“Married to Medicine Los Angeles” returns for season two on Sunday, May 3 at 9pm on Bravo.
Returning are Dr. Britten Cole, Dr. Imani Walker, Shanique Drummond and Jazmin Johnson. Plus two new cast members are being brought into the fold – Dr. Kendra Segura and Lia Dias.
Season 1 was the warm-up, as we were just getting to know the ladies. In season 2, the ladies open up even more. This season, despite her friends’ suspicions that life Is all good for Dr. Imani, she is embracing the new challenge of life as a temporary single mom while her husband is out of state building a new business.
EURweb’s Jill Munroe spoke with Dr. Imani where she shared tips for mental well-being during the Covid-19 crisis, what it likes dealing with anxiety while featured on reality TV, season 2 tidbits, and her thoughts on if reality TV castmates can form real friendships.
Jill: I want to talk to you a little bit about mental health and well-being through this Coronavirus pandemic. What are some tips and ideas that we can share with people? Because some people are alone, some are with family, and it’s becoming cramped conditions. What advice do you have for people out there going through this?
Dr. Imani: Sure, I think one of the best things to do, which is actually something that myself and my family do, is we actually hop on a phone call once a week. and actually our weekly Zoom call is tonight. But there’s probably, like, 12 to 15 of us on one call, and we just chat for an hour. But as weird as it would have sounded before this pandemic or before the stay at home orders came to be, to think about like, okay, why would I get on the phone call with 12 to 15 people? You know, this is our new normal, and, I don’t know if we’re ever going to be going back to anything that resembled what we were used to before.
So I think the main thing is whether you chat with your family, or some people have even had a virtual cocktail hour, I think that it’s because humans are social creatures. It’s really hard for us to stay in-the-house like that, even those of us who are introverts like me. So I think that just being able to substitute your usual socializing with group, well, not group chat, but like video chat is really helpful.
I think another thing that a lot of people have been doing is yes, we have stay-at-home orders and for those of us who don’t have pre-existing health conditions, we have been going outside and maintaining social distancing standards, but a lot of people that I’ve spoken kind of act as though, like outside is poisonous. I’m like, the air isn’t poisonous, you should go outside, you should try to get at least 30 minutes … hopefully, an hour of exercise a day. And that’s not just to make sure that you’re able to maintain some muscle tone, but also because exercising can increase serotonin levels and those serotonin levels are what are dropping in a lot of us unfortunately during this pandemic, during this time.
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And I think, two more tips. I think the third tip would be, that yes, a lot of people, it seems like, oh everyone’s baking bread and let’s flex our baking skills and obviously we’re bored. And when people get bored, sometimes they eat and sometimes they overeat. But it’s important to not overeat because, again, like with exercise, we’re trying to boost our serotonin, but with eating and overeating we’re trying to boost our serotonin as well. But that could lead to us actually gaining a lot of weight and I would hate for more people than would need to end up coming out of this quarantine obese. Only because when it comes to Coronavirus and those who are in their twenties, there has been a link between contracting the virus and actually being obese, having a high BMI, a high body mass index. Just to maintain, just healthy ways of eating, and don’t just eat because you’re bored. Like I mean, we’re all guilty of it, I do it.
But the last tip, I think the most important tip is I’ve been telling a lot of my friends and a lot of my patients as well, to limit their news viewing, like limit the viewing, limit the reading. Because at this point, there isn’t too much information that’s coming out that’s new. And thankfully, because of social media, if there’s anything that’s incredibly important, we all kind of know at the same time.
Jill: Exactly.
Dr. Imani: Right. Like, personally I limit my news consumption to just reading. And I give myself no more than 15 minutes a day, and I have an iPhone, so open up the news App, I look around. Like on a day like today there really wasn’t a whole lot that was interesting for me, so I just closed the App and then I went off and did whatever else.
But watching the news and consuming the news on a chronic basis really is going to cause a lot of people to have anxiety. And unfortunately, because I think we’re on week four or week five of the quarantine, after weeks two, I began to see a lot of patients with depressive disorders and anxiety disorders and depression. Clinical depression takes two weeks to actually be diagnosed. So now that we’re five weeks in, I’m seeing a lot more people present with symptoms.
So it’s going to be difficult to try to keep our spirits up during this time, but it’s important that we try to, because unfortunately, whether we want to admit it or not, or whether we like it or not, this country and probably worldwide, we’re going to see a drastic increase in mental illnesses and especially depression, anxiety.
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Jill: I agree with you. One of the other things that I wanted to discuss with you, in the first season you were very open about anxiety and dealing with those issues yourself, as well as the different family changes that you went through. What did you learn about yourself going through this process of bringing your tribulations and triumphs to television?
Dr. Imani: You know, it was really initially very difficult for me because I am a bit of an introvert. I’m kind of guarded. I’m kind of the person that likes to evaluate what’s going on before I actually open my mouth. But being on a Reality TV show is a situation where you’re really encouraged to share and open up a lot of your life or my life, for the benefit of other people. And it was hard at first. But I must say that me being open and honest with the viewers, and even me being open and honest with some of my patients that I do have issues with clinical depression and anxiety, it’s actually been really good. I’ve got a lot of really good feedback, because I’m learning that people have never really had a doctor let alone a psychiatrist say, you know what, I have issues too. And I’m not ashamed to admit that’s why I chose to go in psychiatry, because I knew that I had mental illness issues, I knew that there were a lot of people in my family that had issues with mental illness. I just wanted to make sure that the people that I eventually ended up treating as patients would be able to receive the same care that I would give my own family or even myself let’s say.
So even recently on Instagram — I would say maybe two months ago — I had posted something just explaining that I’ve always struggled with depression, anxiety and that very recently I started taking medication, I started taking Prozac. And it made a world of difference, and I got a lot of feedback from various people. Some of the people were doctors some of the people were not doctors, but I just got a lot of positive reinforcement that people needed to basically hear that, you know what, you see me on TV, I definitely seem to have my life together, but sometimes I don’t feel that great. And taking medication really, really helps.
So if there’s anyone thing that I’m happy that’s come out of this whole experience of being on reality television is that I’ve been able to really connect with viewers and help them understand that mental illness it doesn’t have to be a stigma, and you can get help for it, because the help is out there.
Jill: Yes, it is. So, as you were heading into Season Two, what were your thoughts having learned that it actually opened you up in a different way to your patients and your family? Did you change anything in your approach to filming?
Dr. Imani: I wouldn’t say that I changed anything in my approach. I think what I did notice is that a lot of psychiatrists or therapists that you see on television, they seem to work with, let’s say more higher functioning patients. So you might have a psychiatrist who works at Cedar Sinai or UCLA, or someplace like that. But I actually work at a hospital where the majority of the patients that we treat don’t have insurance, some of them are homeless. They’re very underrepresented people. And it was nice for me to be able to meet with my patients, and they were like, yeah, like I’m really excited to be able to see you on TV, because you’re my doctor, and they’re like, I can relate to you, but now I can really get to know more about you and understand that you’re not so much different than the rest of us. And I’m like, yeah.
So I don’t think my approach changed, but I guess if I had to really sit and think about it, if anything changed, I think that I felt more comfortable just sharing my story this second season. And I think I just felt more comfortable with the whole process. At the end of the day, it was really nice to be able to just share my story and have my friends share their stories, and also I got the chance to work again with some really good friends of mine.
Jill: So I’m glad you brought up friends and working together. Do you think that you can maintain healthy friendships being on Reality TV?
Dr. Imani: I think that we were friends, a lot of us were friends before Season One started. But now that we’re on season two, we recognize that we’re in a very unique position, and it’s not only are we sharing ourselves with viewers, but we’re also having to share a lot with each other when we’re shooting. And a lot of it’s really hard, and some of it is much of our being in the moment. So we hope that we’re able to convey that to the viewer when they watch. But I think that, if anything, our relationships are based upon respect. And although we may sometimes argue and may sometimes bicker with each other, it’s still based on a foundation of respect.
So I definitely believe that we’re able to maintain healthy friendships throughout this time. And also it’s nice because it makes us kind of a unique sisterhood that we’ve been chosen and that we continue to want to share our stories with the rest of the world.
“Married to Medicine Los Angeles” returns for season two on Sunday, May 3 at 9pm on Bravo.
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