Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / How To Contain Your Brain and Worry Less, With Clinical Psychologist Dr Lillian Nejad

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How To Contain Your Brain and Worry Less, With Clinical Psychologist Dr Lillian Nejad · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Doctor Lillian Najad, Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Paul.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So you are a clinical psychologist. Tell me how did
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you get into that? What was what first spiked your interest.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: In doing it?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Because it's a long old road of study, isn't it.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Probably nine or ten years actually in total. Well, it's
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: an interesting story. I think my choice was based on lifestyle,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: surprisingly enough, so I went you might recognize my accent
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: as being American. So I went to university in the States,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: and I was on a path towards law school, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I really do think my mind's probably geared towards that.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: But when I was in I was doing psychology as
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a major, and I got to do some really interesting
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: projects like go to the UK and study children, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I got to really see how my psychology professors lived
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: and what their lives were like, and what their environment
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: working environment was like. And it really appealed to me.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: And so I'm like, do I want to spend my
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: life reading law books in the library, or do I
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: want to be on a campus full of vibrant learners
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: and teach people things and have a career that had
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of variety in a beautiful environment as well.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So actually that's so I started going down the path
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: of psychology instead, and then I ended up moving to
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Australia and doing my postgraduate education here, so it was
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: like a master's in PhD com buying program. And during
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the course of that was when I discovered that I
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: really enjoyed doing the clinical work and that probably academic
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: life well it's very different here anyway, so I wasn't
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: going to have what I was envisioning anyway. But it
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: turned out that I really enjoyed doing the direct clinical
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: work and seeing that process of change that people go
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: through in that space. So that's why I continued to
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: do that for my career for the most part.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So you went down the road of practitioner rather than
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: academic I did.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I did experiment with academia for a few years in
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the middle of my career just to check that I
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: did the right thing, and I enjoyed my time as
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: an academic and lecturer, but I really prefer the direct
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: clinical work and everything that comes with that.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So let me get throw some statistics at you and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I want to get your opinion, so we know that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: right now. The Cochran Australia Review showed that one in
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: seven Aussies, one in e It Brits, one in the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Kiwi's and I think from memory in the States is
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: about to seem are on antidepressants like one in seven
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: to one in eight of US and in Australia where
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the second highest consumers of antidepressants in the OECD countries.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: What is going on?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds like a lot, and it is a lot.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I think part of what's going on is that we
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: saw a massive spike in anxiety and depression during and
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: after the pandemic, so a lot more people were experiencing
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: significant stress. And often what happens when people do experience
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: those kinds of symptoms as they go see their general
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: practitioner for help, and which is what you want them
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to do. But what can happen sometimes is medications can
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: be used as a first line intervention, and sometimes that's appropriate.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Most of the time that's appropriate alongside therapy, and sometimes
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: only therapy is necessary. Really just depends on what the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: person's presenting with. Generally, the clinical guidelines talk about depression
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: treatment sort of best practice is therapy alongside an antidepressant potentially,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: whereas anxiety disorders are sometimes often sometimes and maybe often
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: now treated with antidepressants as well. That's not necessarily the
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: first line of treatment for an anxiety disorder. Generally, psychological
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: therapy can really assist on its own with most anxiety disorders.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: So potentially there might be more medication being used than
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: is needed. But at the same time, we definitely see
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: that more and more people are experiencings psychological distress, and
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: that's maybe partly due to what we went through a
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: few years ago, and it hasn't completely alleviated yet. But
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: also there's a number of factors that are kind of
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: impacting us in society and just in our daily lives
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: that are causing people to feel more anxious and more
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: depressed and experiencing things like burnout as well and having
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: trouble sleeping, and those are kind of like the top
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the top things that are concerning people at the moment.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we will do definitely a deep
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: dive into those things. I think a massive contribution to this.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: So there's two There's two things. Number one, eighty five
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: percent of psychiatric medication in this country is prescribed by
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: non psychiatric doctors, which I find absolutely bonkers. And as
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you said, but I think with the pandemic, I think
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: what it did with such a shortage of psychologists, the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: default then just became to go on an antidepressant for
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: both depression and anxiety because there was just such a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: shortage of psychologists.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And psychiatrists yes.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: And psychiatrists yeah.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: And then when people are in that, I mean, we
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: know not the withdrawal effects when you try to come
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: off are pretty horrendous. We won't do a deep dive
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: in this because I'm going to talk to doctor Mark
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Horowitz about that, because he's a real expert on this
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and he's written the Maudesley d prescribing guidelines.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, he's of the viewers.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Several are that about fifty percent of people who are
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: on these medications could get off them with GP help
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: or with other assistants. But I think what also plays
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: into this that nobody talks about is that number one,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: only twenty percent of Australians hit the recommended guidelines for
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: physical activity. And we know that that is massive, like
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: exercise is a more effective treatment for depression than antidepressants
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: for mindor depression. But also I think the ultra processed
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: food consumption in this country is crazy. We are in
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the top six in the world. Those other companies that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I talked about Australia and New Zealand are sorry in UK,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: New Zealand and the US are all in the top
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: six of the world. And you know this is not
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: your area, so you probably haven't seen it. But very
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: recently there was an Umbrella review, a review of systematic
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: reviews published on ultraprocessed foods and find class one convincing
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: evidence that increasing ultra processed foods increase the risk of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: anxiety about forty eight percent, to common mental health disorders
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: by fifty three percent. Right, you take those two, You
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: take the fact that we're spending a shitload of time
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: on screens, especially use absolutely that is then then interfering
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: with sleep, and we know that sleep deprivation in and
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of itself can cause anxiety and depression or can can
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: massively increase your risk. For me, when you take our
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: lifestyle combined with eating shit food, not sleeping well, too
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: much time on screens, and not exercising, I don't think
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: he can expect to be of good mental health if
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: not your lifestyle.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you have to have the basics covered to
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: reduce your vulnerability to stress, to chronic stress to challenges
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: to psychological stress. And even though it's basic, right, these
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: are just foundational things everybody knows, like the five things right, nutrition,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: physical activities, social connection, relaxation, and sleep. You know, we
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: need these things to keep us well. But as you say,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: they can also be used as interventions, you know. Often.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I have I remember seeing a client
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: a long time ago, and she was coming in for
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: anxiety and I was out, you know, doing the normal
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: assessment that you do with someone and asking her the questions,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: and I usually ask a about substance use and abuse
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: as part of that, and there wasn't really any alcohol
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: use or anything like that. The next time I saw her,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I remembered I forgot to ask about smoking and coffee,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: and so I asked her about that and turned out
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: she was smoking I think three packs of cigarettes a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: day and having eight cups of coffee before she even
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: left the house in the morning. Cops, Yeah, eight and
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: like maybe twenty five total a day. So jumping Jesus exactly.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: So if I hadn't asked that question for those questions,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: I would have been treating anxiety and it wouldn't have
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: been really doing anything, because I the main to start
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: with really needs to be let's reduce these stimulants in
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: your system which were astronomical, Like, no one's going to
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: be able to function well or sleep well or manage
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: their anxiety under those conditions. So it is really important
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to assess those factors as well and encourage people to
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: make those basic foundational changes when you're treating anxiety, depression,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: or any other kind of mental health condition.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely so.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Look, you specialize, and I mean you do lots of
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: different stuff, but one of the things that you specialize
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in is anxiety disorders, which we know is increasing and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: particularly amongst teenage girls. And we say particularly from social
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: media coming in and the smartphone. I think when they
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: came in at twenty and ten, Like the anxiety rioates,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the self harm rates, the suicide riots amongst teenage girls
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: went crazy boys increased, but nowhere the year as much
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: as teenage girls. Are you seeing similar things in your
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: practice that there's more and more teenage girls coming to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: you and presenting with anxiety.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I generally see people who are eighteen and over. However,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I am I do inform myself of what's actually going
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: on amongst the youth population, and I do see young
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: women who are eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one, so.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I think the status seventeen percent of Australians have experienced
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: and anxiety to sort in the last twelve months, and like
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: you said, among certain groups it's much higher. And among
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: women in general it's always been higher than among men.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So it actually makes us that among girls it would
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: be higher than boys. But it's interesting that it's spiking
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: even more so, and possibly part of the reason for
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: that is the impact of social media and the way
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: that women are treated on social media is quite different
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: to how men may experience it, which could potentially cause
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: not just anxiety, but a whole other, whole range of
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: other issues. But certainly, yes, it's a problem.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I've got another little little theory which I think contributes
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to this, right, and it's an area that you're familiar with,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: which is workplace, Bernard. So there's been a number of
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: studies because I was diving into this for my PhD,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: so a number of studies that have shown and these
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: are studies that follow people over a couple of years
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and do fMRI studies of their brand and ask them
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: about the amount of stress in their life and then
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: reimage their brands. And what they've seen from these studies
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: is that people who report significant and continuous workplace stress,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: we see significant structural and functional changes in the brain.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So there are Migdala's hypertrophy, the frontal lobe shrink and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: because stress kills off neurons in the frontal lobes, and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: it affects women more than it does men, right, significantly.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And I was wondering about this, and I think, and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you know, this is just purely speculation on my point,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: but I think that's a there's an evolutionary biology effect here, right,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that it makes perfect sense to me if we think
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of caveman days and where we've developed from, and the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: fact that our genome hasn't changed in forty five thousand years, right,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that's from Professor Frank book. So we have a hunter
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: gatherers genome, and the men were out hunting and the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: women were gathering and bringing up the young and protecting
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the young. So it makes perfect evolutionary sense to me
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that females would be more hypervigilant to stress and more
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: affected by stress than meals. Right, And because of that,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: you really don't as a species want your men who
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: are out hunting to be hyper vigilant to stress and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: threat but it is an advantage if the females are
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: because they're looking after the young.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: And all of that stuff.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to get your thoughts, and I mean,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it's sure speculation.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Well that's really interesting. I think part of that also,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: like you said, whatever you practice is what kind of
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: how your brain develops. So if you've had evolutionarily men
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: being the hunters and gatherers and approaching dangerous situations and
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: threatening situations all the time for the survival of their families,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: then their brains are wired in a way to withstand
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that better. Because I mean, if you think about the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: treatment for anxiety, part of it is exposure therapy, right. So, right,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: so they've just been if you've got to say, working
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: on your theory, you've got males with male brains and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: they're constantly exposing themselves to anxiety provoking situations. Then over
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: time their brains have developed some resilience to that, whereas,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: like you said, with females, their job was different and
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: so it wasn't to approach threats, it was to avoid.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: So an avoidance is really counter to the treatment of anxiety.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: But it was functional then because they needed to do
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that to stay safe and survive. It's not functional now
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: because most are the things that people feel anxious about
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: aren't actually dangerous. Yeah, correct, but our brains don't know that.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: So it's about learning and understanding what is the function
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of anxiety and being able to decipher for yourself what's
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: actually going on. But also is it functional or dysfunctional?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Is this serving me or not? Because sometimes it might be,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: but most of the time it's the people that I see.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: It's it's often misfiring. It's you know, it's signaling a
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: threat that doesn't actually exist, or it's exaggerating a threat
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: that might that you know, people are thinking may happen,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: or it's lasting longer than it needs to, or it's
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: occurring more frequently or intensely than it needs to. So
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: all of those issues make anxiety dysfunctional. Whereas if it's
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: actually signaling a real threat and it's communicating to you
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: that you need to do something about that, and it's
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: helping your body prepare to deal with it, and it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: motivating you to take effective actions to manage the threat,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: then it's working and you want anxiety in your life
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: for that purpose.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, one hundred percent now on that theme. So
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this is a bit of a long winded question and
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'll get your opinion on it. So that whole exposure
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: slash avoidance and again this is just a personal opinion,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but just you know, I have an eighteen year old daughter,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: so I kind of know what goes on. I know
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: what goes on in schools, I know what goes on
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in universities. For me, there is a real danger that
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: well intentioned awareness and intervention campaigns can potentially be contributing
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to this. So we know that universities now and schools
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: are completely littered with trigger warnings around everything, and that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: people can opt out of things. And there's a nice
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: meta analysis done of trigger warnings that showed that in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: quite a lot of cases they make things worse and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: even for people with PTSD because they encourage avoidance behaviors.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Right, So, but thinking about the amygdala as well. For me,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: if you're.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Constantly being told this might be upsetting, this might be
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: something that you don't want to see.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Every time that.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Happens, you're a Migdala sits right up and goes, oh,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: hold on, a minute, there's there's threat here, and I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: actually think that we are potentially potentiating people's brains to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: stress and threat and also with that, again well intentioned stuff,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: so much discussion about mental health. I actually think we've
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: probably gone too far for some people, particularly very impressionable
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: young people.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, really interesting are looking.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: For an identity, right because you look at it and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the stats are the way worse in schools and in universities.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking to lots of businesses right now that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: are saying that people are coming out of university with
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely no resilience whatsoever. What's your thoughts on that as
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a theory.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think that's super interesting. I think that
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: on one hand, we want we know that there's information
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: overload that's causing a lot of stress, and we want
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: to effectively limit that to some degree so that you're
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: not exposing yourself all the time to trauma and disaster
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: and problematic news and all of that sort of stuff.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, you don't want want to
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: shelter people too much to the realities of life, correct, Right,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So people have to know how to deal with challenging situations,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: and they won't know how to do that unless they
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: are challenged. And so I think it's a balance, right
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: that we have to kind of maybe we've gone you know,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes when things are transitioning from literally nothing about mental
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: health and well being right, and no sensitivity at all
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: about what might be triggering to somebody and what might
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: be traumatic information for somebody to receive too, the overcorrecting
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: which sometimes happens in that transition of like now we
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: need to put a lot of focus on and talk
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: about all the time, and perhaps the balance is still
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: off and we need to kind of create more of
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: a balance with that. I think with resilience, the research
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: that I've done on resilience, it's three factors that contribute
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to building resilience, and the most important thing is who's
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: who are the people around you are? Do you have close, supportive,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: positive relationships not only that support you, but also model
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the use of skills, the use of the challenge, you know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: going through challenges and seeing how they can do that effectively,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: seeing how people around you can deal with distress and
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: approach things rather than avoid things. And that's number one,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and then number two would be your own self belief,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: your mindset, your yes, that's right, self efficacy, all of
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: those things. And then the third is like your skills,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Like what skills do you have to deal with the challenges,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the ups and downs of life, to deal with the
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: potential you know that the expected things. We're all going
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to go through challenges, so we have to expect and
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: accept that we will. So do you have the skills
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to manage stress stressful situations? Do you have the skills
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: when you're confronted with information that is distressing to manage that?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Do you know what works for you to calm down
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and to reduce physical or cognitive symptoms of anxiety? Those
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: are really important. And also you know, obviously those aren't
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the only skills. There's our communication skills, into personal skills,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: social skills. I mean, there's so many skills that we
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: need to kind of function effectively in the world. But
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: those three things, in combination with people being at the
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you know, the the heart of it, like number one,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: are really important to build resilience. So in what ways
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: are we not supporting young people two build those skills
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that they need to develop a mindset that is optimistic
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: and determined and persevere and willing and courageous and willing
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: to approach challenging situations and who are who is there
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to support young people and to show them the way. Really, m.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I think there's a I wholeheartedly agree with all of that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I think there's something extra in there as well, and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: my PSDs on resilience and hardiness.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And for me, there.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: A huge element of this is been the environment that
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: we're brought up in. That is has been shaped over
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the last decades, starting in the nineteen eighties with the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: whole self esteem movement that came out of the United
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: States that boosting people's self esteem falsely, and now this
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: whole movement of helicopter parenting and coddling kids and keeping
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: them away from stress and going oph the you know
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: they've been through, they've been through COVID.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: We need to protect them.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And so I'm going to give you one of my
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: favorite quotes on this from Epictetus, the historic philosopher, who
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: two thousand years ago said we must all undergo a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: hard winter training and not enter into lightly that for
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: which we have not prepared. And he was talking about life.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I believe there's I mean, there's so many
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: factors that come into it, but I believe it's pretty
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: significant that our kids are too sheltered, and particularly in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: this country, Like people who say Australia is hard, it's
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: not hard. This country has it easier than the vast
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: majority of the world's population. And you know, when people
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: talk about COVID being traumatic, our grandparents went to war.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: It's not worse than COVID nine. I know there was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of mental health issues that came out that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: weren't even acknowledged or addressed or those sorts of things.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: But what I'm getting at is that the hardest thing
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you've ever feest is the hardest thing you've ever feest,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and that becomes a barometer for what is tough.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Do you get my point?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I do. I understand what you're saying. Look, for sure,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of things in pop culture that have
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: been damaging. I think that's one correct. There's certainly things
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: now that I find really harmful that are prolific in
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: our culture now. And and also that start it would
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: have started like twenty you know, the positive thinking movement
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: that started twenty years ago, right, this idea that we
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: should be thinking a certain way all the time, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that destructive or negative thoughts are bad and should be
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: avoided at all costs. It's absolutely impossible. It's impossible. But
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: also what you've created, and this might in my theory,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is these kinds of thoughts have or belief systems that
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: have come through wherever somebody's written a book and people
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: everyone you know is proliferated via OPRAH or somebody that
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: people are afraid of themselves. So for instance, like if
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: you say, if you say your thoughts have the power
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: to you know, if you think positive believe, then you
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: will get what you want in life.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Right, you can manifest, you can manifest the universe.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: So if that's the case, then what happens if you
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: have depression or PTSD and all your thoughts are filtered
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: through those disorders, and they're going to have a negative filter,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: They're going to be destructive, they're going to be pessimistic.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: All if you believe that your thoughts have power in
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: that way, then if you're going to be consistent with
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that belief, then that means your negative thoughts have power.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And now all of a sudden you have something to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: be very anxious about, because now you have the power
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to harm people with your thoughts, or now you have
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the power to bring bad things into your life because
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: you can't help but think of negative things. You can't
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: help but worry. You can't help but have those random
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: destructive thoughts come in your mind. And what then happens
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: is you become hypervigilant of those thoughts and will become
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: hypervigilant that's all we think about, or are we try
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: to suppress the thoughts. While suppressing your thoughts also leads
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: to you thinking about them more. So, when you think
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: about things more, it can make you believe that they're meaningful. Right, So,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: if you're thinking about something you don't want to think
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: about it, and then that it keeps popping back in
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: your head and you don't understand the mechanisms of that,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: then you start thinking, well, it keeps popping back into
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: my head, it must be true, I must I should
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: be thinking about this. This all of a sudden has
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: more meaning. Meanwhile, your brain is rewiring as well, right than,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: those connections between all of those thoughts are becoming stronger
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: and stronger, And then you end up highly anxious. You
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: might have a whole range of problems related to that.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I see a lot of people with where they have
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: You know, part of OCD can be being worried that
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: you're going to do harm to someone, for instance, and
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: they really believe because they thought it, it's going to happen, right,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: So it leads to all of these compulsions to try
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: to neutralize the thought, neutralize that from eventuating. And part
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of what I have to do as a psychologist is
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: address the pop culture movement of manifestation and this idea
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: that all of our thoughts are meant to be a
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: certain way, and dispel those kinds of myths and beliefs
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: and say, like, no, we have like up to eighty
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: thousand thoughts a day. A lot of them are going
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to be destructive, a lot of them are going to
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: be negative. You know, We're going to have visions that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: you know, visual images in our brains that we're not
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: that are unpleasant. We're going to have memories that we
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: don't particularly like. There's all of these things are normal processes,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: but we're we can pay attention to every single one
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: of the thoughts that come to our head. What we
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: end up paying attention to is what we practiced paying
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: attention to and given meaning to.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: So you talked about attention there.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I actually think that this is a huge part of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: it is are where our attention actually goes. So in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Japanese psychology, which my wife's practitioner, in Marita therapy, and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: in Stoic philosophy, by the way, similar ways of saying
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the same thing, but in Japanese psychology they're very overt
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: about it, and they say, the most powerful thing in
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: your life that you have control over is the flashlight
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: of your attention. And as a neuroscientist, I love that
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: because you'll know this as well. Whatever you pay attention to,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you brain commit sales to. And in Japanese psychology and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Marita therapy they say, the issue is not that you
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: have negative experiences or you're having negative thoughts, they're just
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: that's a quintessential part of being human, right, It's the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: fact that so many people shine the flashlight of their
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: attention in their own heads for long periods of time.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And to your point, if you're having those negative thoughts,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: you're shining your attention on those negative thoughts, your brain
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: is committing sales to it. It's potentiating you're a migdala.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: And then you get into the tyranny of the shoots.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't be having these thoughts and then you throw
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: in this world that we live in with all this
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: advertising and marketing that we should be happy and it's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: all about happiness, happiness, happiness, and people expect to be happy,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and they're shining the flashlight of attention in their own
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: heads and they're trying to fundamentally change reality.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they've been said that this is the version
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: of reality that they've been fed. Yes, And that's the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: unfortunate part. There's some very very low quality information out
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: there on well being and just misinformation, and unfortunately it's
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: you know, psychologists or mental health professionals or people doing PhDs,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: you know, like they're not the people that people are listening.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: To, like right, like.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: They're listening to influencers. They're they're getting a version of
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: the story that's really particular to the person telling it
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: and not generalizable really, but it's presented as if it
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: is and it's I mean, I guess one of the
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: most important skills that we can teach our kids that
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I have two one seventeen one's fifteen is critical analysis skills.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: They really need to be able to tell what's good information,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: what's quality information, and to be able to and know
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: how to check that because you can't necessarily just hell
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: by hearing something. But where do you check out your information?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: It's so important because it's, like you said, it's what
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: you pay attention to and then meaning you attached to
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: that you know. So if you think that your thoughts
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: are bad or threatening, right, and they can cause bad
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: things to happen, that actually makes sense for you to
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: be really worried about that. Right. That means anxiety is
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: trying to protect you. They're saying, your thoughts are bad,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: we need to do something about this. I need to
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: be on high alert. So you're going to be paying
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: more attention, unfortunately, instead of less. So it's about dispelling
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: those beliefs and helping people understand that not all your
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: thoughts have meaning. They're not factual. They're sometimes just a
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: string of words in your head that maybe you've practiced
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: over time, and that's why they're bothering you a lot.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Doesn't mean that they have meaning and that they need
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: to cause you any distress, and that takes practice. And
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's through things like mindfulness that people can start tolerating,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: tolerating distressing thoughts without doing anything about it, without reacting
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to it, excepting that they will happen, and taking more
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: effective action as a result.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is you just summed up acceptance commitment therapy
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: in a sentence, right, which I think is you know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: of all the and and you know, I'm not finished
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: my pH d in psychology, but of all the the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: interventions of the therapies, I'm very drawn to act because
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: it's very similar to Japanese psychology. It's very similar to stoicism.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: And basically it's like, you know what life's hard, and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: bad ship will have with bad ship will help. You
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: need to accept that, not try to change reality, but
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you need to commit to action that's aligned to your
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: values that's going to take you towards the person you
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: want to be, right, And I think that has to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: be taught in primary schools right from the get go.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And don't listen to this crap on social media that
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: says that you should be happy and and you know
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the other thing about social media, which I think plays
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: into it, is all the comparison stuff that we're comparing
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: ourselves to the best little her brush snapshots of people's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: lives and thinking that that's the way that our lives
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: should be, which can be really damaging as well, but
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: let's do a deep dive into worry. There's a pretty
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: co research paper that I like to talk about. But
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: they took a bunch of people with generalized anksiety disort
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of done if you've come across this research paper, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: got them to write down everything that they were worried
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: about and in journal, and then they followed them up.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I think it was a year later to go through
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and actually work out what came true and what didn't.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: And it turns out that ninety one percent of the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: stuff that people worried about didn't actually come true.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: That's right, So like, what the hell is? So what?
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Why why do we spend so much time worrying? And
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: what can we do about it?
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And just before you get into that, I think another
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: quote from the stoic Seneca said, foresight is man's greatest
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: gift and his greatest achilles heal, right, because it helps
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: us to plan for the future and do all those
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: things that we need to do to survive and have
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a good life. But it also allows us to worry
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: about stuff. So let's unpack worry.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, worry is our thoughts expression of anxiety. Right,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: It's like all the what ifs and all the if onlies.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: You know, if only is are kind of more aligned
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: with depression, like if only I had done this differently,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: And you know, rumination.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Because it's about because it's about the past. Yes, where's
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: the one that the future?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Right, So that's more aligned with anxiety. Right. So, but
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: like you, like anxiety, worry serves a function. It's meant
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: to help us protect ourselves and prepare. But again, like anxiety,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: it's miss it's misfiring sometimes, right, Sometimes we're spending a
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: lot of time worrying over things that will never happen
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: ninety percent of the time. I read that paper as well.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I think it was a month later that they they
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: checked and not only was it, they also got them
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: to write how likely it was going to happen based
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: on their gut feeling and based on logic, and both
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: were equally just as inaccurate. So it's really it's really interesting.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: But we're spending a lot of time if we're anxious,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: we're spending or depressed, or really, if you think about
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: any mental health condition, worries at the bottom of a
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: lot of them, or at least a significant component, then
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: we're spending a lot of time in our own heads
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: and not focused on what we actually want to do
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: during the day. And we're also spending a lot of
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: time not being able to sleep at night. We're either
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: having trouble falling asleep or we're getting up in the
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: middle of that. We're waking up in the middle of
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: the night with our thoughts, you know, worried about whatever's coming,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever's coming next. So it's can be functional,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: but it can also be really dysfunctional, and it's really
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: important to understand the difference. And I don't think most
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: people are actually have been exposed to strategies to deal
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: with worries specifically, So I think it's a really important
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: thing to get out there.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: So what that begs the question, what are some strategies
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: that people can actually use to deal with worry.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So one of the main things that people try to
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: do when they worry a lot is tell themselves to
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: stop worrying, right, to stop worrying.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: And somebody else tellbody else tails.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, or they get that message from the just stop,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: like what are you worried about? But I think I
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: mentioned this earlier. There's there's a study back in the
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: eighties by David Wagner, and you'll know this. You'll know
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: a study that's similar because it's an act thing as well,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: with the pink elephant. If you tell someone to know
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: about a elephant, that's all they're going to think about.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: So David Wagner did that study in I think eighty
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: seven or something like that, and but his was the
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: white bear. So he just got people to think for
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: five minutes about whatever they wanted, but said, don't think
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: about a white bear. And of course people can help,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: but think about the white bear. So they discovered in
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: that research and further research that trying to suppress thoughts
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: not only doesn't work, but it can actually cause a
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: rebound effect, so it can cause you to think about
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: it more later. Now, another researcher called Borkovic was tasked
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: to try to relieve worry for people who had insomnia,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: and what they came up with was this strategy called
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: worry time. Have you heard of worry time?
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Paul?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: No?
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: But can I have a guess at what it might be?
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Just from what you said, it's you compartmentalize, you set
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: yourself up block of time or you're going to actively
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: worry and then you do all your worrying intensely, and
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: then you get some cognitivesure because your brand is like
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: avoided about that.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It's all good, yeah, perfect, well done, yeah exactly. So
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: what they actually found was if you tell yourself to
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: stop worrying, that doesn't work. But if you tell yourself
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: to delay it to a specific time, you're more likely
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: to let it go. And then what you're doing also
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: is you're setting a time in a place that's actually
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: convenient for you to actually think through your problems. So
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: you're going to be a lot more effective in dealing
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: with your problems than anyway. And also you're limiting the
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: time that you're thinking about your worries and your problems
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: to that particular amount of time, which is it's suggested
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: to be about fifteen to thirty minutes a day to
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: start with as a practice, so it's not a lot
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: of time. So the idea is to when you're kind
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: of well first to set your time and place to worry,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: so that might be let's say five point thirty to
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: six every day, and then when you have worries throughout
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the day, you write them down. So the old school
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: way of doing this that we were talking about, this
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: is a strategy that came out in the eighties was
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: literally writing it down on pieces of paper and then
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: having like a worry box or a worry jar where
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: you store your worries right, and then when you are
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: in your worry time, you just take them out, you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: you can categorize them or do whatever you want to
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: process them and worry about them. Then. Unfortunately, nowadays most
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: people don't really want to write stuff down on pieces
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: of paper. And also it's not the most private and
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: secure way of like dealing with your problems either, Like
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: it's you know, people are much more concerned about privacy,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: and that's perfectly reasonable as well. So just in the
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: last year and a half, well a couple of years ago,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: I was having this conversation with a client about worry time,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: and I could just see that he wasn't going to
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: do it because it was so messy and it just,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: you know, it just doesn't really go with the modern
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: way that we do things. And I just thought maybe
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: if it was an app, that we would do it.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: And so I ended up working with a digital designer
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: and we created an app called Contain Your Brain to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: give people a really practical, modern, and secure way to
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: practice worry time. So what it does is it helped
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: you set your times flexibly across the week. You can
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: set how long you want that time to be up
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: to an hour. We wouldn't want more than an hour,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: and you can get notifications for that time. But then
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: we and then there's a secure place to store your worries.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: So throughout the day, you know, if you've got to worry,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: just quickly add it into the app. You can also
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: voice it in if you don't feel like writing it in,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: and then when you're in your worry time, we have
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: a really simple framework for people to address their problems effectively.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And one of the so we get them to categorize
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: their worries to either solvable worries, unsolvable worries are solved.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: So the research that you were talking about before, right,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: mean that ninety percent of the worries are likely to
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: be in the solved category. And if they choose that category,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: what happens is they get tips that are related to
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: that category. Right, So if you choose something that's already
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: been solved or something that happened but it didn't turn
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: out as badly as you thought, which is the other
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: thing that usually happens. Then the behavior or the action
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: we want people to take is really to reflect on
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: those What are all those worries that are taking up
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: all of your time that you actually don't need to
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: worry about, because once you know what they are, when
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: they come back in your brain, you'd be like, oh, yeah,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: those are one of those ones that'll solve themselves. Be
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: much easier to let those go. And if you can
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: let ninety percent of your worries go, you're already saving
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: so much mind time. Right, you can focus better during
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: the day, probably sleep better at night. But the other category,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: so the solvable category. With that one you would get
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: problem solving tips. I think most people are pretty comfortable
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: with the worries that they can do something about, but
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: if they wanted some problem solving tips, they can get
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: that in the app. It's the unsolvable worries that are
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: the problem. It's the ones that we can't do anything about,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: we don't have any control over, or we're not in
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the power to do anything about them, or they're just
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the reality of life and there's literally nothing to be done.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Those are the problems. Or you know, something's happened in
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: the past and you can't change it. Those are the
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: ones that play on our minds, and so we offer
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: tips to deal with those unsolvable worries too, and are
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: tips that are based in and underpinned by ACT therapy,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: but also dialectical behavior therapy and also cognitive behavioral therapy
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: and positive psychology as well. But there are things that
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: are about how do you tolerate the distress and not
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: being able to solve this problem? How do you accept
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: reality as it is? How do you refocus your attention
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: on something that's better for you to focus on. How
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: do you how can you use gratitude to assist you?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: How do you how can you be self compassionate rather
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: than judgemental of yourself? Those kinds of things. So that's
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: really all it is. It's a very simple app and
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: it just gives people a really kind of easy way
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: to Like you said, it's a compartmentalizing strategy that will
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: reduce the frequency of your worry but also help you
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: solve your problems more effectively if you can accept the
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: problems that you have more effectively and also read yourself
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: of all those little ones that really don't matter that
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: are taking up your mind, so that you can focus
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: on the ones that are actually the most important.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: That is genius.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the concept of worry time
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: in and of itself is quite quite genius. But I
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: like the fact that you've brought the technology in because,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: as you rightly say, a lot of people don't want
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: to write stuff down. But also that you're bringing in
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: one of the key stoic concepts epic titius, the very
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: first line of the encredy on of things.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Some are up to us and others are not.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: And that's that whole stoic concept of everything in your
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: life is in two zones. You know, the stuff that
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: is up to you and the stuff that's not to you,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And you've got to focus your energy on the stuff
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: that's up to you and refuse to.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Invest your energy.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: But I think what's nice is that you're then giving
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: people problem solving tips, so rather than avoiding stuff, they're
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: actually using problem solved in our problem solving focused skills
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: rather than just that avoidant stuff. So that's awesome. I
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: love the concept of that. And now that that whole
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: worry thing brings us very nicely into sleep and actually
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: talking about worry time, I remember years ago when I
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: was running workshops talking to people about a dump pad.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: So this was just a little pad that you have
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: beside your bed. So people who were worriers, I would
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: get them to write down all the stuff they were
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: worried about so that they had some cognitive closure. And
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: there was a lady who was in I works up
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: who had in so many for years, and a couple
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: of months later she wrote to me and said that
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: just was a complete and utter game changer, because everybody
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: will get I'm so tired of being really stressed. I've
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: had a stress to day. I'm going to be asleep
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: in five seconds. They lie down, their head hits the pillow,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and the brain goes on fire. Right, So worry obviously
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: plays really really strongly into sleep. But we know also
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: that if you are sleep deprived, it massively increases your
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: risk of common mental health disorders anxiety depression. We know
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: that if you're self medicating to get to sleep with
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: either alcohol or marijuana, that impacts upon not only deep sleep,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: but ram sleep, and I think Dutch researchers in twenty
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen showed that ram sleep is kind of like nightly
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: therapy for the Brian where you re play the day's events,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: but in the absence of no epinephrin. What I thought
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: was freaking amazing that during ram sleep, you're brilliant blocks
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: the release of no epineffrin from the locus aurelius, so
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: you can remember that event in a less stressful situation, which.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Is just so cool. But let's let's talk about sleep.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I think I think everybody gets the importance of sleep
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: for not just good mental health but good physical health.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: But what are some of the things that people can
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: do as well as using the app or that physical
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: worry time of the dump pod. What other sorts of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: strategies do you have. I mean, we know that CBTI
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: is probably the most effective interventions.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a range of interventions that people can use
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: for insomnia, which is difficulty falling or staying asleep. I
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: think what's really important is for you to understand the
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: source of the problem for you. There's a lot of
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: advice out there, and yeah, CBTI strategies are super useful,
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: but they're not useful if that's not your problem. Right,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: So is your problem temperature, light noise? If it is,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: then yeah, put your thermostat at the right level and
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: make sure, you've got curtains that cover all the light
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: and try to you know, manage noise, maybe where earplugs
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: or something like that. That's that can be really helpful.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Worry actually is probably one of the the main issues
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: getting in the way of sleep. If I when I
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: talk to people and they tell me, and a lot
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: of people talk about how they can't sleep, it's it's
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: quite prolific. And I say, well, what gets in the way,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: It's like, ah, my mind is racing. Well, yeah, that's
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: what it is. So if your mind is racing, then
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: why did you buy blue light glasses like that? That's
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: not going to help you with your mind, right, So
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: it's like, understand what the problem is, what's the source
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: of the issue, and do something about that. So, yes,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: so there might be things about your environment, which we
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: just talked about. There might be things about what you
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: do during the day, like, for instance, the client that
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: I saw with the coffee and the cigarettes and the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: you know, if you're drinking a lot of coke and
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: processed foods and cheese just before bed, and chocolate and
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: you know, all of those things can interfere with sleep
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: at night. Sometimes it's about your routine just before bed
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: that can interfere or that you could change to make
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: it more conducive to being relaxed and falling asleep. Light
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: has a lot to do with it, so you want
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: to be getting really nice early morning natural sunlight if
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: you can, really helpful for your circadian rhythms and making
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: sure that melatonin is working in the right way and
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: firing when it needs to fire, and so yeah, light
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: in the morning and dimming your lights at night. You know,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: if you're watching TV, that's fine, just but turn off
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: all the other lights in the house. You know they
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: don't need to be on. So that can really get
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: you ready for sleep as well. If you're really having
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: trouble falling and falling asleep and staying asleep, sometimes having
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: the routine of going to bed at the exact same
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: time and waking up at the exact same time can
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: be very helpful. But there are other things like if
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: it's a chronic problem, I would say see a sleep specialist.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of things as sleep specialists can
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: do with you that it would be very hard to
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: do on your own. So there's sleep restriction therapy, for instance,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: which is kind of a method of basically just staying
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: in bed for the only the time that you're sleeping for.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: So they it's a calculation that they do and I
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: have I have an online course and a book that
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: describes how that's done, and so you could potentially do
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: it if you really wanted to, but it would be
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: very hard for you to do it by yourself. You
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: would it would be much better if you saw a
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: sleep specialist. And also you can do it.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: There was sorry Leon, there was a guy I think
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: he's from it's one of the Melbourne universities, but he
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: developed this ring and I actually was was I got
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: one of them because he was doing a little pilot
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: study where basically it was four people with insomnia and
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: they would have this ring on and they would go
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: to bed and every fifteen minutes it would it would
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: buzz and they'd have to get out of bed. So
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: what it did is a created massive sleep pressure. And
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: within three nights of doing this, like people got so
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: bloody tired with the sleep pressure that you know that
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: they're they're ins many got massively improved and that that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: was an extreme form of that sleep restriction. But I
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: think one of the issues people have is they just
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: line bit and they toss and turn, don't they And
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: they should really be getting up, going to another room,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: read a book, do some breathing, do something.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Really sharing it. One of the things that can really
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: help though, also is especially if you're going through a
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: lot of stress in your current kind of circumstances, is
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: to try to lower your overall stress levels. And one
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: of the best ways that you can do that is
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: by practicing progressive muscle relaxation. So that's yes, yeah, that
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: relaxation exercise that involves tensing and then relaxing your muscles
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: in your body in a systematic way, and you can
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: do that during the day to reduce your stress and
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: anxiety levels, but you can also do them before you
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: go to bed. One of the things I've done over
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: the years is record lots of these kinds of exercises
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: and they're all on Spotify or inside time or for
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: free if people want to go access them. But I
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: have a progressive muscle relaxation exercise for stress and anxiety
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: that people can do during the day, and then I
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: also have one for sleep that they can do at night.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: And.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: It can be, like I said, really helpful to reduce
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: your overall level of stress and anxiety, but it can
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: also be really helpful just to reduce it in that
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: moment where you want to get to sleep or do
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: something that's going to cause you anxiety.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: And the other thing I would say is don't do
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: cognitively stimulating activities combined with blue light just before you
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: go to bed, So get off your bloody phone and
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: don't be on social media just before you go to bed,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: because yeah, and just going to stimulate stuff.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, and I think it's probably more an issue
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: of tearing yourself away from social media than it is
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: about the light that's actually coming through. But yeah, it's
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: not it's not the best thing to do to be
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: doing stimulating activities, like you know there and everyone's level
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: of that is different, right, So it's not like blanket
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: statement about what's what's too stimulating for one person might
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: not be for another person, but just knowing yourself and
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: being aware within yourself what gets in the way, And
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's not obvious and other times it's like, oh,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: like for me, I had about of not being able
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: to sleep and I was like, what is actually happening?
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: And I realized I don't drink that much coffee. I
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: drink like one a day. But I think I noticed
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: that week I had the coffee after two pm, like
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: it was like late afternoon, Like, maybe that's what it is,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: And so I just stopped drinking coffee after two and
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: it fixed it. Like it's just a kind of being
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: aware of like, what what are you doing that could
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: be impeding on this, what could be the source of
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: the problem, and then targeting that.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: No, look, you're absolutely right.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Some people are caffeine sensitive, right, depends on what version
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of the CYP one A two gene that you have.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: That some people that's actually true, but some people if
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: they have a couple of cups of coffee. You know,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: there are most people that the average half life is
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: about six hours, but for some people who are slow processors,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: that half.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: Life can be ten twelve rs.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: And then so if they're having two, they're trying to
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: go to sleep, and they've got caffeine in their brain
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: at stimulant levels, and it's a pretty stimulant, that's the thing. Right, Yeah,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that's right, Lily, And look, this has been absolutely awesome.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I think we've covered so many topics on this that
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: are are intertwined, and I think that's The important thing
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: is that your thoughts, your worry, your sleep, your practice,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: your sleep, high gen practices, all of those things interact
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: with each other. Where can people go to find out
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: more about your courses to download your app?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Presumably there's there's a website and other things.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, there are, well, my probably the best place is
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: doctor Lilliannaja dot com and you'll see everything there. And
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: if you wanted to get more information about the app,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: that would be contain your Brain dot com. And you
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: can also just download that straight from the app store.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: Cool. What a great what a great name for it.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: You must have been like when you come up with that,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: you must have just been like, yes, nieled it.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: That's so funny. I actually because I've been talking about
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: worry time for years, so I've been calling it Contain
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: your Brain for like ten years. So when we thought
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: about when I thought about doing the app, I'm like, well,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: this is what it's going to be named. I've already
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: come up with the name, and I was really pleased
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: that it wasn't taken, you know, like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that's brilliant and this this has been awesome,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: So thank you for sharing your time. And look, there's
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: no doubt that if people listen to this and and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: start to implement some of the strategies and it will
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: definitely have an impact. And if you're a warrior, you
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: got a bit of anxiety, continue, Brian.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: Dot com, Off you go.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks for take action, right, don't just think about it,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: get into action mode.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: That's right,