UTHealth HoustonWell Connected Podcast

Listen as Dr. Elaheh Ashtari shares insights on psychological trauma. Topics: What is psychological trauma? Are there levels of trauma? Are triggers a real thing? Are trauma and PTSD the same? What is trauma-informed care? ...and more! Guest: Elaheh Ashtari, PsyD Chief, Psychology Services, UTHealth Houston Dunn Campus

Listen as Dr. Chaoul shares insights into the pathways to our life's purpose. Topics: Does everyone have a purpose? Do we seek purpose or does it find us? How do we manifest our purpose? Where does our purpose live? Can our purpose change or evolve? Guest: Alejandro Chaoul, PhD Huffington Foundation Endowed Director The Jung Center's Mind Body Spirit Institute   Adjunct Faculty,  McGovern...

Listen as Dr. Majid shares her insights as a sleep expert regarding: Naps Insomnia Sleep debt Restorative sleep Circadian Rhythm Sleep and weight gain Optimal sleep environments How many hours do I really need? ...and more! Guest: Dr. Ruckshanda Majid Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston

Listen as Dr. Jason Yu, shares his insights about how speaking with a therapist can help provide self-understanding and direction to dealing with everyday life situations. Guest: Jason Yu, PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor of the McGovern Medical School, Louis A. Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Listen as Patricia and Jennifer share their insights about how our Benefits are affected by certain life events. They offer tips on how to avoid pitfalls with our Benefits. Topics: Who needs Short-Term & Long-Term Disability Insurance? What is the Family Leave Pool? What happens to my Benefits if I need to take Leave Without Pay? Guests: Patricia Hinojosa, Executive Director, Payroll & Ben...

Listen as Jasmine Holmes, licensed professional counselor and UTHealth Faculty Assistance Specialist, shares her insights about the value of social connections on well-being. Jasmine also talks about the role flexibility and expectations play in positive outcomes during holiday gatherings.

Listen as Dolores Woods shares her insights on putting our relationships with people first, as a way to manage our nutrition during the holiday season. The podcast also includes a discussion about comfort food, tips for recipe substitutions, and choices related to desserts and beverages. Dolores is a Nutritionist Supervisor for the Nourish Program at the Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy L...

Listen as Claire Goss shares insights on the unprecedented challenges facing professional parents today as they manage the interface between work and life. Claire offers tangible tools for dealing with the stress and guilt associated with being a working parent. She discusses concepts such as "bringing the weather" to your household and "firing yourself" by delegating, redirect...

Listen as Dr. Higgins shares his insights on ways to work aerobic activity into everyday life. He also shares tips and cautions for training for the Houston Half Marathon/10K race, sponsored by UTHealth Houston on Oct 29. Dr. Higgins is Professor of Medicine at The McGovern Medical School and the Senior Cardiologist at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital, among many other accomplishments.

We welcome Delphi Medina as she helps us dissect concepts surrounding chemical addiction, family dynamics, healing and hope.

What is recession and what do we need to know? How do interest rates affect my daily living? In what way does the economy impact job security? Listen as Peter Dunn a.k.a. Pete the Planner® helps us connect-the-dots between what's going on in the economy and how it affects our lives.

We welcome Dr. Alejandro Chaoul as he demystifies the practice of meditation and offers practical and relatable ways to use meditation in health, healing, calm and peace.

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Robin Dickey as she explains, “Work-life priorities vary from person to person. Priorities and needs may shift from day-to-day, even moment-to-moment”, furthering the case that balance, per se, may not be the most helpful goal and it certainly is not a one-size-fits-all remedy.

Rev. Dr. Gale Francine Kennebrew joins us in this episode as we explore personal definitions of spirituality and update them to include aspects of our lives when we experience spectacular displays of nature, the awe of wonder, our divine purpose, a relationship with God, or even the driving forces that help us get up each day to live life.

In this episode, Jennifer Cofer, MPH, CHES, and Alex Hurst, MHA from MD Anderson's End Tobacco Program, discusses the ever evolving landscape of tobacco products and how tobacco cessation efforts are adapting to these changes. We take a closer look into the social and cultural influence of tobacco use and the effectiveness of tailored intervention programs.

In this episode, Dr. Nguyen shares about his life as a surgeon and also living out his creative nature as a singer, song-writer and guitarist. We cover a lot of ground in this episode as the conversation moves from medicine and music, into purpose and measuring ourselves through internal metrics rather than external ones.  Listen at the end to an original acoustic song written and played by o...

Newton Cheng shares his successful journey to mental well-being after suffering from burnout and taking mental health leave from his leadership position at Google. Newton is a husband and father, competitive powerlifter, and is Director of Health + Performance at Google. He takes a special interest in the intersections of human performance and spirituality, and is an advocate for speaking vulnerab...

Dr. Stephanie Emhoff, a licensed psychologist, joins the podcast to help us navigate through family conflicts during the holiday. Let us find peace despite our differences and move beyond just tolerance for one another.

Meal delivery, grocery delivery, subscriptions and more! Listen as we explore the the rise and evolution of convenience spending with Peter Dunn a.k.a. Pete the Planner®. He shares his financial wisdom and expertise on our podcast to help us answer the question: Is trading time to save money always the right trade off?

Dr. Ann Friedman, Director of Curriculum for the Mind Body Spirit Institute of The Jung Center of Houston joins us for a discussion on how to live a joy-filled life. Hear the distinction between joy and happiness and learn the value of bringing your joy to work with you!

We welcome Jackson Calderon, Video Production Assistant from the School of Biomedical Informatics, to help us understand the Generation Z well-being perspective and learn what strategies to use when aiming to engage the newest member of our workforce. 

In this episode, we welcome Patricia Hinojosa, Director of Payroll & Benefits at UTHealth Houston to share her wisdom and experience to help us find ways to prioritize our work/life resources so we can manage unexpected life events.

Caregivers spend most of their time thinking of and acting for others. In this episode, we make a shift to bring the focus back on caregivers. Listen as mental health practitioner Sharlene Johnson discusses how to avoid the loss of personal identity when providing long term care for others.

The Well Connected Podcast welcomes Wayne Tormala, MSW to discuss how we are "wired" for social connection. Listeners will gain insights about isolation, hear real stories and receive tools for regaining hopefulness during times of loneliness and despair.

We welcome Robin Dickey, PhD, MA, LPC, ACC, NBC-HWC to discussthe difference between compassion fatigue and burnout, including signs, symptoms and self-care related to compassion fatigue. Learn how we can help each other and how to access resources at nominal or no cost at UTHealth.