medical physiology. 26^th
3. Melatonin for the prevention & treatment of cancer : Ya Li et al. Oncotarget. 2017 Jun; 8 (24) : 3989639921
4. Genomics of circadian rhythm in health & disease : Filpa & Joseph. 17 december 2019 (11: 82) , Genome medicine
5. Night Eating Syndrome (NES) : Jillon S vanderwal. Clin Psychol Review. 2012 Feb;32(1):49-59. PMID : 22142838
6. Sleep hygiene practices as per American Sleep Association
7. Interpersonal & Social rhythm therapy in Bipolar disorder : Ellen et al.2007 sept, v.9(3)325-332, Diagnosis in clinical neuroscience, PMID -17969869
8. Bellivier F. Biologie et génétique des rythmes circadiens [Biology and genetics of circadian rhythm]. Encephale. 2009 Jan;35 Suppl 2:S53-7. French. doi: 10.1016/S0013-7006(09)75534-4. PMID: 19268171.

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“Teen Vaping: should I be worried?”

Vaping has become a world-wide epidemic. The use of vape especially amongst teens have exponentially increased over the last several years and adolescents and young adults represent the population that are predominantly consuming the vape market worldwide. Approximately 1 in 5 adolescents are currently using electronic vaping products. Thought to be a “safer option” to smoking, teens have taken the use of vape to another level with growing popularity (Baidem et al., 2022). More worryingly, it is harming teens in a less period of time as compared to cigarette use and hold greater physical and mental health risks.

What is vape?

Vapes are electronic devices that comes in an array of shapes and sizes. Most vapes include a mouthpiece, a battery, a heating element, and a cartridge to hold the e-liquid or e-juice. It is this e-liquid that contains the nicotine that is combined with flavourings and other chemicals.  There are several types of vaping devices which can include e-cigarettes, customised vaporisers or called “mods”, vape pens that resembles closely to a large fountain pen or some looking like a USB memory stick.

How it works?

The vaping device is battery operated that powers the heating component to heat up the e-liquid or the vape juice. The device as a result produces water vapor in which are inhaled into the lungs. Many assume that vaping is basically inhaling harmless water vaper. However, vape “smoke” contains nicotine which are highly addictive. In addition to that, the vapor may also contain fine particles that are inhaled deep into the lungs, with some vaping flavours even containing chemicals that has been linked to “popcorn lung” causing scarring and obstruction in the lungs. It brings along devastating long term health risks but also short-term health impacts including nicotine dependence, which can lead to disruptions in brain development, increase in shortness of breath, coughing, fevers, acid reflux, bronchitis and pneumonia.

How does it affect teens then?

Important to note, our brain only stops to develop around the age of 25. So, in teens, the young brain that regulates emotions and cognition are still developing and maturing. The continuous and long-term use of vape, exposes the young person’s developing brain to long term nicotine leading to major consequences such as deterioration in cognitive functioning, difficulties with focus, poor attention span and impulsive control. It also impacts the young person’s memory and how they learn and practice new skills.

Several studies have reviewed existing literature and consistently found that vape played a vital role in social maladjustments in adolescents including poor learning and academic performance, increased aggressive and impulse behaviour, poor sleep hygiene, attentions deficits, memory and cognitive impairment and increased stress, depression, and suicidal ideation. Paradoxically, one of the most common reasons that many youths continue to vape was attributed to coping with existing mental health issues such as anxiety, stress, and depression (Becker et al., 2021). While in fact, studies have shown that vaping was associated with 2.5 times of having a diagnosis of depression with higher depressive symptoms a year later as compared non-users.

Thus, one may ask – which came first? The mental health issues that led to vaping or was it the vaping that led to mental health issues. A typical chicken and egg argument. Nonetheless, whichever it may be, one thing is clear. Vape causes detrimental impact on teenagers not only physical, but also on their mental wellbeing. It is utmost important to not only prevent teens from vaping but to also help and support those who are addicted to quit as soon as possible.  It is critical to break the addiction to nicotine and to prevent further health risks related to nicotine use. If addiction to vaping is addressed early on, it could produce positive impact on multiple aspects on a teen’s overall wellbeing – physically, emotionally, and socially.

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