Latest / Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman / Dr. Norman Rosenthal – Defeating SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

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Dr. Norman Rosenthal – Defeating SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) · Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

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Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension, Vox
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Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from their experience and offer tools to
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help us navigate our rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome
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to Vox Novus, the New Voice. Does the diminishing daylight during fall and
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winter leave you feeling sad? My guest this week on Vox Novus. Doctor
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Norman Rosenthal is the world renowned psychiatrist and best selling author who first described seasonal
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effective disorder SAD and pioneered the use of light therapy as treatment during his time
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at the National Institute of Mental Health. A prolific researcher and writer, he
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has written more than three hundred scholarly articles and authored or co authored ten popular
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books. These include Poetry RX, the New York Times bestseller Transcendence, and
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the National bestsellers The Gift of Adversity and Supermind. His website is Norman Rosenthal
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dot com, and he joins me this week to discuss his healing path and
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latest book, Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder, A Guide to health and happiness
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through all Seasons. Please join me in welcoming back to Vox Novis doctor Norman
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Rosenthal. Welcome back, doctor Rosenthal. Oh great to be here again.
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Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to be talking about your
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latest book, Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder, A guide to health and happiness
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through all seasons. First, for our listeners meeting you for the first time,
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please share your early path and how it led to medicine and psychiatry.
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Well, I always was fascinated by the workings of the mind, and even
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when I was sixteen years old, I knew I wanted to be a psychiatric
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researcher and try to understand how the mind works and how it went wrong when
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it didn't work. So that is a course that I pursued through medical school
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in Johannesburg, where I was born, and then I came to Columbia to
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do my psychiatric residency, and following that, I came to the National Institumental
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Health, where I did a research fellowship and that got me to track alongs
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some interesting lines of research that have defined my research career. At the same
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time, I always wanted to be a nisson and a writer, so I
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have had a clinical practice all this time and a coaching practice. And I
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have also written several books which have been the subject of our conversation in the
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past, and that's partly what we're going to be talking about here as well.
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Yes, when you last joined us, you shared your wonderful book Poetry
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r X. How did you discover the therapeutic nature of poetry and how is
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this applied? Well, poetry has always done a lot for me. I
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have found various poems through the course of my life that have been a comfort
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and inspiration, a source of ideas and creativity. And it always struck me
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that if I collected a group of these poems together, not long ones,
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short ones, because that's the whole point is not to embroil somebody in a
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long poem like the rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but a short poem,
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a sonnet, a villanelle, something short that really delivers an important point.
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And so that's what I wanted to do. I collected fifty of them together,
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and it has been one of the more delightful surprises of my writing career
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because initially people thought, oh, my poetry, you know, don't give
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me that. Even my wonderful colleague Jane Brodie, who was a columnist at
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the New York Times for many years, and we had collaborated on several articles
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on my work together, and this time with a poetry. She said,
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ah, that's not for me, and I fedexed her my manuscript and within
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a day or two she said, Okay, I'll do this one. I
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really want to. It just really speaks to me. So that was a
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wonderful turnaround from a good friend and columnist. But also so many people that
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I've spoken to have gravitated towards this book as inspirational, interesting, helpful,
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people who've said, you know, I've never really understood poetry, saying you
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know, now I really get it and it really means a lot to me,
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and I have it by my bedstand and that sort of thing. And
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of course, for a writer to hear that your words have actually reached people,
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there's no greater reward than that. Absolutely, are there one or two
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poems that stand out for you as having the most therapeutic value? You know
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so many do, but one, and you know one has come to mind
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recently. You know, so many people are grappling with a breakup, and
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sometimes people are so invested in their relationship that when they break up, they
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feel as though a piece of themselves has been lost. So in a section
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called Loving and Losing, I have a couple of poems that deal with that
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particular experience, and the one that I would like to read today is getting
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over a breakup, reclaiming yourself. That's what I call it. But the
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poem itself is called love after Love by Derek Walcott, And here it is.
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The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving
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at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at
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the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat. You will love again
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the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread, Give back your
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heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
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whom you ignored, for another who knows you by heart. Take down the
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love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your
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own image from the mirror, sit feast on your life, beautiful. Thank
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you so much for sharing that with us. So that is an example to
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me of this brilliant man using this image of the mirror to say, rekindle
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the relationship with yourself and the image of a man looking in the mirror is
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the pivot, the mechanism by which this reclaiming occurs. If you want one
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more poem, there are so many good ones that I want to be sure
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that I choose well, And to choose, I will select a poem that
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is a villainell, maybe the most famous villainelle of all time. Now,
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a villain l is a very carefully structured poem. It consists of nineteen lines.
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Certain lines recur, they come back again and again, and they're very
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very difficult to write well. But when they are well written, they are
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gorgeous, they are beautiful. And I have three villain ls in this collection.
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The one is one art by Elizabeth Bishop. There's another one called The
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Waking, And this one, of course is do not go gentle, and
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I will read it now if I may, please, do not go gentle
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into that good night. Old age should burn and rave it close of day,
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rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at
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their end, no dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning.
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They do not go gentle into that good night good men the last wave,
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by crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.
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Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught
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and sang the sun in flight, and learn too late they grieved it on
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its way. Do not go gentle into that good night grave men near death
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who see with blinding sight, blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay.
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Rage, Rage against the dying of the light. And you, my
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father, there on the sad height, curse bless me now with your fierce
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tears, I pray, do not go gentle into that good night rage,
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rage against the dying of the light. Beautiful, thank you for sharing those
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with us, sir. Difficult to read the second poem without getting a tear
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or two because of this intense bond between father and son, and the son
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having to say goodbye to his father and wanting the father to rage and not
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let go of life, because the son himself presumably can't tolerate losing the father,
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and he himself is raging against the impending loss. So it is such
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a loving and at the same time terrifying poem because it does confront that last
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moment of the bond between father and son. So here are two very short
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little examples of the kind of connection that I try and create between the reader
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and the writing in this particular book Poetry Rix. The last time you were
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on, I had cheered with you that poetry has always been a form of
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expression for me, especially at times that I've had challenges in my life.
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And my mother passed in January of twenty twenty, and in the process of
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my grieving, I started having these visions of circles and rings in my imagination
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and this poem came through me as part of my healing process. May I
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share it with you? Of course? Yeah. It's called circles and Rings,
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the path of great beauty and so many things, from atoms to galaxies,
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circles and rings, natural wisdom that dwells there within from not to three
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sixty, that magical spin. We circle each other, and He's dance as
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Guy, a circle's soul, the solar romance as Luna circles us in life,
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giving motion, drawing the tides and inner emotion. And the age of
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the oak is found in its rings, as in woman and man and all
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living things. And when the ring stop and life comes to an end,
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we'll all circle back and dance once again. Powerful stuff. Thank you,
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beautiful, thank you, sir, What effect did that have on you?
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What did it have a healing effect? Absolutely? It helped to abate my
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grief. Well, there you are. What more can you ask from words
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than that? Absolutely, sir, Thank you. You're also well known as
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an expert in transcendental meditation, with two best selling books on the topic.
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Transcendence was a New York Times bestseller and Supermind became a national best seller.
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What some of the benefits of a regular meditation practice? You know? As
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I think about how best to answer it, I'm almost overwhelmed by how much
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this practice has done for me and many people whom I know. Some have
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been my patients and clients, others my friends, people I have directed to
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this practice. It is so astonishing that a simple practice. Of course,
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it's simple, but it also needs to be learned and needs to be practiced.
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Of thinking a mantra or a word sound and taking a little time each
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day to do that takes you into a place in your mind that fills you
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with relaxation but also with energy and activation, and at the same time is
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a masterful stress busting techechnique and a magical creative technique. I recommend it to
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my clients who are stuck in their creative processes. I recommend it to people
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who are overworked and have too much to do and are experiencing physical or psychological
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effects of that, and I find it to be for me a foundational habit.
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Absolutely, many of our listeners are regular practitioners of meditation, and I'm
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sure they appreciate the sentiment that you share. Your latest book is Defeating ZAD
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Seasonal Effective Disorder, A Guide to health and happiness through all seasons. You
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are world famous for your breakthrough research with SAD and developing the light therapy to
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treat it while you were at the MH. Please tell us about the nature
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of SAD and how many people this affects in the United States. Well,
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SAD is an exaggerated effect psychologically and physically to the changing seasons. I say
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exaggerated because for many people they can observe the seasons quite pleasantly, the leaves
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changing, the days getting shorter, the days getting colder. These may be
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trivial changes to some, but for a significant percentage of the US population,
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there are consequential changes in behavior and feelings across the seasons. Specifically when the
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days get short and dark. Some people can slow down, eat more,
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gain weight, oversleep, withdraw from friends and family, struggle with their cognitive
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functioning, putting things together, their careers, their professions, and can become
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very depressed and withdrawn. And so this can happen and continue for three four
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five months, starting maybe in September, October, and going all the way
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to February, March, even April. So it's a significant chunk of the
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year and a significant chunk of the population. Some estimate that five percent have
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it to a severe degree. That's probably a good twenty to thirty million people,
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and another fifteen percent to a lesser degree that we call not sad,
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which is the more extreme form, but the winter blues, people who are
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just not at their best. They're not at their most cheerful, most productive,
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most creative in this time. So I would say one in five people
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experiences negative effects at the change of the seasons, and I'm talking specifically here
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from autumn to winter, and then to a lesser degree, this is just
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unpleasant. It's a creative block. It's you less effective, less having less
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of a good time, and to the greater degree it really does impair your
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ability to have relationships and do your work. How does SAD differ from other
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mood disorders and how do you differentiate between SAD and clinical depression. Well,
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to start with, SAD is a form of clinical depression when you've got SAD.
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If you went through a checklist of symptoms that qualify a person for depression,
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you will qualify it just is a specific type of depression insofar it has
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this very clear relationship to the changing seasons. So it is a kind of
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depression. But the kind of depression INSAD is different from some other depressions in
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that in other kinds of depressions you can lose your appetite, lose weight,
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not sleep, and in this kind you often eat more, gain weight,
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sleep more. So some of the symptoms differ, but at core it's a
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type of depression just as bad as any other. It all sounds like you're
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describing when an animal goes into hibernation. Yes, it's a good analogy.
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In fact, one of my earliest patients said, I should have been a
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bear, because bears are allowed to hibernate and humans are not. We are
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expected to get up in the morning and do a thousand things, and when
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all you feel like is curling up in a ball. That thought alone is
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enough to send you into a spiral of depression. Now are there other manifestations
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of sad in other seasons? There are, actually, and in fact I
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do deal with each and every one of them in the book. But summer
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depression is definitely there, and it may well be a response to too much
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heat. And as we know, the earth is getting warmer and areas are
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becoming more and more difficult to endure, especially during the summer, And so
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people with summer said may have a specific vulnerability to the heat, as opposed
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to the winter folks who have a vulnerability to the lack of light. So
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the other thing is that they do have different clinical presentations in that they do
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eat less and sleep less and feel agitated. In addition, the summerset is
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actually more dangerous insofar as they're more likely to contemplate suicide and even go on
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to take their own lives. I happen to love the season of autumn,
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but I know there are many who find a difficulty with that season. What
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about autumn? You know, Autumn is such a fascinating season because just as
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you say, some people are dreading the forthcoming winter, and other people are
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relishing what Keats called Season of Mists and mellow fruitfulness. There's this really gorgeous
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poem called Ode to Autumn by John Keats that really celebrates the sounds, the
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smells, the colors of autumn in a very beautiful way. And so it
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is that the it leaves so many of us go and look at the foliage,
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the ripened fruit, the fruits of summer can make this a very seductive
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and wonderful season, unless you're one of those people who knows, you know
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that if autumns here, can winter be far behind? Not really, So
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I think what the seasons do is they sort of select us out, which
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of us likes this one, which of us likes that one? And I
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think that one useful way to look at the changing year is to look at
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it as like a wheel, the whole year altogether. And so I organize
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my book to go season by season, stressing the good things about them,
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but also the things that you have to watch for. And autumn, of
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course is a time to make a checklist. If your winter is a troubled
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time, spring can be wonderful and be a release from the winter, or
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it can be a trouble in its own right. In fact, you know
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most of people do take their own lives in those who do are going to
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do it mostly in spring and summer, as I mentioned, not in winter.
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So I think that we have this beautiful diversity in our population, and
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that diversity is shown in so many ways, and one of the ways that
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it emerges is in our different responses to the changing seasons. My guest is
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doctor Norman Rosenthal. His latest book Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder, A Guide
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to health and happiness through all seasons. Doctor Rosenthal, please share with our
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listeners when they may get your books and find out more about you and your
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wonderful work. Well, yes, thank you. You can reach me on
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my website at Norman Rosenthal dot com. There's a page on Amazon of all
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my available books, and just as we discussed, there are two books on
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transcendental meditation, Transcendence and Supermind. There is my last book, Poetry RX.
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There is a kind of a memoir and self help book combined called The
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Gift of Adversity, and it's all about growing up in South Africa coming to
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America. Some of the famous and fascinating people I've met, including Victor Frankel,
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who wrote Man's Search for Meaning. That was one of the most meaningful
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visits that I've ever had with somebody, because he was certainly one of the
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greats, the one of the greats in my pantheon at any rate. And
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so a gift of adversity is something worth looking at. Two small chapters,
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each one with a little takeaway. And I took that format and repeated it
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in poetry RX. So each of the poems has it as a series of
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takeaways things that I've learned from them, and hopefully some of my readers might
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learn as well. And then, of course, my latest book, Defeating
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SAD, is really a condensation of four decades of my work in the field
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of seasonal effective disorder and seasonal changes. In this last book, I have
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very deliberately made it short, simple, to the point I feel like people
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these days don't want a long rigmarole, they want give me the bottom line.
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So I have, but I have tried to pepper it with some intriguing
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quotes and intriguing little vignettes. One of they tell you about right away was
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an eighteenth century French psychiatrist named Esquirol, and a man came to him a
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businessman in the autumn and said, look, the last three winters, I
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have gotten so depressed, I've contemplated desperate things, and I'm about to go
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into winter again. Should I go to a hospital and be confined there?
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And Esquirol said, not at all, that's the last thing you want to
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do. What you need to do is you need to go to the south
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of Italy and stay there through the winter and only come back when the winter
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is over. And this the man did with outstanding results. So just little
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vignettes like that to think that here was this rather brilliant psychiatrist giving this sort
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of very counterintuitive advice because he had already at that time and insight that some
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people people have radical responses to the changing seasons. Brilliant and we'll be back
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with more after these words on the own Times Radio network, the best of
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More than twenty four million Americans have an autoimmuneist disorder, and that number continues
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to grow. I'm Sharon Sailor, and I'm one of those twenty four million.
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To put that number in perspective, cancer effects about nine million, and
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heart disease up to twenty two million. That's why I've brought together top experts
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and those thriving regardless of their diagnosis, to bring you the latest, most
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up to date information. Join me Sharon Saylor Friday night, seven pm Eastern
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for the Autoimmune Hour on Life Interrupted Radio to find out how to live your
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life uninterrupted. Back on Vox Novus, my guest this week is doctor Norman
28:40
Rosenthal. We're talking about his new book, Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder,
28:47
A Guide to health and happiness through all Seasons. Doctor Rosenthal, what is
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light therapy and how does this work as a treatment for sad well? We
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originally conceptualized light therapy as something to replace something that's missing, in other words,
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with the waning light of automan winter, some people were expressing illness as
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a result of light deprivation, and we thought if you just replaced the light
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that wasn't there, people could be restored to their healthy selves. So we
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worked to find ways of taking a box like structure that emanates much more light
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than you would get from your ceiling lights and expose people to those lights and
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bring them out of their depression. And in fact that's what happened. We
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did it with one person, we followed it up in controlled studies, and
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then other people replicated it, not only in the United States but in Europe
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as well, and so now when we think of how to treat seasonal effective
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disorder, light therapy is a primary way to do that. And of course
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there are a lot of little ins and outs of it, which I do
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completely layout in the book. In other words, what kind of light,
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And there are different kinds of boxes from different manufacturers, and people are guided
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through some of the features, like, for example, you don't want a
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teeny weeny light. You want a light of a certain size, maybe one
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foot square in its face that faces you, and so on and so forth.
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There are times of day that are better than others, like the morning.
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There are durations. There are side effects to consider, like not using
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it too late at night and keeping yourself awake, not jazzing yourself up too
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much, which people with bipolar disorder can do not hurting your eyes if you've
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got some kind of retinal problem. So all these things are involved in doing
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a good job of treating oneself with light therapy to help your seasonal effective disorder.
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Now beside also be treated with natural light, yes, absolutely. In
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fact, getting outdoors on a sunny winter day and going for walks can be
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extremely helpful. And you know, hills are wonderful because they offer you the
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high intensity, intermittent exercise that comes from going up and down hills. And
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so that's one thing I do on winter mornings when I can, and it's
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a very very good for your cardiovascular function and for your mood looking up at
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the sky getting the benefit of the light. These are very good things to
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do. And also remember that getting natural light in from outside is important.
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So you may want to from the hedges around your windows, or clean the
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windows which might be grimy from summer crud that has collected on it. These
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are all derivative of our understanding that a lack of light is bad and more
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light is good when it comes to sad. I'm curious. Here in the
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United States, we have what's known as daylight savings time in parts of the
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world where that does not exist. Is there a difference inside? You know,
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that exact question has not been scientifically answered, but I know the one
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thing that daylight saving time does for people with SAD is that all of a
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sudden you are confronted with an extra hour of darkness at the end of the
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afternoon, and this can be very depressing to people with SAD, and to
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counteract that with light at that time of day can be very therapeutic. Are
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there any potential side effects or precautions to consider when using light therapy? Definitely?
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You know you want to, as I said, use a proper,
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well approved light box that has been screened for ultraviolet light because that could damage
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the eyes. You want to use not too much light because that can cause
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side effects and sometimes quite bad ones. If you've got a tendency to mania,
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it can trigger a manic attack, so you don't want to do that,
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and I strain headaches. These can occur. But I should say that
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overall, light therapy is a very benign and well accepted treatment. Now we
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talk about the season beginning and they fall, but when should those with said
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actually start like therapy. Should they wait for that seasonal change or should they
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start before. I think earlier is better, but of course if it's already
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in the middle of the season, then you want to just start as soon
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as you can. But in an ideal situation, the autumn is better because
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then you can pre empt and get ahead of the game and prevent the symptoms
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from occurring in the first place. And of course that makes a lot of
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sense, you know, prevention is always better than cure. How many individuals
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incorporate light therapy into their daily routines, especially during the darker seasons. You
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know, it boggles the imagination to think of all the different ways, but
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typical ways are at your desk in the morning, when you are looking at
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your computer or your emails from the night before, at the breakfast table,
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when you're attending to your personal grooming in the morning. These would all be
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good times because there are times when you naturally are in one place, you're
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not running around, and then of course you get your office, you sit
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down, you can turn on a bright light there as well. The times
35:53
when it's not usually a good idea for most people is very late at night,
35:59
because you can keep yourself up at those hours, and of course we
36:02
all need our sleep. That's another important foundational habit that we need to attend
36:08
to. For those who do incorporate a meditative practice in their lives, should
36:14
that be done in conjunction with the light therapy? You know it's either or,
36:20
because I know that in the winter I need my light first before the
36:27
meditation. In the summer, you're probably not doing your life therapy anyway.
36:32
So but there's such an abundance of light that you have a lot of flexibility
36:37
as to when you do your meditation in the winter. If you have sad,
36:45
often, the earlier you can get your life therapy, the better you're
36:50
going to get traction through the day from that investment. So I would do
36:55
my life therapy first and then the meditation. But if your problem is not
37:00
that bad, you can flip it around. Trial and error is the best
37:05
way to tell you what works best for you. Are there specific guidelines or
37:12
recommendations for choosing the right light therapy devices or sources? Yes, there are.
37:21
If your seasonal effective disorder is very marked, you certainly want to go
37:28
with one of the bigger boxes. If it's not so marked, then a
37:31
small tablet sized box may be fine. Also, if you need to travel
37:37
with your light boxes, then smaller is better, and often clients of mine
37:45
have used more than one of those tablet sized light boxes. A raid in
37:50
such a fashion that the light can come from both sides, almost like a
37:55
stereo system would bring sound from both sides, and that way you can expose
38:01
more of the retina to light. So these are some of the considerations.
38:07
Severity of the illness, cost considerations, portability of the light boxes, those
38:15
would be dominant themes. What is the actual activity within the brain while undergoing
38:22
light therapy, Well, that's a great question. I do have a section
38:29
in my book that looks at that. For some time, it's been known
38:36
that the retinas of the eyes contain receptors rods and cones, other receptors that
38:45
then go to the hypothalamus where the body's clock, the supra chismatic nucleus or
38:52
SCN for short, the body's clock, takes in that neural input and then
39:01
is effective in orchestrating your daily rhythms, your so called circadian rhythms, as
39:08
well as activity, and that in turn feeds back onto mood. But what's
39:15
really fascinating is that more recently researchers have found that there's a completely separate circuitry
39:23
that is specifically related to the effects of light on mood. Again, it
39:29
comes through the retina. Besides the light circuitry that goes through the super chismatic
39:37
nucleus, there's also light that enters the eyes acts then on specific neurons called
39:44
intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells iprgc's intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, and as their
40:00
name indicates, they have an intrinsic capacity to be receptive to light and to
40:08
stimulate the nerve impulses to pass to the relevant part of the brain, which
40:15
is different from the super cosmetic nucleus and is directly responsible for mood. So
40:22
let's go back for a moment to the daylight savings time and the immediate effect
40:30
of that hour of darkness in the afternoon that makes you depressed. And consider
40:37
that if you are going to be giving yourself light at that time of day
40:43
just after that daylight savings time change, that will stimulate those ipRGCs and that
40:52
will have a direct effect on mood. And this is a newly discuss a
41:00
mechanism that is going to, in my opinion, lead us to some very
41:07
interesting connections with seasonal effective disorder. My guest is doctor Norman Rosenthal his new
41:15
book Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder, a guide to health and happiness through all
41:21
seasons. We'll be back with more after these words on the Old Times Radio
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dot Org. Box Novus my guest this week doctor Norman Rosenthal. His latest
44:04
book, Defeating SAD Seasonal Effective Disorder, A Guide to health and happiness through
44:10
all the Seasons. Doctor Rosenthal, please share some of the foundational habits that
44:15
promote holistic health and happiness throughout the year. Yes. I often think of
44:23
Aristotle, who said we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then,
44:31
is not an act but a habit, and the idea of living an excellent
44:37
healthy life is a habit, a set of habits, and I strive to
44:45
live by that because I want to live a good, healthy life as long
44:50
as possible. And to do that, I know I need to exercise,
44:55
some aerobic exercise, some strength training, and I try to that several times
45:00
a week. And I talk about myself, but it's because I would like
45:07
for my patients what I do for myself. I feel like a good parent
45:15
feeds their children what they feed themselves, and a good doctor gives the recommendation
45:24
to their patients that they give to themselves. So regular exercise, aerobic and
45:32
strength training, good sleep, and there's a whole set of items that are
45:39
important to darkened room. Don't push your timeline so that you expect to fall
45:46
asleep in five minutes. Give yourself time and so on and so forth.
45:52
Don't get yourself into a tizzy late at night about stuff. Say hey,
45:58
wait, a sect that can wait all the morning, and so on and
46:00
so forth. So exercise, sleep meditation we've spoken about is another way of
46:08
strengthening the psyche and something that I recommend and practice myself. Diet, of
46:19
course, and diet doesn't mean I'm going on a diet. It's funny because
46:23
you know, when I was growing up, they used to have these fad
46:27
diets like pineapple and chicken diet, and that's all you could eat for a
46:31
week, and then you were supposed to lose weight, and funny things,
46:37
funny combinations that were supposedly combinations that would cause you to lose weight even though
46:44
you could eat whatever you wanted. It was really a silly notion. But
46:47
what we know now is that it's a food plan or a way of eating
46:53
that you know, allows you to enjoy your food. Of course that's important,
46:59
but at the same time time recommends that you stick with certain guidelines.
47:05
So those would be, you know, my fundamental habits, and I do
47:10
mention all of them in relation to seasonal effective disorder. There's a favorite story
47:16
of mine when it comes to transcendental meditation. There is someone I interviewed in
47:24
Scotland. She is a litigator, a lawyer in Scotland who had a very
47:31
prickly disposition. She was very irascible, and everybody commented on it. And
47:39
then she took up transcendental meditation and people said, what's the matter with you?
47:45
Are you well? Others said, are you on medicine? Because you've
47:50
become so nice all of a sudden, And even her opposing counsel in a
47:55
case said, you know, you're a pleasure to work with. This is
48:00
so different from how you've usually been. So anyway, this lawyer, litigant
48:07
in Scotland gave this beautiful description of how her temperament was tamed, as it
48:15
were, by regular transcendental meditation. And she said when she did so,
48:22
she said she would get more the luck of the drawers, how she put
48:25
it, people would be nicer to her because she was nicer to them,
48:30
she said, even those traffic wardens, which was what they call traffic cops.
48:36
I guess even those traffic wardens who love to give me tickets actually are
48:42
now showing me to where I can find a parking space. And whoever heard
48:46
of such a thing. So I think that these habits change who we are,
48:52
how we relate to the world, and therefore how the world relates to
48:57
us. And these foundational habits are very vas valuable and very good for us.
49:01
And how may these habits help impact those who are dealing with seasonal effective
49:07
disorder? Well? I think there are some specific behaviors that are very good
49:12
over and above these general behaviors that are good for everybody, and that is,
49:16
maintain your social schedule. If you have lunch with a certain person every
49:22
week, or with certain groups every week, or however often keep your social
49:29
schedule. Don't fall off the don't fall off the wagon from a social point
49:36
of view, Keep up your exercise regimen. Do interesting things, different things.
49:43
If it's a snowy area, go cross country skiing, if it's a
49:46
hilly area, go hiking. Whatever it is that you can do that keeps
49:52
you feeling alive and engaged and active is going to help your mood. You
50:00
ever thought of addressing news effective disorder or social media effective disorder? Well,
50:07
I think you need to be careful because I think you get a kind of
50:14
an adrenaline high from you know, if you hate a certain person and then
50:20
you join a group all of whom hate that person, and then you have
50:23
a lot of fun slamming on her or him, or a group of people.
50:30
Or you love guns or you hate guns, or whatever it is you
50:35
love or hate. You find a group of like minded people and you reinforce
50:39
each other's preferences and get very riled up in the process. You worry a
50:47
great deal about weight and body image, and you're basically stoking the flames of
50:57
whatever it is that's burning you up. Maybe just cool it, do less
51:04
of that. I know, I used to do much more social media than
51:08
I do now. Right now, I go and find what I'm interested in.
51:13
I don't let the social media crazed d joure lead me by the nose
51:21
and get me all riled up, especially, I might say, late at
51:23
night, with all the negativity being shared on a daily basis, what would
51:30
you suggest that we do. You know, I suggest that we slow things
51:37
down a little bit. And a lot of the things that I've said,
51:40
like the meditation, A good sleep is going to slow you down because a
51:46
lot of us get fueled by our adrenaline and get fueled by our anger,
51:53
and I think we need to take it easy. I mean, we're all
51:57
people. I'm reminded of that wonderful expression by Rodney King, the guy who
52:02
was imprisoned in Los Angeles and really mistreated, and he said, can't we
52:08
all just get along? And it's such a simple statement, and at the
52:14
same time, there was something in its naivete and in its simplicity that really
52:21
tugs at one's heart strength. Can't we just get along? Isn't that really
52:25
what we want to do. We want to have a successful country where people
52:30
are working together. We want to be helping one another the best way we
52:35
can. And if we burn up our energy and our mental energy in battles
52:43
that oftentimes go nowhere, I think we're really moving in the wrong direction.
52:49
What about common everyday kindness and compassion. I think that's one of the most
52:58
important things, kindness and compassion. I think the Dalai Lama put it well
53:04
when he said, be kind whenever possible, and it's always possible. I
53:08
think we need to look within ourselves, because we're not just loving, kind,
53:16
adorable human beings. We're also some of us, most of us sometimes
53:22
angry, envious, competitive, aggressive. These are parts of our fiber,
53:30
and sometimes they're necessary and they do a lot of good for us. But
53:34
sometimes they get in our way when we're being unnecessarily competitive. Not telling people
53:42
that, oh, go up that way and you'll find that you can get
53:45
through the traffic much more easily, or just reaching out in some way,
53:50
you know, go to that part of the store. They've got much better
53:54
fruit than here, or whatever. You know what I'm saying, Just little
53:58
kindnesses that make a difference in a person's day. And I find that,
54:06
you know, I try my best to do that when I can. I'm
54:07
not perfect by any means goodness me, but I'm always I always feel good
54:14
when I do that. And I must say, I feel very grateful when
54:19
people are kind to me. And that happens, you know, quite a
54:22
lot. And the more I meditate, the nicer I am, the kinder
54:25
people are to me. It's called in the TM transcendental meditation, world support
54:32
of nature when nature seems to be collaborating with you instead of blocking you at
54:39
every turn. Absolutely the wisdom of doctor Norman Rosenthal. His latest book,
54:45
Defeating Side Seasonal Effective Disorder, A guide to health and happiness through all seasons.
54:52
Doctor Rosenthal, one more time, please share with our listeners whether it
54:55
can get your books and find out more about you and your wonderful work.
55:00
Thank you, yes, and thank you for a really inspiring interview. Norman
55:07
Rosenthal dot com is the title of my website and you will find all about
55:14
the different things that I offer there, my books, my services, my
55:20
clinical work and coaching, my research. You'll find out a lot about me
55:27
and please come and visit me there. I have a Facebook page, I
55:30
have an Instagram, all the usual ways to connect with people and linked in
55:38
for those who are interested in a professional connection, please come and visit me.
55:45
And thank you for listening to this doctor Rosenthal. Thank you so much
55:49
for joining us and sharing this wonderful wisdom which is so needed in our world
55:52
today. Thank you, sir, thank you and thank you for joining us
55:58
on Vox Novus. I am Victor the Voice Herman. Have a wonderful week,