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Holistic Mental Health · Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!!

• Pete: Welcome to another exciting episode of Peteford Exciting. My guest today is a DMPMAPMHNP-PC. He's an integrative psychotherapist provider. has 10 years in mental health, focusing on serious mental illness, addiction, and pediatrics. Please welcome in the one, the only Josh Waddle. Josh, how you doing, man? Ever wish you had someone to talk to anytime, anywhere, matter what you're going through? Meet PsychPAL, your 24-7 AI companion, designed to help you process your thoughts, calm your mind, and keep you moving forward. Chat anytime during a panic attack on a restless night or just when you need to vent. Prefer talking instead of typing? Try voice journaling. PsychPAL listens, transcribes, and truly understands. You can even upload screenshots of tough conversations, and it'll help you unpack how they made you feel. PsychPAL keeps life organized, too. Josh Waddell: I'm good Pete. Thank you so much, man. Glad to be here Pete: Josh also the host of the Mental Math Podcast, so we'll get into that in a minute. Josh, why don't you tell everybody a little more about yourself, man? That's a lot of titles that came with that beginning. peter: Show ⁓ Pete: It can add appointments to your calendar, track your mood, and even summarize your sessions for your therapist so you'll never lose progress. Plus, built-in crisis resources are always just one click away. It's a privacy-first, constantly evolving, made to complement your professional care, not replace it. Ready to try it out? Head over to the link in this episode and use my code, Pete, at checkout to get 20 % off your first month subscription to PsychPAL. PsychPAL, because your mind deserves a companion too. Josh Waddell: so I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner. ⁓ was a mental health therapist before I went back to school to prescribe medicine. And so just throughout the years of working in primary and rural communities and in different kind of clinics and those kinds of things, I really seen a lot of shortcomings within the treatment we were providing. ⁓ of the work that we do is incredible. Some the medicines we use is awesome. But for a lot of people, wasn't working, right? And so that kind of got me into there's got to be more. And so that's how I got into the integrative space. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: And so using a lot of holistic interventions and evaluations. I'm also a professor at Yale University and I specialize in psychopharmacology. And so trying to figure out these medicines, but then also how these herbs and these vitamins and these minerals also can play into that is something that really fires me up. And so that's kind of what I do and how I spend my time in the mental health space. Pete: Yeah, yeah, man. Since starting the show, like I hadn't got big into holistic until I met a few people that were doing like energy healing and things like that. And then all that kind of stuff. So I thought it was very fascinating to me. So I went down the rabbit holes and started discovering things about it. So I liked the fact of integrating all these different things. You're not just stuck on one track only. You you're always looking for something new to add to the program for people that you can open their eyes to other things. Josh Waddell: Yeah, and I think it's something to remember, like, there's so many different polarities in the concept of mental health, right? You go to one space and it's like, medicine is the only thing. And then you go to another space and it's like, medicine is terrible. And I think there's this middle ground, you know, and a lot of it is trying to figure out, are you someone that would respond to medicine? And if you are, how do I leverage that? And if you're not, then how do I find these other interventions that can be very helpful to you? And so over the years of just trying to figure out some of this, you know, trying to... Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Josh Waddell: piece together maybe this, what I call like a phase system of illness, you can start seeing how it emerges. And if you can figure that out, I truly believe a lot more people can find healing. And so I think that's what's really cool about the integrative space. Pete: So what got you into this whole space in general, There's a lot of titles. You started as a therapist. What got you want to do therapy? Josh Waddell: Yeah, man. So I mean, life is always interesting, right? So we always like to say, ⁓ you know, research is you search kind of stuff. And so I think that that's how I got into it, right? Just knowing people around me and experiencing things in my own life and just trying to figure out stuff. And so that got me really interested in the mental health. And so as I kind of navigated the brain concept and therapy, I really enjoyed doing therapy. That was something that was fun for me, but I knew there was more to it and I really wanted to prescribe medicine. Not only better understand like why people took medicine, but then also maybe they didn't need them. And so that's how I got into wanting to prescribe. And then as a prescriber, just seeing people not respond, you know, I think that's what's really tough about, you know, any kind of training you get, especially 10 years ago, the training you got was very Western medicine, heavy diagnosis treatment. And so when you start seeing that not work, it's very frustrating, right? You know, in psychiatry specifically, we have this thing where we're treating symptoms. that we cannot see the cause to. If I was in cardiac, I can see where the heart's messed up. If I'm in endocrinology, I can see what's going on in the thyroid gland. If I'm in gastrology, I can see what's wrong with the stomach. But in psychiatry, we can't, you sometimes we can, but we just, we don't know. And so trying to figure that out really made me like think there's gotta be more to this. And I'm a big ancestral kind of guy, know, ancestral medicine. And so when you look at it across history, this stuff's not new. It's just how we treat it is very new. And so that's why, that's why how I got into that space is. Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's so interesting, though, I mean, because it is it's been there for a while. You know, we've used it for so many other things. And it's just like medicine gets a bad name for a lot of people because just the different experiences they've had with it, you know. And nowadays, it's really scary if you watch these commercials on TV like, hey, here's this great medicine right here. They're making all flashy all the great commercials and then the side effects. go down to the low level on that one. We don't leave those real out loud. And then you're watching them and the side effects are just like. It's crazy because you hear people like they have experiences with them, which I get medicine has its place and where it needs to be and things like that too. It just worries a lot of people because they're like, that's what they think that the main cause of going to therapy is, well they're to give me medicine right away. Now, whatever you're dealing with, maybe it does require you to have some kind of medication help control something. I could see that, you know, where it has its place, but I think people are so scared to go to therapy and that they even have a problem because everyone judges them for that. Josh Waddell: I would agree with that. You know, I think there's always that fear. You know, it's the same thing that happens in like primary care and other spaces where, you know, grandma went to the doctor and died five days later. So that's what happened to me too. You know, and that's actually not true. know, those aren't the things that are going to happen. But on the other side of it, you know, the medicine is important, right? I tell my students all the time, I love integrative health. I think it's incredible. I think we can prevent a vast amount of health issues. However, if you were running around butt naked thinking you're Jesus, the only thing that's going to calm that down is an antipsychotic. Pete: Yeah, yeah. Josh Waddell: Right? Like, that's it. Like you just, like, we've got to calm that down and then we can figure out this other stuff. And so I think that there are spaces where the medicine is wildly helpful and there are spaces that maybe we jumped too quick to it. And then so because of that, now we have weird side effects and those kinds of things. And I think it's just trying to find a balance is really, really important. Pete: Yeah. You know, and then people have access to the internet now and then they can look up things and they web empty stuff and then you start telling them something of cancer and all these other wild like this. I'm like, I think there's another step you're missing in between there. But OK, you know, it's like. Josh Waddell: Well, and I think, you know, yeah, and I was going to say, what you have to think about in the world of mental health is that when you start Googling stuff or you start webbing, whatever you want to do with that, we have to remember that even what we use to diagnose isn't that great. Right. You know, the DSM is really just a symptom cluster, right? It is a group of behaviors that are identified as maybe abnormal. And you can, if you have a bad day, you could Google that and look like you have like 10 different things. Right. So it's just one of those situations where being okay, checking in with yourself, knowing is this a natural human emotion to something that naturally needs to have a response? Or am I just sitting here on the couch and I'm so anxious that I can't sit here? That's an entirely different concept. Pete: Yeah. Yeah, no, very true, very true, though. So let me ask you this, though. What are your thoughts on emotional regulation in younger kids? Do you think we should be teaching them younger on how to do it? And if so, what age do you think that we should start giving them an idea of what these feelings are so maybe we can better have better outcomes for them? Josh Waddell: You know, think emotions are really interesting because across cultures, emotions are fairly consistent. However, we live in a culture that we don't have a lot of words to describe our emotions with, right? And so we're really kind of locked into these like almost like echo chambers of like happiness, you know, or anxiety. And so it's kind of this umbrella term. I think it's really important for a kid to know what they're feeling right now. I'm really big on, I don't care what you call it. You just need to have a name for it. Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Josh Waddell: Right? And so if a kid isn't quite sure what they know what it is, I'll say, call it purple unicorn. I don't care what it is, but we got to give a name for it because if we don't name it, we're constantly worried about something that we just don't know what it is. And so I think giving a name is really important. However, as I think as kids get older and the frontal lobe begins to develop out and they can begin to make more insight and higher level thinking, it is important to start adding on more names, right? What does it mean to actually be anxious? Pete: Yeah, exactly. ⁓ Josh Waddell: I think anxiety is definitely one you see where it'll kind of rear its head in a lot of ways, but maybe it's just nervousness because you're about to have a performance or maybe you have a test the next day. And for your friend, they were told, well, feeling nervous and worrying and having sweaty hands, that's anxiety. But for you, that's not anxiety. That's your body activating for your test. And so I think it's really important for parents to educate their kids on what is actually happening to them. Pete: Mm. Josh Waddell: in that emotional state. Pete: No, I agree. think that if we start teaching them at a younger age, how they better understand these things, they can start identifying anything, you know, maybe we could help them sooner before it develops into something even worse than it would have been. What it wouldn't be, you know, had we caught this early on and started trying, helping them understand these emotions and work through them. Cause I think that's a lot of times they see a lot of people get upset and they're not sure what's going on. And then it's like, ⁓ you know, and then people try to like basically act like they're stupid, but they're not, they see all these things. Kids as early as four will see these kinds of things and are watching everything we're doing around us. Like, I don't think people realize how much stuff they're actually watching. And then they'll think that, okay, this is how I should interact with other people, you know, cause mom and dad are yelling all the time. They're watching you do these things. Like they know what you're doing. They may not be able to put a name to it, but they have an idea of what's going on around them. You know, and I think that that's the main problems that we treat kids like they don't know anything, but they really know a lot more than we give them credit for. Josh Waddell: Yeah... Yeah... Absolutely. think remembering that will show us ⁓ to show we are unwell. Society as a whole will show us how we're going to show we're unwell. ⁓ then our and our family structure will show us how to show we're unwell. Right? So if I'm a kid that grows up in a place where maybe mental illness is wildly prevalent, right? And it's really pathologized and everything is pathologized. I'm going to automatically think that that's a situation that's going on. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: However, if I'm a kid that grows up in a place where emotions are never talked about, I'm not gonna know what to do when they come up. And so I think it's really important if you're a parent or a caregiver or whatever that is, being able to say, am helping my kid know how to show things aren't okay? And if I'm giving them a template that's not very good, man, I've gotta maybe change that because ⁓ kid, ⁓ all are gonna respond to that. Pete: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great question. Yeah, definitely agree. think that we need to get them a better toolkit for the future. That way they know exactly what to do better in these situations and things like that as well. ⁓ get into the Ruka Well. That's your company, right? ⁓ did you start that exactly? Josh Waddell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is part of a desire to get into the integrative space. I've been in community mental health for years and I like community mental health is very rewarding at times. You can be very frustrating at times because these systems are pretty broken, but it is great work to be able to do. But I wanted to get more into the integrative space and that comes with doing different lab testing, more time with people, those kinds of things. And so that's how Aruka really came about was there had to be a way. And so I created a pillar system. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: that I believe tell us what triggers your mental illness, right? know, something's going on either in the body, the mind, the spirit or in your environment that kind of creates this shift. And when that shift occurs, it sets off a cascade of changes. First, I believe it creates like cellular changes, right? At the metabolic level. And then that leads into those neurotransmitter changes that we see from medicines and those kinds of things. And so the whole focus is to try to help people figure out. Pete: Yeah. Josh Waddell: how did this get out of balance and how do we restore that? And so sometimes whether that's nutrition or stuff we do in therapy or like spiritual work or environmental, whatever it is for you, it's really important. So that's the whole focus of Aruka is, know, we primarily serve people in Florida right now. We hope to get to other states soon, but we work virtually. We'll see you. also prescribe medicine if you need it. But really the whole focus is can we figure out how you got out of balance in the first place? Pete: Yeah, we just had somebody on a minute ago. I was doing an interview prior to this one. He's in Florida as well. He runs a he runs a mental health law. He's a lawyer, but he was on mental health law and things like that, too. So it's it's interesting, you say Florida, because today seems to be the theme of the day. Like I get these people that come on the show in groups. So there's like weird things like energy healers. They show up in strides for people from Florida. Here we go. Florida, Florida. But you're right. Josh Waddell: Florida man here we are Pete: But Florida's thing is really weird though, because he was telling me about the bake rack and all that stuff, and how they could just scoop you up and then you just disappear in the system. I'm just like, wait, what? That's insane, and things like that. Josh Waddell: Yeah, we are in a really interesting place here, primarily because of the concept of a Baker Act and like what that looks like. And to a point in hospitalization alone is a hot topic, right? I mean, that's been debated for ⁓ the 150 years, 200 years has been discussed, even at a level of like small pilgrimage towns that's been discussed early on. But when you think of it from the Florida level, Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: You know, if you were having a mental health crisis, right, deemed by a significant other, you know, a teacher, whoever they come up and rather than there being an EMT take you or something like that, you will be put in the back of a cop car and taken to a hospital. And I've, I've seen it and it is, it's, very uncomfortable as a provider to write those Baker acts. And to a point I've seen them happen and they get into treatment and man, changes their life and it literally saves their life. They are on the edge of killing themselves. And now they're not doing that. But then I've also seen maybe a school system use it or a teacher, whatever. And it just creates so much chaos. So it is a hot topic. think we've had more, the state of Florida has more involuntary hospitalizations than any other place in the country, I believe, for kids under the age of 18. I think that's it. I know there was a New York Times article a couple of years ago about that. Pete: Well, why do you feel like that's happening though? it because we're not teaching these kids what these emotions are and they don't know what they're feeling and it's being misrepresented by other things? Because everybody's quick to say mental health. And then when it's like you go to the topic, it's like, ⁓ nevermind, we're going to sweep that on the rug. We're going to leave it alone because nobody wants to touch that subject. Like these school shootings that were happening, ⁓ these kids had mental health. OK, so what are you doing to help them? You know, like the NFL for certain, like we just lost another young gentleman to suicide. You know, it was the kid that played for the Vikings. I found out about this one recently. We just lost him to suicide, And it's like, OK, it's great. see that the kid with the Cowboys had the problem, too. Now the kid with the Vikings, it's like maybe now is the time to start doing something for these poor guys. know, these younger guys are getting put in these situations, you know, and like the younger kids, too. It's like just crazy, you know. Josh Waddell: Yeah. It's wild when you think about it, you know, I mean from like, you know, from an athlete either at the prime of their health, right? Like these guys can bench more weight, run faster, perform at a high level, you know, whether it's due to CTE or whatever, they're finding themselves in a really tough place, right? And so they're, you know, taking their own lives and all of these things. And so it's trying to figure out what's going on for them at like that metabolic level. But I think to go back to your first question about Florida, I think what's really interesting about here, especially someone that Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: who's worked in like rural Appalachia and some of those other places. What you see here is this profound wealth disparity that is like in your face all day long. At the same time, you have communities that are wildly polished. so that in itself is ⁓ to think about that there are counties ⁓ Florida, in America, in Florida that are food deserts that have no access to healthy food. to think that that resource doesn't exist. So I think you're looking at a systemic problem where there's not a lot of resources in many counties. At the same time, you have this very wealth disparity that's really in your face. And then I think there's a group of people that just find themselves being on the wrong side of metabolic health. We know that obesity is very prominent in the South. We know that a lot of these issues are there. And so we know ⁓ a huge correlation. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: with obesity, cardiovascular disease and mental health problems, vice versa, right? We know that people who are depressed and anxious more likely will have cardiovascular disease and obesity. And we know that people with obesity and cardiovascular disease are more likely to have mental health issues. It kind of goes back and forth. And so I think that those are kind of some of the reasons why that we really see some of these huge challenges in Florida, which you wouldn't think like anything of Florida is this place. It's got a lot of money and you're on the beach and there's all this stuff, but. Pete: Yeah. Josh Waddell: There is a really interesting dynamic here that rears its head a lot and it's unfortunate. Pete: Yeah. I think they want to touch on something really fast. You said food, I think is a very interesting thing. People don't put food in the category, which you're to help, but what you eat and what you put in your system can change your state of mind and things like that. You think about all that crap that we peddle in all day. If you sit there and read some of these labels, it's very scary. Me and another guest, Amber, she she specializes in just that. She and I were talking about like the things that are in your food are just it's insane. Like you could pick up a fresh vegetable or you could pick up this fast food. What are you going to pick? I was going to take the fast food because like, I don't like the veggies. But it's like, you could make simple changes in your life and change the way your thought process goes to in the way you feel just by making small adjustments and changing some of this stuff out. Like, you know, people are so scared these days and they're like, ⁓ organic costs so much. It doesn't really, it costs you about the same, but you you're coming out with something very more nutritious than what you're eating before, you know, and it affects your mental health the whole time because everybody's telling you, ⁓ your brain is no, no, no, this and Your driving engine is actually your gut. Think of where all your food goes and everything else gets processed through. It's really your gut that is really driving the engine, it's not the body, it's not your head. You your brain sure directs things and sends those impulses out, but your stomach is really where it's at. Josh Waddell: Yeah. I think about, knows what serotonin is, norepinephrine is, and dopamine is. And something I always like to highlight is those don't just pop out of thin air, right? Those neurotransmitters aren't just made for the heck of it, right? They require precursors and those precursors require minerals and vitamins, specific minerals and vitamins to convert ⁓ to become serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. And so you can take an SSRI all day long for your anxiety. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: But if I'm not even making enough of this neurotransmitter because my diet's so poor that I can't convert over tyrosine to, or I can't convert over tryptophan to be able to have serotonin, then ultimately it's not gonna matter. Because it's gonna be a low version of that, right? And so I think that ensuring that you're eating really healthy food is paramount. Now, ultimately, people have heard me say this before, we in a world where health is not a right. It's not a right to be healthy in America. And that's really unfortunate, but it's not. And so because of that, getting healthy food isn't as easy for some people as is others. But if you can just prioritize it, right? Do the very best you can. Eliminate the bad stuff like you're talking about, those toxins and those ultra processed foods that are super inflammatory, that create all these problems. I we could riff on hours for that alone. And then just put good food in your diet. Man, I'm telling you, like I tell people, my standard is eat food. ⁓ Pete: Mm-hmm. Right, exactly. Josh Waddell: that was once alive, now it's dead, and if I don't eat it, something else will. Right, so meat, fruit, and vegetables were once alive, we picked them or we killed them, now they're dead, and if I don't eat them, something weird's growing on them, right? But that Doritos bag, that thing's in your cupboard for a year, and you can still go in there and eat that Doritos. Why did the environment choose not to eat it? Because it's not nutritious. It prefers not to be ate, and nature knows that, so it's not gonna eat it. Pete: Yeah, you know, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Think about it. Like, what was that test in McDonald's where they were watching the burger for all them years and it never changed any colors? I was just like, and you say, think about how many of those burgers you ate till you're like, ⁓ God, it just makes you sick. was it? Josh Waddell: Yeah, I mean as a kid, ⁓ my gosh, the man at McDonald's, I'd eat the chicken nuggets. ⁓ my gosh. Pete: Yeah, yeah, that's still my guilty pleasure here and there, but it's like a very minimum. do it though, you know, because I'm looking at more of what I what I'm putting in these days and anything like I have a really bad caffeine consumption. I mean, I guess that's my only advice I really have. Like, I'm really bad. And people are like, ⁓ you need to stop drinking all those all those things. I'm like, I don't drink them. It's a session. I think like one. That's it. If I have one, it's just one. You know, but it's like, you know, even those, even if you think about all those energy drinks, the big fad now and this other energy drinks, my kids now are like drinking these things. I'm like, y'all shouldn't be drinking those. Like, don't don't follow my footsteps, please. For the love of God, don't fall in and drink these things because once you get hooked, man, you're hooked, man. You're that caffeine rush hits you and you'll feel it afterwards. Josh Waddell: Yeah, it's really interesting. You what does it look like for the developing brain to consume these neurotropic kind of things? You know, and I think that we just don't know yet. I mean, but it's clear that, you know, some of the stuff in, if, if taken naturally in certain instances would be very helpful to you, right? So take an L-theanine to decrease the jitteriness with your caffeine is really helpful to some people, especially if you're prone to anxiety, but you're looking to improve focus and concentration. Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that. Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: But if you don't have a problem and you're just consuming it for the heck of it at Blake Hall of Duty, that's probably not very helpful to you. You know, and so you're going to find yourself getting really like cranked up, you know, because of that. And so I think that's, see it's some people who just eliminating that alone, man, is such a huge thing. think remembering too, and a lot of those energy drinks, they are naturally occurring molecules that are taken and broken down into a synthetic version that's been put into that. Right. You're not, you're caffeine from coffee. And your caffeine in an energy drink is very different. so I think that's important to remember that that coffee bean, ⁓ stuff in it to kind of neutralize some of the things you're experiencing. Removing 150 milligrams of caffeine from a coffee bean and dropping it inside an energy drink, that's a completely different world. Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah, because you change you're changing exactly what it is. You're making a synthetic version of it. And it makes sense. So, you know, it's my it's my guilty vice. Like, you know, I only I it's like one of the things I can't give up. I'm like, I love it. You know, some days I'm wired and people like, Pete, have you slept yet? No, no, I haven't slept yet because I work over night. I record during the day most times before my schedule before it was like I was recording every single day. I had two episodes a day. I was recording with people and I was live most of the time because I joined a podcasting network when I first started. Josh Waddell: Yeah! Pete: I got invited to join. So I was like, well, forget it. might as well do this. You know, I didn't, I didn't realize how bad it was for me and how bad my depression was swallowing me at the time because I was just like, I never like the room I sat in when I recorded the first season, I never left that room most days. I only left when I went to work and I came back and like most people didn't even know that though. Like nobody had any idea how bad I was struggling while I was doing it. You know, now it's like I get up now, I go do something else and you know, I go to the gym and I get out and do walks and things like that. Josh Waddell: Ugh. Mmm. Pete: I'm more proactive now where I am than I was before, you know? it shows, like, people can see the difference in my mood versus where I was before to where I'm now. It's like, you know, in all these little changes I'm making are helping. And I'm diabetic as well. So like, I really have to watch a lot of stuff I'm doing. So, you know, I have to be really careful. lot of things I'm putting in. I do drink an, ⁓ drink a lot of water though. I'm like, I'm very, very, very good at my water intake is really good. I'm up to like a gallon a day is what I drink, but I'm just like, you know, Josh Waddell: Yeah. Pete: It helps though, but the caffeine helps me keep going some days, but at the same time, you know, people want to me hell about it and things like that and all that great stuff. So it's all right. I'll get over it. Josh Waddell: Yeah, I I consume I mean I can see with a decent amount of caffeine I consumed some before I train and then I consume some again and my problem is I love to sit with people and talk and drink coffee that's just like one of my favorite things to do and so I'm bad to be like I could use another cup if I'm having a podcast from meeting with a student today or I've got clinic today I'll just sit and talk to you but it is something to think about right of just like how much am I stimulating myself and can my my dopamine can dopamine respond to Pete: Yeah. Josh Waddell: Can my levels balance themselves out and restore back to normal? Pete: Yeah, I'm pretty good about it. Like I'm not, it's not as bad as before. Like it doesn't affect my anxiety like you did before. Like I tried different ones. Um, so I go, I don't go as crazy. I go very light on them. So like I get enough. I get that where I get that feeling I want, you know, I'm that fixed, but at the same time, my hands aren't shaking because I drank some where my hands are just shaking. I'm like, yeah, probably should drink that second one. Pete, how many have you had today? But maybe two or three, you know, I don't know. Lost count after a while. I'm tasting colors at this point. Everybody just starts laughing at me. They're like, what the hell are you doing, dude? Like, oh my God, you're going to have a heart attack. I'm like, I probably am. It feels like it, you know, but, you know, but yeah, yeah, my anxiety though doesn't do so bad with some of them. I tried it. I Red Bull is I really, I can do Red Bull usually pretty okay. I have to stay away from Monster because I can have it once in a while. It's like, eh, you know, C4. I've tried a lot of them because I'm just always curious to try some of them. Josh Waddell: Yeah! Pete: You know, there's something, because I work nights and everything else. It's hard sometimes for me to sleep during the day. So I need that little caffeine boost to go, I will drink coffee too, but I tend to drink more coffee than I do energy drinks. Like if I drink them, I'll have more cups in succession versus just that one energy drink. Cause it just, it kind of balances me out a little bit, but I've learned not to go overboard where it sets my anxiety off. So I have like a panic attack and things like that. And I start freaking out. So, you know, it was, it was a balancing act and things like that, but I do drink a lot of water too. So it offsets the balance a little bit too. and things like that too. But mentioning the podcast, Josh, let's talk about your podcast, Mental Maps. When did you start doing it and what is the concept of your podcast? Josh Waddell: Oh, great, great question, man. So I, during COVID, you know, we all had things where you're like, let's try something. And so was like, my wife had been on me about, should do a podcast. And I had some interns at the time. They were telling me to do the same. So I started it and you know, imposter syndrome and some of those things exist in all of us. Right. And so I was like, I don't know. And so I kind of played around with it a little bit. And then about a year and a half ago, I was like, well, I'd say about three years ago, I was like, let's get serious about this, you know, and I still was kind of in and out. And so the whole focus of mental maps is trying to understand. Pete: Yeah. Josh Waddell: Why does the brain get sick? How does this organ that can contemplate the meaning of life find itself becoming so unwell that you can't function as a human? And so the whole focus is trying to figure out why is that occurring and how can you either prevent it or help it? And so we've got to spend time with the chief minister of mental health in Finland and all the work that they done there to decrease their suicidality because they were the highest suicide place in the world for a long time. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: We've been to Costa Rica and talking to shaman and the psychedelic space. We've had numerous other guests on. I just released an episode last week with Dr. David Bilstrom, who's talking a lot about epigenetics and how to turn genes on and off, which is really big in pediatrics right now of how to maybe treat autism and fix those issues before it gets out of control. have some really cool stuff coming down the pipeline that we've recorded. And so really the whole focus is just trying to understand from that. those pillars I talked about before, right? The body, the mind, the spirit and environment. Why do brains get sick? And everybody's different. And so trying to understand what is your trigger that then set off this metabolic issue that ultimately created what someone labeled you as depressed or anxious. Pete: So as a podcast, let me ask you, what was your early on struggles? Was it the consistency of getting up and recording it? Was it figuring it out? Because like when I started, let me tell you what, man, I didn't know digital calendars existed and all these other great things that are here to help you. I was literally scheduling everything on my own because when I, lit the concept out of the bag, what I was thinking of, I kid you not, I had 150 different responses to the right off the bat. was like, holy crap, dude. I realized people wanted to talk about this so much. And then I was trying to schedule people two days on a Monday, just two time slots. had one time slot at first. I shut off to the end of year. like, you know what, may open a second one. Cause the podcasting there where I was part of, they were still new. And I was like, Hey, listen, I got it. So extra amount of people that want to be on the show. Do you think I can use some extra time spots? And they're like, yeah, if nobody's there, go ahead and use it. Okay, cool. So then I started doing a second time slot to the end of the year. And these are all live episodes I'm recording. These are done to pre-record like I'm doing now. you know, but the concept took off so fast. I was like, I was giving myself anxiety really bad. My anxiety was really bad because I'm sitting there trying to try to message people constantly. Now it's like, I have all these things in place to start filling it out. But I noticed that the man though, for to be on this show was insane, dude. Like come November of the first year, like the first half of the season, my first season, literally to the July of 2025, I was literally booked out with people that were just lining up to be on this show. And it was that insane. I was like, Josh Waddell: Yeah. Pete: I'm like, damn, people just want to talk to me. So the imposter syndrome set in a little bit there because I was like, the fuck, everybody has to talk to me. And like, all I'm doing is having a conversation with people about mental health. And I was always curious why we're not talking about it. Like you see these doctors and everybody else. OK, so like, the average people just having conversations, which is great because I don't know a lot about things, but I go down and riff and rabbit holes when I meet different guests and check out the stuff they're doing. And it's been great, though. I mean, I've met a lot of really cool people on the way. I've hosted some other podcasters on the show. I've had one that's got like 2.7 million downloads on her show as well. That's what I'm saying. I've had a lot of really cool people on here. I've had musicians come on because I love music and a lot of them are mental health driven, things like that. I've had an assorted amount of guests. I've done like 300 interviews. I did about 100 in the first, I think I did about 100 in the first season of just interviews because I was just really pushing hard the first year until I finally decided, I was like, you know what? I'm not going to keep doing this. I got to change something. So I changed it to like now I bulk record them. two days a week I'll bulk record a bunch of the interviews and I'll spit them out from there. Cause I dropped three episodes a week. Cause that's how many people I have lined up that want to be on the show. So like I spread them out, you know, and I'm always looking for interesting people. Like I go on the internet, I'm looking at other people, I meet different people, weird, really interesting stories. And so far this season is probably going to be the wildest one of all, because like we, even the season opener for this one, the girl that's on there, dude, she's talking about some wild, she literally went home. She said she went home, went downstairs. And her exact statements were, drank bleach and then I cut my wrists. And I was like, up, what the fuck? I'm like, I'm speechless at this point, Josh. Like, I'm not saying much. I'm like, what? What did she just say? And she's just telling you about it. It was the craziest thing ever. But when you get into space and these people you meet, it's so interesting to hear what they have to say, because the stories are so interesting. ⁓ go through and you have no idea what people go through. Like I've known this girl for a little bit and then she came and told me that story and I was like, fuck, what the fuck, huh? Hold up, what? You know what mean? It's like, it's the craziest thing you ever hear in your life. Josh Waddell: When the brain becomes unwell and how things can just twist, and I think that's what's so important about all of it is that you bring up a great space of like, all of us as providers, we can talk about the science of it and all the different things, but at end of the day, this is happening to real human beings, right? And so as it's happening to real human beings, it sets off a cascade of effect, right? There was a paper that was published last week that showed that the toll of schizophrenia along in 2024, Pete: Hmm? Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: was like $3 billion America, right? Like it is a ⁓ impact across numerous domains, right? And so when you think of that and you hear these stories, it hurts your heart to think that the brain can get that messed up. But then we always have to remember, know, suicide is when your brain becomes so sick that it's easier to die than it is to live. And that in itself is a pathology, right? That is because your body, Pete: Damn. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Josh Waddell: it desires to live. Everything it does all day long is trying to keep you alive. So as soon as that shifts, man, you've got problems, you know, and I think that it can turn it, can rear its head in lot of different ways. And then once again, we know that culture will show us how to show, I mean, we'll see places where we all have these epidemics like Guyana, the country of Guyana in South America, where they had a mass outbreak of women setting themselves on fire. And that's how they died. And so Pete: Cheers. Josh Waddell: One of the reasons why and how, what they ended up figuring out was actually it had to do with more of a protest, but women did not want their families to have to deal with their body. So they would just set themselves on fire. And that was just something that would happen. So I think that there's so many complexities in it. And so it's just trying to figure out how did your brain get to that place in the first place? ⁓ Pete: You know, this is a topic of suicide is a very interesting one. You know, a lot of people that find out that either you've attempted or you survived it or some you know has done it, they get so weird about it. just took I never really understood the concept of why people get so weird about the conversation. No, it's a tough conversation to have. But it's like then you make people feel weird about it, even even substance use. This is what substance use is there too, because if you think about it, it's the same concept. Like they find out that you're an addict of some sort. People look at you in a different light when at the end of the day, it was, you were just really just sick. didn't, you didn't know better. Like you were trying to solve the problem that you have. And we know mental health and addiction go hand in hand a lot of times because a lot of people are trying to self-medicate to solve these problems. Same thing with suicide. Sometimes they're having these thoughts and they don't know what to do. And if they go talk to somebody, most people look at you like you're crazy. Like, Whoa, hold up, wait a minute, because they're not equipped to handle the conversation, you know? And it's, sad when you hear a lot of these people that are taking their lives and things like that too. You know, it's just, it's just crazy. Like we were talking about the NFL guys earlier, you know, it's like these two young gentlemen are 25 and the 20 range 24 and 25, like, they're, they're ended up taking their own lives. It's like, what more could we have done for these guys? You know I'm saying? Like they're in the NFL, you know, things like that. know the history of the NFL, like with Junior Seau, he had that, he had that issue with all those concussions where he ended up going, you know, going crazy and everything like that too. And all the other really wild things you hear. it's just like, it's sad because the fact that it's like, It's becoming a problem. Josh Waddell: Yeah, and I think, at least I'm a huge football fan, right? I love football, I love sports, it's awesome. But I do think that we can't devalue the concept of head trauma. I had the ability to hear Dr. Walla speak about eight years ago. He was the one that founded CTE and got a lot of flak from that. Smith played him in that movie. And one of the things that we see is that if you chronically damage the brain, right, it's gonna be easier to get all of your thoughts messed up. For example, we know Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: If you, if me and you were in Colorado, right, or any high altitude, there are more suicides that occur between 2000 and 3000 feet above sea level than any other place in the world. And the reason for that is a decrease of oxygenation to the frontal lobe. Well, if I'm chronically damaging my frontal lobe, hitting it over and over and over, it's going to be easier for me on a bad day to make a bad decision. You know, and I think a lot of these guys, I think sometimes we have guys that get to like a quarter life crisis and they don't know what they're doing. And so it's like, how am going to live life? Not playing ball. Pete: Yeah. Josh Waddell: But I think a lot of it is they just have a bad season of life, but their brains have been impacted so much that it's just easier to harm themselves. And you'll see them, have all the protective factors. got family, they got friends, they got resources, they got all the things, but they still do that. And I think it's a perfect example of what happens when the hardware that regulates your ability to make good decisions becomes damaged. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: It is really really sad and for whatever reason we see it more football, know, I mean it's surprising We don't see this more in hockey, know, it's there in hockey where there's cases of it there but it's really Heightened I think in football and then there could be a gamut of reasons why the way you're hit and what that looks like I know all dr. O'walla talks a lot about that where you know that movement back and forth really is the driver to Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. lot of brain damage and things like that, too. And it's just it's just hard to watch. Even some of these celebrities that end up taking their lives and then all these other people and, you know, like Heath Ledger overdose on drugs and all that stuff. And then, you know, like, say, you know, like Chester Pennington had that issue, too. He was always open about his mental health and talking about how he struggled, you know. And it's like, you know, lot of people always ask themselves, what could I have done more? So do you have any advice for anybody that they may think that somebody may be doing those kind of things like something they should? that hey, listen, this is how you can be more proactive. Josh Waddell: Yeah. And I think if you're, whether you're a family member, you're a provider, you're afraid, whatever, don't be afraid to ask the question, right? You know, don't be afraid to create that conversation and then don't. And what I would recommend to say is don't have a lot to say about it. Just listen, just create a space for someone. Because ultimately what I believe is that one of the reasons people begin to want to harm themselves is that it keeps all in your head. And we all know that if you stay in your head, you can make yourself believe anything. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: Right? If I believe life is terrible and I live in my head long enough, I can make myself actually believe life is terrible. And so just creating a space for someone to just get it out and talk about things, asking those questions. How can I help you? What do you need? But really just create the space. Right? And I think if you do that, we talk a lot about the trifecta or the triangle, right? And it's really hopelessness, hopelessness and purposelessness. Right? So if someone is hopeless, Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: If they feel like no one can help them and they thought they have no purpose, those three are always the indicator, the trifecta of that you're at a really high risk of harming yourself. So if you're sitting with someone and you're talking to them and they're like, man, I just, feel like there's, there's no reason to be here anymore. I feel like, you know, I'm not going to be at, no one can help me. Nothing can fix this. I have no purpose in life. There's no reason I should be here. That's when you're like, this is probably not good. ⁓ as a provider, one of the most profound questions I'll ask to the patients is. Is it truly wanting to die or is it just wanting a lot of this to be over with? Because if we just want it to be over with, the brain's going to come up. There's a big red file many times in our filing cabinet in our brain, not to make it root of injury, but to kind of make that as an example. And it's going to say suicide. You can open that up and pull it out. And the brain's like, well, this could be an option. But many people have the insight to be like, that's not an option. But if you truly want to die, that's a whole other gamut, right? That red folder. It's got some purpose behind it. It's got some power. And so that's when we really have to spend some time and kind of figure out what we can do. And then, you know, a lot of it is just being around people, creating the communication, as I said, and then trying to get that treatment, right? You know, whether it's medicine, therapy, whatever that looks like, just restore some balance so that the brain can get well. Pete: Yeah. No, I agree. So Josh, before we start wrapping up, do have two questions for you. I ask everybody that comes on the show these two questions. OK, so the first one for you is that if your mental health had a song, what would you say that song would be? Josh Waddell: Oh my gosh, my own. Oh, I think there's some days where it's like the day to remember of. But I would say, you know, in a perfect example. Oh, man. Pete: I'm very curious to know the answer to this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh Waddell: think many times it's more of like a, I know if you knew, don't know this band's really popular at 21 Pilots is really popular. There's a band, there's a song that they have called Ode to Sleep, right? And so it's like this really fast paced happy song and then they'll have like a little bit of downtime and then really happy song and then a downtime. And I think, I think that happens a lot in my world. So I'd say that one. That's a good question. Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's a pretty good one, man. It is a really good question though. Trust me We get a lot of interesting answers to that question though. A lot of people are just like ⁓ man That's really good because you're always interested to hear what people say because music is a big part of our lives Think about it. Like when you're in a bad mood what you're playing. You're listening to something. You have that one song you always gravitate towards so but that Josh Waddell: Man that's a perfect evening this morning We just got like our first kind of good run here in Florida and North Florida like 70 degrees and so that we had the door open this morning getting ready for work and my wife had this like on Spotify on it was just an awesome vibe. They just like set her day on all right Like we're just kind of vibing all morning. We got like some MGMT going and we got Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: You know, some of that indie kind of rock going and it was, it was cool. You're right, man. Like anytime I'm at, and I think that's something as a coping scope, you're having a bad day, throw some tunes on and just see if it can let it get it out. Pete: Mm-hmm. Sometimes I use music to explain how I'm thinking some days. Like people like, how are you feeling Dave? Hey, let me put a list together for you. And it'll go all over the place, but it'll make sense though, when you think about what's going on in this playlist. know, so I thought it pretty fun because I'm a big music guy. Like I could talk music all day. In fact, I had a guest on and he was using music with little younger kids. That's a therapy tool for them. He's like, you know, and things like that too. We, got into this whole discussion about it for like an hour straight of just constantly talking about it. So, but you know, It's a great tool. really is, man. You get that one song and you hit that you're just like, man, or you got that one go to playlist that you're just kind of like, it just sets you off for the day and sets the mood right for you and things like that. Josh Waddell: What I think not, mean, you take in the song, which gives you the opportunity to like express how you're feeling at the same time, you're going to get some neurochemical changes because of what you're listening to. But then it's also flooding the brain. And I think that's something that's really cool. Even though we live in a world that's really stimulating a per for a perfect example, one of the, one of the best things to do in the world of auditory hallucinations is to flood the auditory cortex. And so there's many times I'll use like earbud headphones. If that person's going to go to Walmart or whatever that looks like. Pete: Mm-hmm. Josh Waddell: and just drown out that auditory cortex because it can't do two things at one time. It's really hard for that area. And we know that area is really impacted by hallucinations. So it's interesting how not only can it make you feel good and do things, but if you're just needing a distraction or you're needing to flood your brain with something, man, music is a great way to do that. I definitely agree with that. Pete: Yeah, it is what we do. So Josh, the next question and the most important reason why I started this podcast is that if you can break the stigma about mental health. Now, when I say this to you, I'm asking you the one thing that drives you absolutely crazy that people always say, what would you say that one thing would be? Josh Waddell: What's the one thing I would say that it would be? I think the statement that this won't ever get better, this can't get better, or I'm always gonna be on this medicine forever. I truly believe there is a root cause to every mental health issue. I truly believe that. I truly believe that there is something that happens at the cellular level, metabolically, whether it's at the mitochondrial level, whether it's your gut microbiome, whatever it is, it triggers something that has created your problem. And if you can figure that out, You'll get better. I'm telling you. biggest challenge for people is they get so stuck in just medicine after medicine after medicine or therapy after therapy after therapy when really there's something else going on. So if you're out there and you're struggling, just know this is fixable. It's easy for me to say that I'm not in your brain, right? I'm not the one that's went through what you've been through, but I will tell you that as someone that sets with people day in and day out, it fixable. Just keep swimming. Just keep working it. Just keep finding an integrative provider. ⁓ that's open to looking at these root causes and it will get better. You'll figure it out. I mean, there's great research to show that. It's just figuring out the why. Pete: I agree. Josh, thank you so much for coming to hang out with me. And this was a great conversation. I really enjoyed YouTube. Before we start signing off, can you go ahead and plug exactly where everybody finds you, where to find your practice, where to find your podcast, all that kind of stuff. Lay it on a man. Let him know where find you. Josh Waddell: Oh yeah, yeah. So if you're interested in getting involved in some of the stuff that we're doing, Aruka Well, A-R-U-K-A-H is the name of my company. And so it's the holistic integrative company. If you're willing to, if you need help, we'd love to help with you. If you're a provider, we have a consulting company that we just kind of help people learn some of these integrative practices, how to use herbs, how to use certain medicines, how to leverage these things. So you can find that at ArukaWell.co, that's C-O, somebody took my M. Thanks a lot, whoever has my ⁓ So we're .co in that world. If you're on Instagram, we're a Rukowell life. And that's where a lot of our stuff comes out of. Even the stuff about mental maps comes through that. And so you can follow my podcast at mental maps. We're on all the different platforms, we're on YouTube. If you're really interested in it, if you want to know about something, man, throw us a message on a Rukowell. Let us know what you're interested in. I can do my very best to connect with somebody that's either doing it or speak on it myself. But that's the best way to get ahold of us and be involved in what we're doing. Pete: I love it, man. Thank you so much again for being here. I appreciate coming to hang out with us, I really do. Do you have any final parting words before I start signing off? Josh Waddell: Yeah. No, mean, I think, I mean, thank you, Pete, for creating this space. think it's really awesome that you have this experience and just having these conversations, you know, for many people who are struggling just to hear someone talk about it, I think is huge, right? But just know too, if you're out there struggling, man, just seek help. You don't, you are not created to live this way. I truly believe that. And whatever has happened in your life to make you feel that way, man, it's not your fault. And so figuring out what has caused it, that is the most important thing you can do. to get well.