Mayim Bialik’s New Mental Health Podcast Won't Hold Anything Back
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People have found and relied on a number of hobbies, projects, and distractions to help them cope with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its many ramifications. Some people have baked banana bread, some have started knitting or crocheting, and others have transformed unused space in their homes into elaborate gyms. Actress Mayim Bialik's quarantine project has been starting a podcast. "I guess this is my quarantine baby," Bialik tells Woman's Day.
The soon-to-be-launched Mayim Bialik's Breakdown podcast focuses on mental health in all its facets. "It's really exploring all aspects of mental health not just from the perspective of the way a lot of us think of mental health — you know diagnoses and medications and what are we supposed to do — but trying to get a more global view of how our mental health is impacted by much more than we think," Bialik explains. The show will feature mental health experts as well as celebrity guests who will discuss both scientific and personal experiences with mental health. Bialik hopes the show will work to create "less stigma and more information" surrounding mental health and the various ways it impacts people's lives on a daily basis.
Mental health has long been an overlooked, underserved, and stigma-laden issue in the United States. And now that an unparalleled public health crisis has forced people into isolation, left millions without a job or steady source of income, and has caused overwhelming loss of life, the mental health crisis in the country is only worsening. Forty percent of respondents reported dealing with at least one adverse mental health condition in a June 2020 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that includes symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pandemic-related trauma. The same report showed 11 percent of respondents reporting that they had seriously considered suicide and 13 percent that had started or increased substance use including drugs and alcohol during the pandemic.
As someone with a background in neuroscience a keen interest in mental health, and large platform at their disposal, Bialik felt compelled to gather mental health information and stories to share with listeners of her show.
"I'm trained in neuroscience and for my doctorate I studied Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," Bialik says, adding that she has a family history of mental health issues, too. "I've been inspired by so many. Wil Wheaton actually, a friend of mine and someone I know from working together on Big Bang Theory, has really put his mental health money where his mouth is and has spoken out with vulnerability, and it inspired me to do the same. Not because I think everyone needs to hear what's going on in every celebrity's mind, but because for those of us who do have a platform, it's a powerful way to de-stigmatize mental health."
A huge part of that destigmatization is openly talking about mental health and the many ways it can be impacted by various factors, which is a huge component of the podcast. Whether it's medical experts sharing their knowledge, guests sharing their personal mental health journeys, or Bialik opening up about her own mental health struggles, all of the conversations Bialik hopes to share with people aim to normalize mental health discussions. "By sharing my personal experiences I hope to show that it's OK, there's no shame surrounding it even though it really has been taboo to talk about a lot of these things for a long time," she says.
Upcoming guests on the show include her Call Me Kat co-stars Leslie Jordan and Cheyenne Jackson, as well as the chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Bialik believes that "it's a human right to have access to information and mental health care," which is a large reason that producing this show has been so important to her.
To get updates on the show's upcoming episodes and find more information about the resources cited in the show, visit the Bialik Breakdown website.
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