WELLNESS
TALK RX
with Dr. Neha Sangwan
WELLNESS
in to that discomfort by
being present with and
addressing their emotions. Not only did it help
my patients, but learning
to experience emotions is
how I was able to reconnect to the meaning of
my work as well as to my
own heart.
PMAG: You’ve spoken of
asking patients, “Why this,
and why now?” What is
the power in these questions to unlock healing?
P
arvati Magazine interviewed Dr. Neha Sangwan, the author of TalkRx, on the power of
communication to support health.
Parvati Magazine: You seem to have a strong background in science and engineering
before you moved into medicine and what now seems to be a holistic approach. How did
you get from there to here?
Dr. Neha Sangwan: I grew up believing there were only two career choices: engineering
or medicine. When I figured out they weren’t mutually exclusive, I pursued them both. I
worked as a manufacturing engineer before attending medical school.
For years, as a dedicated Internal Medicine physician, I worked 36-hour shifts and saw up
to 18 hospitalized patients a day. I was so focused on other people’s health and doing
what was expected that I rarely paid attention to what my own body was saying. Eventually the grueling pace, erratic sleep schedule and blatant disregard for my own physical,
mental and emotional well-being led to burnout. This was my wake-up call to realizing
self-care in healthcare.
PMAG: Your TEDx talks are very heartfelt, and you don’t hesitate to allow emotion to show
as you share the stories of your patients and loved ones. That seems rare among doctors.
NS: Yes, sharing emotions is rare among physicians and the medical community at large. I
would say that getting comfortable with my emotions has given me a new sense of freedom and ease at work and in my relationships. As a result, I dedicated five chapters of
my book, TalkRx, to this very subject—where I address the most challenging emotions such
as sadness, anger and anxiety. I wish someone would have taught me this in med school!
Every patient who was shivering in a paper thin gown in the emergency department or
on a gurney was worried, scared and anxious about what was going to happen next. I
discovered the way to build trust and connection with each one of them was by leaning
NS: Yes, I have a series of
five questions I used to
ask my patients the night
before I would discharge
them - what I call an
Awareness Prescription.
• Why this?
• Why now?
• What signals might
you have missed?
• What else in your life
needs to be healed?
• If you spoke from the
heart, what would you
say?
These questions are a
launchpad, inviting patients to speak about
whatever resonates with
them. All that matters is
that they begin connecting their physical wellbeing with their external
circumstances, their patterns of behavior, their relationships, and their emotional truth. For example, if
a patient had back pain,
maybe he felt as though
he had the weight of the
world on his shoulders or
didn’t feel supported.
Maybe he wasn’t standing up for himself.
When the body breaks
down on a physical level, it’s important that we
look beyond the textbook
definition of a disease,
the numbers from a blood
test, or the results of an
X-ray. Often, exploring
beyond the malfunction
of a specific organ or system reveals an underlying
mental, emotional, or social correlation.
PMAG: Your book TalkRx
came out this spring. In it,
you remark, “A patient’s
ability and willingness to
communicate [has] the
power to vastly improve
their health.” How did you
come to see this?
NS: Well, I knew scientifically that stress causes or
exacerbates more than
90% of all illness, but what
I didn’t know was—what
was at the root of all that
stress? What I started noticing was that the situations my patients were
in caused them an inordinate amount of stress.
Somewhere along the
way, their communication—with lovers, with
friends, with co-workers,
with family, with themselves—had
broken
down, and they were unable to bridge the gap.
The result was disconnection, loneliness, and isolation. My patients’ inability
to communicate was literally making them sick.
PMAG: Is there anything
else you would like our
readers to know?
That the way they feel,
their ability to communicate effectively, and their
relationships are all connected to their health! I
learned this lesson—the
hard way… so your readers don’t have to.
Neha Sangwan, M.D., CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is
an internal medicine physician, international speaker and corporate
communication expert. Her private practice and corporate consulting
focuses on empowering individuals, organizational leaders, and their
teams with the tools for clear, effective communication. She addresses
the root cause of stress, miscommunication, and interpersonal conflict,
often healing chronic conditions such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety,
and depression. She regularly consults with organizations such as the
American Heart Association, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, and
Google, and has shared her keynote presentation on the stages of TEDx.
For more information, please visit doctorneha.com.