Dr. Mabel Hsin, M.D. is a licensed family physician with over 30 years of clinical experience in patient care. She left her Bradford practice last year to pursue wellness care and to focus on helping patients achieve better health and quality of happiness as a form of preventative health strategies.
Dr. Hsin is the Executive Lead for Wellness & Health with Altitude HCM Inc. which provides resilience training programs for families and employees in the workplace. She is a keynote speaker on wellness and certified in ‘Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction’ (MBSR) and offers workshops and consultations to people and organizations.
“Western medicine is focused on how NOT to die,” shares Dr. Hsin. “But it does not teach people HOW to live."
MBSR is an eight-week program offered to medical schools across North America which focuses on using scientifically validated training techniques to teach ‘mindfulness’ for managing stress, pain, anxiety, ADHD, and general wellbeing.
Dr. Hsin spent the early ‘Covid months’ in Innisfil where she resides, writing and publishing a short book, “Ahead of the Curve: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic and How They Help Us Achieve Health and Happiness," calling her book a ‘survival manual’ for coping with Covid-19.
She notes that after years of seeing patients with many illnesses as a direct result of stress, she wanted to help people build resilience through mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing and uses scientifically proven stats to help teach prevention.
“Medicine is just not good enough,” shares Dr. Hsin. “It’s about prevention! It’s never too late to increase your quality of life."
Dr. Hsin currently works with the Cardiac Unit at Southlake Hospital in Newmarket where she offers the MBSR program to help patients who have suffered heart attacks, strokes, or other stress-related illnesses. Her recent book shows example stories from her years of experience treating patients to help readers better relate.
“Mental health is a huge problem!” states Dr. Hsin. “When people are stressed, they are not focused… and when they are depressed, they are not motivated."
As a physician, Dr. Hsin has access to scientific medical data on a regular basis from WHO (World Health Organization) that she shares is ‘outside’ from regular newspapers and medical journals. Her recently published book was purposely written with short chapters and provides questions for the reader at the end of each chapter to encourage reflection and offers ‘action plans’ to help readers get better with very simple strategies to help motivate them. She pulls elements of the current pandemic to apply to one’s health and as such, prevent illnesses.
“I looked at countries that have done well [during this pandemic] and why they’ve done well," explains Dr. Hsin. “Countries that have a collective type of attitude “we’re all in this together” do better… Scientific data shows that when we show compassion and kindness, we actually do better as human begins, we are happier!”
Dr. Hsin adds that continuously looking at ‘the numbers’ for Covid-19 creates more fear and anxiety and prompts a faulty way of thinking where the focus is on the negative and not on living a life based on positivity.
“People are living in fear," states Dr. Hsin. “It’s not that easy to get Covid from touching services… you’re not going to die from touching a doorknob without a glove."
But as the province continues to move into various modes of ‘colours’ indicating different regulations or ‘lockdowns’ over certain regions, authorities continue to be met with difficulty to attain compliance from society – a problem that Dr. Hsin admits remains part of the issue to control the virus.
“The virus has been able to spread so successfully because it is so kind to so many people,” explains Dr. Hsin. “It can’t think or replicate on its own, it needs a host – 45 percent of people are asymptomatic (people with no symptoms but have it) [and] the only way you can catch it is from another human being. It’s not as contagious or deadly as the black plague [and] it only kills a small number of people, so as a result, it can spread so wildly."
The book does not discuss the long-term effects of the virus as there was not enough scientific data at the time Dr. Hsin wrote the book, but she shares that this pandemic will likely go on for a while and she wants this book to be looked back upon for ‘lessons’.
“There’s a lot of viral illnesses that have a long-term impact… unfortunately a lot of people in certain fields don’t understand the full aspect of the science behind this virus," notes Dr. Hsin. “But I know a lot of people are really struggling right now so I tried to get the book out before Christmas so they could read it over the break and begin working on their well-being."
Dr. Hsin stresses that although it is natural for society to focus on the fear – if we were to catch this virus for example – we need to bring more awareness on wellness and reducing our stress which will improve our immune systems and allow us to be a ‘survivor’.
“It’s our reaction that will cause more harm," shares Dr. Hsin. “If we just worry about Covid, loss of jobs, stress in general, we will become sicker quicker and more likely to catch the virus."
To learn more about Dr. Mabel Hsin and her book, visit: www.drmabelhsin.ca
“Ahead of the Curve: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic and How They Help Us Achieve Health and Happiness” is available on Amazon or Kindle.
