Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Seasonal Affective Disorder and Light Therapy Insights from Prof. Norman Rosenthal

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Seasonal Affective Disorder and Light Therapy Insights from Prof. Norman Rosenthal · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:08
Speaker 1: Professor Norman Rosenthal. Welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 2: Thank you.
0:14
Speaker 1: It is very nice to have a distinguished professor of
0:17
Speaker 1: psychiatry tell us about your time working at the National
0:22
Speaker 1: Institute of Mental Health. Are you're still there? I still
0:24
Speaker 1: associated with them.
0:26
Speaker 2: No, I was there for twenty years, but it's been
0:29
Speaker 2: a while, and so I think I did what I
0:34
Speaker 2: needed to do there. I basically described or led the
0:39
Speaker 2: team that described a seasonal effective disorder or SAD WOW,
0:44
Speaker 2: and did the original work with light therapy, which was
0:49
Speaker 2: considered as a joke by a lot of people, but
0:53
Speaker 2: then it got replicated all over in the United States
0:57
Speaker 2: and Europe, I swear, and then it became widely accepted.
1:04
Speaker 2: So that was the main thing that I did there.
1:07
Speaker 2: I did a lot of other things, but that was
1:10
Speaker 2: the big, the big thing that I came there for
1:13
Speaker 2: and that it gave me the opportunity to do so.
1:17
Speaker 1: And that was a pretty big contribution to science. And
1:21
Speaker 1: actually because of that, when I travel to international travel,
1:26
Speaker 1: I have a little light box that I actually bring
1:29
Speaker 1: with me just to help me to set to the
1:32
Speaker 1: time zone. So the power of light is pretty amazing,
1:36
Speaker 1: isn't it.
1:37
Speaker 2: Yes, But that was not understood you know, up until
1:40
Speaker 2: the late nineteen eighties. Wow, And you know, so I
1:44
Speaker 2: came in on the crest of the new science of
1:48
Speaker 2: light and the fact that it doesn't just help you
1:51
Speaker 2: see things, but it actually enables you to sleep well,
1:57
Speaker 2: feel good all year round, et cetera.
2:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, we will dig into all things light
2:04
Speaker 1: a little bit lately. But something I noticed in your
2:07
Speaker 1: bio is you talk about the gift of adversity, and
2:12
Speaker 1: my letters will know that that certainly appeals to me.
2:15
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan in harnessing discomfort. I've written a
2:20
Speaker 1: book called Death by Comfort, So talk to us about
2:23
Speaker 1: the gift of adversity. What's that all about from your viewpoint?
2:27
Speaker 2: Well? It actually I'm so glad you're asking me, because
2:31
Speaker 2: it's really one of my favorite books. It's a personal narrative,
2:35
Speaker 2: except I've used my capacity as a psychiatrist and thinker
2:41
Speaker 2: to try and see what did I extract from a
2:44
Speaker 2: series of events that go all the way from childhood
2:48
Speaker 2: in South Africa to adolescents in South Africa and then
2:53
Speaker 2: to the United States, where I came to do psychiatry
2:57
Speaker 2: at New York Psychiatric Ensuite Columbia, And then I talk
3:03
Speaker 2: about heroes of mine and how I learned from their adversities,
3:08
Speaker 2: and then the process of saying farewell to some of
3:11
Speaker 2: the important people you encounter, which is an adversity that
3:16
Speaker 2: we all have to deal with if we live to
3:19
Speaker 2: a certain age. So I came into it thinking of
3:26
Speaker 2: I'll write down all the lessons that nobody ever taught me,
3:31
Speaker 2: and then as we looked through what those lessons were.
3:34
Speaker 2: They always were lessons that happened when things went wrong,
3:39
Speaker 2: and they could have gone wrong because you make a mistake,
3:43
Speaker 2: or it could be because of bad luck or all
3:48
Speaker 2: of the above, and whatever the reason is. Not only
3:53
Speaker 2: do you need to overcome the consequence of the adversity,
3:57
Speaker 2: but then once you're over or that acute phase, to say, okay,
4:03
Speaker 2: so what have I learned here? And how am I
4:05
Speaker 2: going to take that going forward and not repeat it.
4:10
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the quote from the great Stoic
4:13
Speaker 1: philosopher Seneca. I pity the man who's never faced adversity,
4:18
Speaker 1: because he has never faced an opponent, and no one,
4:21
Speaker 1: not even he knows what he's capable of. I take
4:25
Speaker 1: it it's kind of along those veins, those lessons that
4:28
Speaker 1: you talk about.
4:30
Speaker 2: You know, I have never actually encountered that particular verse,
4:35
Speaker 2: but it since chills down my spine when you read
4:38
Speaker 2: it because it's so true, and it shows you how
4:43
Speaker 2: truth endures over millennia when it's profoundly stated and it's
4:49
Speaker 2: just stated as a fact, and actually it is a fact. Yeah.
4:54
Speaker 1: And Epictatus also says that we must all undergo a
4:58
Speaker 1: hard winter training and not enter into lightly that for
5:02
Speaker 1: which we have not prepared. And he was obviously talking
5:06
Speaker 1: about life when he said that, So, so tell us
5:09
Speaker 1: there is there in your view as a psychiatrist, the
5:15
Speaker 1: war is the line between when adversity is actually good
5:20
Speaker 1: for you and then when it becomes bad for you.
5:23
Speaker 1: And I presume I'm guessing that it depends very much
5:28
Speaker 1: on the individual and their psychological attitude and maybe some
5:34
Speaker 1: encouragement of others. What sort of factors go into whether
5:39
Speaker 1: some people benefit from adversity and some people can get
5:42
Speaker 1: broken by the same adversity.
5:45
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing is that you've got to live
5:48
Speaker 2: to tell the tale. That goes without saying. But when
5:53
Speaker 2: you live, what do you take away from that? And
5:59
Speaker 2: part of that depends upon your own strengths and assets
6:04
Speaker 2: that you bring to bear, your ability to connect with
6:11
Speaker 2: other people who can help you get out of the adversity.
6:14
Speaker 2: You know, as I'm giving you these examples, I think
6:17
Speaker 2: of cases in point. For example, I got hooked into
6:22
Speaker 2: a scam, which is a horrible thing to happen because
6:26
Speaker 2: the first thing is you lose much more money than
6:28
Speaker 2: you want to lose. Not that anybody wants to lose
6:31
Speaker 2: any money at all, but usually if anybody's gone to
6:35
Speaker 2: the trouble to scam you, it's not for a couple
6:37
Speaker 2: of dollars, it's for a goodly sum of money. And
6:44
Speaker 2: through connecting with various people who helped me, I got
6:49
Speaker 2: out of I got all that money back, which was
6:52
Speaker 2: really unusual. And so use your assets and use your
6:57
Speaker 2: connections and use whatever you can to overcome that adversity.
7:03
Speaker 2: And then don't let it happen again, because somebody who's
7:07
Speaker 2: been scammed once can easily be scammed again. These people
7:11
Speaker 2: are very clever and they'll come at you with different approaches,
7:16
Speaker 2: even something as simple as a text it arrived today
7:19
Speaker 2: on my cell phone saying there's a parcel waiting for
7:24
Speaker 2: you at the at the that's came through customs and
7:27
Speaker 2: it's waiting for you at the Federal Express or whatever,
7:31
Speaker 2: and all you need to do to reclaim it is
7:34
Speaker 2: click on this link. And there's many variations of it.
7:40
Speaker 2: And you know, you think the parcel. Could it be
7:42
Speaker 2: Aunt Tilly who has finally sent me the gift she's
7:45
Speaker 2: been promising me. You know, your mind can go off
7:48
Speaker 2: in funny directions and you're not as skeptical. And I
7:52
Speaker 2: have seen really clever people being scammed. Someone I know,
8:00
Speaker 2: very smart fellow psychiatrist got scammed and was told, you know,
8:06
Speaker 2: you're going to be in big trouble if you don't
8:08
Speaker 2: go and get some money orders and take it to
8:11
Speaker 2: the cashier over here at this best Bishop or something.
8:15
Speaker 2: And it's all just a scam. So be very wary
8:22
Speaker 2: of people who are trying to do you a great
8:25
Speaker 2: favor who come out of the woodwork. Usually they're trying
8:29
Speaker 2: to do themselves a great favor. So you know, I mean,
8:33
Speaker 2: But there's endless examples in my book of different kinds
8:37
Speaker 2: of things, and I've classified them are things you do
8:40
Speaker 2: because you made the mistake, things you do because they
8:43
Speaker 2: were really bad luck. But in many of the examples
8:47
Speaker 2: that give from our own life, I had a role
8:51
Speaker 2: in those bad things happening. And you know, sometimes people
9:00
Speaker 2: people can be very kind. I remember I was. I
9:04
Speaker 2: was with a girlfriend in a car late at night
9:08
Speaker 2: in a shady lane in Johannesburg, bad idea. I got
9:14
Speaker 2: attacked and assaulted and I arrived in the hospital. You know,
9:19
Speaker 2: they got me around, They transfused me, got me around. Yes,
9:23
Speaker 2: I later I got hepatitis see from the transfusion. But
9:27
Speaker 2: I survived that. And I had a wonderful Latin teacher
9:32
Speaker 2: who came to visit me, and she said, you know,
9:36
Speaker 2: how are you feeling? And I said, I'm feeling really stupid.
9:43
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have been there with a girlfriend late at
9:46
Speaker 2: night in a shady lad And she was so sweet.
9:49
Speaker 2: She said, ah, but that is life. She was Italian
9:52
Speaker 2: ship with a thick Italian accent. Oh, that is what
9:55
Speaker 2: life is all about, is being in a car with
9:58
Speaker 2: your girlfriend late at night. And Lee's later. I went
10:02
Speaker 2: to Naples and I was walking with my friend through
10:04
Speaker 2: a dark street and there were all these cars lined
10:07
Speaker 2: up with newspapers stuck against the windows. They were all
10:11
Speaker 2: so she knew what she was talking about. It made
10:16
Speaker 2: me feel a lot better.
10:18
Speaker 1: So how much in benefiting from adversity. And what springs
10:24
Speaker 1: to mind as you were talking about this stuff is
10:27
Speaker 1: Victor Frankel and man search for meaning and particularly when
10:32
Speaker 1: we get into severe adversity, finding meaning in that and
10:38
Speaker 1: how much does this play a role.
10:41
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so glad you mentioned him because in Gift
10:44
Speaker 2: of Avarsity under my section on my heroes, he's one
10:48
Speaker 2: of them. And I actually had the good fortune to
10:51
Speaker 2: meet him, Oh wow in Vienna. Yeah, he was in
10:54
Speaker 2: his nineties at the time, and I met him at
10:57
Speaker 2: his summer house in Vienna, and he was unable to
11:02
Speaker 2: see at that time, but he was ramrod straight in
11:05
Speaker 2: his posture, and he talked about his huge adversity was
11:12
Speaker 2: that he was the head of a neurology ward in
11:18
Speaker 2: Vienna when the Nazis invaded, and he was in such
11:24
Speaker 2: a prestigious position that he didn't believe he could be
11:27
Speaker 2: captured in the net of the Nazis, but he was,
11:31
Speaker 2: and he landed up in Auschwitz. And of course Man's
11:35
Speaker 2: Search for Meaning, that first part where he talks about
11:39
Speaker 2: how he survived was really a remarkable book, one of
11:45
Speaker 2: the great books of the century. And he told me
11:49
Speaker 2: all about it, and it was really, it was really
11:53
Speaker 2: fascinating to listen to him and hear what he had
11:57
Speaker 2: to say. And one of the interesting things to me
12:00
Speaker 2: was how he differed from Sigmund Freud, whom he had
12:04
Speaker 2: met because they were both in Vienna at the same time.
12:07
Speaker 2: Freud was much his senior, and he was a great believer.
12:13
Speaker 2: He was a neurologist. So he said, if something is
12:16
Speaker 2: hurting you or bothering you, shift your mind to something else.
12:22
Speaker 2: Don't kind of dwell on that thing that's worrying you,
12:25
Speaker 2: because it will only make you feel worse. So I
12:29
Speaker 2: was just thinking of him and thinking of that. You know,
12:31
Speaker 2: I'm fretting about the forthcoming election here in the United States,
12:37
Speaker 2: and I said, well, you know that's something I can't control.
12:41
Speaker 2: There's your Epictetus coming back again. Yes, you're fond of
12:46
Speaker 2: the Stoics. Yes, so Epictetus comes back again. And he
12:51
Speaker 2: really was the original inventor, if you want to call
12:55
Speaker 2: it that, of what became the Ceenity prayer. Yes, like,
12:59
Speaker 2: you've got to decide whether this is something you can
13:01
Speaker 2: control or something you cannot control, and then decide if
13:04
Speaker 2: you can't control it, then just accept it, and if
13:07
Speaker 2: you can, then do something about it. Well, the election,
13:10
Speaker 2: other than my one miserable little vote, is nothing that
13:15
Speaker 2: I can control. So here we are talking about life,
13:21
Speaker 2: talking about important things. Maybe somebody will hear and that'll
13:25
Speaker 2: make a difference.
13:26
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, so that dwelling. And by the way, I'm
13:31
Speaker 1: very jealous that you met Victor Frankel. I read his
13:34
Speaker 1: book as a seventeen year old and I got to
13:36
Speaker 1: say it has had a profound impact on my life.
13:40
Speaker 1: But you were talking there about Frankel talking about dwelling,
13:44
Speaker 1: and so let's bring that into the whole mental health field.
13:50
Speaker 1: So I'd love to get your opinion on you as
13:53
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist with people, particularly when we think about depression
13:58
Speaker 1: or mental health issues and room in the issue and
14:02
Speaker 1: thinking and being asked constantly about their mental health and
14:06
Speaker 1: thinking about their mental health, does there become a risk
14:10
Speaker 1: that there can be too much talk without action associated
14:16
Speaker 1: with it.
14:18
Speaker 2: Well, yes, of course there can be. And I think
14:23
Speaker 2: a bad therapist would let somebody talk and talk and
14:26
Speaker 2: talk and talk without saying, well, you know you've complained
14:30
Speaker 2: about it, but what are you going to do about it?
14:33
Speaker 2: You know, that would be just an obvious thing to say.
14:37
Speaker 2: Is there or is there anything you can do about
14:39
Speaker 2: it that would make the matter better? No, I did this,
14:42
Speaker 2: I did that, I did The other said, well, how
14:45
Speaker 2: long did you persevere with that? Sometimes these things don't
14:49
Speaker 2: happen that quickly, you know, you know, so, so I
14:52
Speaker 2: would combine talking and action. But talking alone, of course,
14:58
Speaker 2: is often not the best strategy. We want to talk,
15:03
Speaker 2: we want to act, We want to feel. What are
15:06
Speaker 2: you thinking, what are you feeling, what are you doing?
15:09
Speaker 2: These are all crucial functions of the human mind, and
15:12
Speaker 2: you want to kind of blend them together like a
15:15
Speaker 2: symphony and get somebody feeling what they're feeling, thinking what
15:19
Speaker 2: they're thinking, and then deciding what they want to do
15:22
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah.
15:23
Speaker 1: I think that's the key thing is is taking action
15:26
Speaker 1: despite your circumstances.
15:30
Speaker 2: But too much action, too quickly is not always good.
15:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be considered action. Right, So let's
15:37
Speaker 1: let's talk about seasonal effective disorder. So tell us just
15:42
Speaker 1: give us a little bit of history about you. You know,
15:44
Speaker 1: you said you joined the National Institute of Health. Was
15:47
Speaker 1: that specifically, that was the role that you were doing
15:51
Speaker 1: was around seasonal effective disorder and how.
15:54
Speaker 2: Into it hadn't existed when I joined the National Instrumental Health.
16:00
Speaker 2: Nobody had defined it, nobody had recognized it. There were
16:04
Speaker 2: a few case reports in the literature, but in terms
16:07
Speaker 2: of bringing a group of people together and saying these
16:10
Speaker 2: are the characteristics that you need to look for, it
16:14
Speaker 2: was not on the charts at all, and it had
16:18
Speaker 2: not been described, it had not been defined, their name
16:22
Speaker 2: didn't exist, etc. But I was see when I was
16:27
Speaker 2: sixteen years old, I wanted to be a psychiatric researcher.
16:32
Speaker 2: I wanted to probe the mysteries of the mind. So
16:36
Speaker 2: the first thing is, well, where am I going to
16:38
Speaker 2: be able to do that? And I thought, well, America
16:42
Speaker 2: seems to have the most research money available, and they
16:47
Speaker 2: seem to be the place to be. And I went
16:49
Speaker 2: to Columbia, which is a terrific university. But I was told,
16:52
Speaker 2: if you really wanted tremendous training in psychiatry, you go
16:56
Speaker 2: to the National Instrumental Health, and that's where I headed.
17:00
Speaker 2: My family was good enough to accompany me or back
17:05
Speaker 2: me in that decision to move from New York, where
17:08
Speaker 2: we were rather happy, and so I joined a group
17:12
Speaker 2: of really innovative psychiatrists who were dealing with rhythms. They
17:17
Speaker 2: were dealing with circadian rhythms daily woods, and the idea
17:23
Speaker 2: of seasonal rhythms being of any consequence was not on
17:27
Speaker 2: the map. And then one of them had found that
17:33
Speaker 2: bright light suppressed the hormone melatonin, which is secreted at night.
17:38
Speaker 2: It was never previously known that it did that in humans.
17:41
Speaker 2: They knew it did that in animals, but now it
17:43
Speaker 2: was shown that if you made the light bright enough,
17:47
Speaker 2: it would do that in humans as well. So I
17:53
Speaker 2: had come from South Africa, which was very sunny, to
17:57
Speaker 2: New York City, which after daylight savings time suddenly very
18:02
Speaker 2: very dark, very very early, and I felt my mood declining,
18:07
Speaker 2: and then back it came in the spring again, and
18:10
Speaker 2: I observed that in myself for three cycles. So when
18:14
Speaker 2: I came to the NIH, I encountered a patient who
18:18
Speaker 2: had that much worse than me, and we gave him
18:22
Speaker 2: bright light in the middle of the winter, and he
18:24
Speaker 2: came out of his depression. And so I said, look,
18:28
Speaker 2: we can't study this unless I collect a group of
18:33
Speaker 2: these people. I thought, you know, the Washington area has
18:36
Speaker 2: got a lot of people here. Maybe I can find
18:38
Speaker 2: a handful of people and I can do some systematic
18:41
Speaker 2: studies so with the help of a friendly Washington Post journalist,
18:47
Speaker 2: we put an article in that profiled one or two
18:50
Speaker 2: people who had felt this kind of problem, and I thought, well,
18:53
Speaker 2: we'll get a couple responses. We got thousands of responses
18:58
Speaker 2: across the country. Everybody said the same kind of thing.
19:02
Speaker 2: You know, when the days get short and dark, I
19:05
Speaker 2: slow down, I don't think as well, I'm not as enthusiastic.
19:09
Speaker 2: I become a little depressed. I eat more, especially sweets
19:13
Speaker 2: and starches. I ain't wait. I'm sluggish. I fall behind
19:18
Speaker 2: in my payments, I four behind in my relationships every year.
19:24
Speaker 2: And it was clear to me I had a syndrome there.
19:27
Speaker 2: So we collected a group of people in the summer
19:31
Speaker 2: and we who had this history and watched them through
19:34
Speaker 2: into the winter, and they were just cheerful as can
19:37
Speaker 2: be in the middle of the summer. And one of
19:39
Speaker 2: my colleagues said, what will happen if they don't get depressed,
19:41
Speaker 2: won't you feel kind of stupid? I said, you know,
19:45
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think they're going to get depressed.
19:48
Speaker 2: And you know, if I feel stupid, it's not the
19:51
Speaker 2: worst thing that can happen for somebody to feel stupid,
19:54
Speaker 2: much worse things can happen, And sure enough, one by
19:58
Speaker 2: one they became depressed, and we put them in a
20:01
Speaker 2: light study comparing brightlight with dim light, and the bright
20:04
Speaker 2: light was better than the dim light. That was the
20:07
Speaker 2: first article forty years ago that was published and the
20:12
Speaker 2: first description of said and the first you know, demonstration
20:17
Speaker 2: that brightlight could bring people out of their depression. And
20:22
Speaker 2: then I worked on that for twenty years.
20:26
Speaker 1: I tell you what, as somebody who's not doing a
20:28
Speaker 1: PhD and doing research, I am both excited and jealous
20:34
Speaker 1: in equal measure that you actually discovered something pretty new
20:40
Speaker 1: and that was affecting so many people. When did you
20:44
Speaker 1: know in your gut that you were onto something. Was
20:48
Speaker 1: it kind of straightaway because you'd felt it and then
20:50
Speaker 1: you'd started to see it in people. Were you kind
20:52
Speaker 1: of like, there's something here, I'm sure of it?
20:56
Speaker 2: First of all, just to say I was very, very lucky,
21:01
Speaker 2: because it's hard to discover something new in this age
21:05
Speaker 2: when there's millions of people working on problems. But in
21:09
Speaker 2: our first study, we used ceiling fixtures that we brought
21:14
Speaker 2: horizontal onto the desk. So I took one of these
21:18
Speaker 2: ceiling fixtures and I put it in the bedroom standing up,
21:22
Speaker 2: I can still see this huge thing, and put it
21:26
Speaker 2: on a timer to come on at seven o'clock in
21:29
Speaker 2: the morning. And wow, I felt it myself. I felt
21:33
Speaker 2: so energized and so activated. That's why I could say
21:37
Speaker 2: to these people who questioned it, they're going to get
21:41
Speaker 2: depressed and the light's going to work. So and then,
21:47
Speaker 2: you know, I could see it right. I could see
21:51
Speaker 2: it right at the very first few subjects, because it
21:55
Speaker 2: was a blind study in that the people rating these
21:59
Speaker 2: patients they did not know if they were on a
22:03
Speaker 2: bright light or a dim light control. And I remember
22:07
Speaker 2: one of my colleagues who was the blind writer, saying,
22:11
Speaker 2: Missus Smith, I'm just making up the name. Missus Smith
22:14
Speaker 2: came in today. I don't know what she's on, but
22:17
Speaker 2: she's blossoming like a rose. Wow, that's so cool, you know.
22:23
Speaker 2: And so I write at the very beginning, I wanted
22:30
Speaker 2: to seguay a little. There's another book of mine called
22:33
Speaker 2: Poetry RX. And in that poem. In that book there
22:39
Speaker 2: is a poem by Keats much Have I Traveled in
22:44
Speaker 2: the Realms of Gold? And in the end it talks
22:47
Speaker 2: about In the end, it talks about the thrill of discovery,
22:53
Speaker 2: the thrill of discovery, and the thrill of discovery, and
22:57
Speaker 2: the end is let me read right at the end
23:02
Speaker 2: of the of the book, he talks about all these
23:05
Speaker 2: people who discovered things and then felt, I like some
23:13
Speaker 2: watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into
23:17
Speaker 2: his can or like start Cortez, when with eagle eyes
23:22
Speaker 2: he stared at the Pacific and all his men looked
23:26
Speaker 2: at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a
23:30
Speaker 2: peak in Darienne. So in the book which I take,
23:35
Speaker 2: I take the poems and I extract psychiatric or life
23:39
Speaker 2: lessons out of them. I said, look, when this woman
23:43
Speaker 2: became so transformed by the bright light therapy, I said,
23:51
Speaker 2: you know, everybody was staring at each other, maybe not
23:55
Speaker 2: with wild surmise, but at least with a lot of
23:58
Speaker 2: excitement that something really special, what's going on here?
24:03
Speaker 1: That is very very cool indeed, and I love that.
24:06
Speaker 1: But that that poem where it brings in the explorers
24:09
Speaker 1: as well, because when I was young, I was traveling
24:12
Speaker 1: all around the world and went to and this is
24:15
Speaker 1: like angle wat and was like, how amazing would it
24:18
Speaker 1: be but to explore and find these places and then
24:23
Speaker 1: realize the only way to do that sort of stuff
24:26
Speaker 1: today is through science. Right, it's the same discovery process.
24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, you know, I love that you
24:33
Speaker 2: focus on the explorer because I've always been an explorer
24:38
Speaker 2: and my explorations have really paid off. Well. Now, I
24:44
Speaker 2: don't say explore by going into a shady lane at
24:48
Speaker 2: night in a dangerous town. That's the wrong kind of exploration.
24:53
Speaker 2: The right kind of exploration is to well for me,
24:56
Speaker 2: it's the exploration of the mind. So I've done it
25:00
Speaker 2: with the light, I've done it with poetry. I've also
25:05
Speaker 2: done it and with adversity. So there are all these things.
25:10
Speaker 2: But one big way of exploring has been with meditation.
25:15
Speaker 2: I have a longstanding practitioner of transcendental meditation, and I've
25:22
Speaker 2: written two books on that subject, Transcendence and Supermind. And
25:28
Speaker 2: what that is. It's an exploration of how consciousness can
25:32
Speaker 2: evolve under the influence of a certain Eastern practice, and
25:40
Speaker 2: so exploration. If you want one word, is my it's
25:47
Speaker 2: my theme song. Yes, it's my brand.
25:51
Speaker 1: And tell me that's not just to get your professional
25:55
Speaker 1: opinion on this, and and probably opinion rather than evidence based,
25:59
Speaker 1: but because I've been thinking about this, Like, curiosity I
26:05
Speaker 1: think is a hugely important trait for good mental health.
26:11
Speaker 1: I mean, it's linked to the psychological trait of hardiness
26:16
Speaker 1: and the commitment orientation of people being highly engaged in life.
26:22
Speaker 1: And I've just sort of observed that that people who
26:25
Speaker 1: tend to be curious and engaged in things seem to
26:30
Speaker 1: have a better overall life and they're just they're they're
26:35
Speaker 1: kind of got more energy about life. Is this something
26:39
Speaker 1: that you have noticed at all about this sort of
26:42
Speaker 1: curiosity and being engaged in life being important for good
26:48
Speaker 1: mental health and overcoming adversity. It's just a little hunch
26:52
Speaker 1: that I have.
26:53
Speaker 2: Well, I think curiosity is a very valuable trait. Let's
26:57
Speaker 2: put it that way, because you know, to ask what's
27:02
Speaker 2: going on here? Why is this causing that? Whether you're
27:07
Speaker 2: trying to troubleshoot your cell phone or your computer, or
27:11
Speaker 2: whether you want to know why the door jams shut
27:15
Speaker 2: every time you try it? You know, whether it's very
27:19
Speaker 2: simple things of everyday life, or whether it's a complicated
27:22
Speaker 2: thing like I've got this little piece of DNA, how
27:26
Speaker 2: can I sort of make a big batch of it?
27:30
Speaker 2: And then you get polymerase chain reaction, you get that
27:34
Speaker 2: guy coming out or somebody looking at I remember reading
27:40
Speaker 2: an article they asked great school kids to take household
27:45
Speaker 2: objects and try and turn them into inventions. And one
27:50
Speaker 2: little girl, maybe it'd been five, she took a wire
27:53
Speaker 2: hanger and she said, we turn it upside down and
27:56
Speaker 2: then you can hang your rubber bands on that. But
28:00
Speaker 2: he said, well, how did you come up with that idea?
28:03
Speaker 2: And she said, I think'd it up in my head.
28:07
Speaker 2: So you know, it can be at a very elemental level,
28:10
Speaker 2: or it can be at a very profound level, but
28:13
Speaker 2: I think and it can be cultivated. You can cultivate
28:16
Speaker 2: people to question. And I I wore my mother out
28:24
Speaker 2: with my curiosity. She was not pleased about it. And
28:33
Speaker 2: you know she was not pleased about it. My endless
28:37
Speaker 2: questions is stop already, I'm exhausted. So but yeah, I look,
28:42
Speaker 2: I just.
28:43
Speaker 1: Think it's it's such an important trait. But let's get
28:46
Speaker 1: back to seasonal effective disorder. Sorry for the rabbit holes,
28:50
Speaker 1: but so let's talk about You mentioned a couple of
28:53
Speaker 1: the symptoms, but what are the sort of typical symptoms
28:56
Speaker 1: that people should be looking out for?
28:59
Speaker 2: All right, So the first thing that I must say
29:02
Speaker 2: or else my publisher is going to kill me. Is
29:07
Speaker 2: I just published recently a book called Defeating Sad, where
29:11
Speaker 2: I try and present in one place everything that you
29:16
Speaker 2: need to do to do your best week. That's it there,
29:22
Speaker 2: everything you need to do to overcome sad. But let
29:26
Speaker 2: me give you the cliff notes here. Firstly, as we talked,
29:32
Speaker 2: bright light is an important element in that process, and
29:39
Speaker 2: you know how to give it. Morning is a good time.
29:43
Speaker 2: How to time it. You can add to the evening,
29:45
Speaker 2: like right now, we've had daylight savings time change, so
29:49
Speaker 2: you're getting an extra hour of darkness in the evening,
29:52
Speaker 2: So that's when you need to replace more light. But
29:56
Speaker 2: the morning is no good to you unless you get
29:59
Speaker 2: out into the sunlight, which is earlier maybe than you
30:03
Speaker 2: used to. So you've got to go out earlier. You've
30:05
Speaker 2: got to add a little bit on if you've got
30:07
Speaker 2: these symptoms, what are the symptoms? I told you, I'll
30:11
Speaker 2: tell you again. Symptoms have sad And this is the
30:15
Speaker 2: winter variety, because there's a summer variety as well. When
30:19
Speaker 2: the days get short and dark, low energy, increased appetite,
30:25
Speaker 2: especially for sweets and starches, weight gain, withdrawal from friends,
30:30
Speaker 2: and family, lowering of mood, increased sleep. Those are the
30:37
Speaker 2: key elements of the syndrome. And then you can use light.
30:43
Speaker 2: Starting early now would be a good time, and you
30:47
Speaker 2: can use the light, and you can also get exercise,
30:50
Speaker 2: which is terrific. You can combine exercise with light by
30:56
Speaker 2: going and walking outdoors and not putting your bar bushka
31:00
Speaker 2: over your head so that you don't get any light
31:02
Speaker 2: in or your sombrero or anything cuts up all the light.
31:07
Speaker 2: You want to get to see people around with these
31:09
Speaker 2: dark glasses on winter days, and I wonder whether that's
31:12
Speaker 2: a good idea. So exercise light, dietary control, and then
31:20
Speaker 2: keep active, keep engaged, you know, go opposite to what
31:25
Speaker 2: you feel like doing. If you feel like lying in
31:27
Speaker 2: bed with the covers over your head, put take off
31:31
Speaker 2: the covers and get out of bed, get out of doors.
31:34
Speaker 2: You feel like sitting on the couch and eating a
31:37
Speaker 2: couple of twinkies, don't get off the couch. Go outside,
31:43
Speaker 2: eat salads and try and have fun, Try and stay
31:47
Speaker 2: engaged with friends and family. Your efforts will be rewarded.
31:52
Speaker 1: Now you did mention there are a winter version and
31:56
Speaker 1: a summer version, which I'm obviously not familiar where talk
31:59
Speaker 1: to me.
32:00
Speaker 2: But the summer version, Well, when we originally asked for
32:05
Speaker 2: these winter people who have trouble in the winter, maybe
32:08
Speaker 2: fifteen percent of our responses said, you know, I've got
32:11
Speaker 2: exactly the opposite problem. I go down in the summer.
32:16
Speaker 2: It turns out that a significant number of people, albeit
32:20
Speaker 2: is not as common as the winter type, at least
32:23
Speaker 2: at this latitude, that they have trouble in the summer.
32:27
Speaker 2: And so we have studied that, and there's a different
32:31
Speaker 2: pattern there. They eat less, they don't eat more, they
32:34
Speaker 2: sleep less, they get agitated, they don't get lethargic, and
32:39
Speaker 2: they're more vulnerable to suicide. Oh wow, that's the summer version.
32:45
Speaker 2: And that's, as they say these days, it become a
32:49
Speaker 2: thing in its own right, an entity.
32:53
Speaker 1: And is that due to too much light?
32:57
Speaker 2: Eat? Probably the heat, but the lights you can do
33:01
Speaker 2: it as well. The heat causes people to be lethargic.
33:05
Speaker 2: The causes people to be agitated. So you've got this
33:09
Speaker 2: kind of mixed picture of somebody who's restless and irritable
33:14
Speaker 2: but not able to get much done. And it's very undiscomforting,
33:19
Speaker 2: very unpleasant.
33:20
Speaker 1: And I take it that the two don't go together like, Wow.
33:27
Speaker 2: Yes, some people have both, but oftentimes one has just
33:31
Speaker 2: one or the other. Wow.
33:33
Speaker 1: Well, the people who have the summer one should just
33:35
Speaker 1: go and move to Northern Ireland and not but sort
33:37
Speaker 1: it all out, because there's not much like there in summer.
33:43
Speaker 2: I remember reading something by your playwright sing that that,
33:49
Speaker 2: you know, the misery of those misty, foggy, dark Irish
33:55
Speaker 2: days is enough to drive a person nuts.
33:57
Speaker 1: You know, that's right, that's only in summer normal.
34:04
Speaker 3: The susceptibility is the variant of the clock genes involved
34:11
Speaker 3: in this, and you know who is more susceptible to
34:14
Speaker 3: the others?
34:15
Speaker 1: Is it all genetics? Are? Is there any difference in races?
34:22
Speaker 2: Well, there certainly seems to be a genetic component because
34:26
Speaker 2: it runs in families women much more than men. And
34:33
Speaker 2: it seems to be happening to women in the reproductive years.
34:37
Speaker 2: That's when it happens, which suggests that it's a hormonal
34:41
Speaker 2: effect that's playing a part. So there's a genetic effect,
34:45
Speaker 2: there's a hormonal effect, there's an environmental effect. So in
34:49
Speaker 2: other words, I've seen maybe a woman who's a nurse
34:55
Speaker 2: and she has said and she's got to get up
34:58
Speaker 2: and get into the hospital to do her work, and
35:03
Speaker 2: every winter she struggles and then she retires and is
35:08
Speaker 2: able to sleep in in the morning and it doesn't
35:10
Speaker 2: have the same level of demands on her and that
35:13
Speaker 2: can be helpful. So it's an interaction between the season,
35:18
Speaker 2: the light, the season and the light, the genetic loading,
35:23
Speaker 2: and gender is a biological loading, and the stress stress
35:30
Speaker 2: is a very big factor. Now. Yeah, so when you
35:34
Speaker 2: say which genes, We've looked at various genes. We looked
35:38
Speaker 2: at one gene that affects the molecule that zerrato that well,
35:44
Speaker 2: that zoloft acts on or prozac acts on this molecule
35:48
Speaker 2: in the brain, and we found that people with SAD
35:53
Speaker 2: seem to have a different variant, seemed more or less
35:55
Speaker 2: of a variant than regular controls. Nobody replicates of that,
36:01
Speaker 2: and so it is that many genes have been studied,
36:05
Speaker 2: none has been replicated, So we can't say any gene
36:09
Speaker 2: is predisposing, although obviously genes must be involved.
36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a complex mix, isn't it. And And
36:17
Speaker 1: does do you know the whole idea of alt and
36:21
Speaker 1: larks of early morning and late at night people that
36:25
Speaker 1: does that play a role at.
36:27
Speaker 2: All really great question. I don't think we've really made
36:34
Speaker 2: a clear connection there, Okay, but I think if I
36:40
Speaker 2: would guess, I would say that owls would be more
36:45
Speaker 2: susceptible simply because they're exposed to more hours of dark
36:50
Speaker 2: because they they are sleeping through the morning light. Yes,
36:55
Speaker 2: and so they're up when there's not a lot of
36:57
Speaker 2: light around. So that could be my guess. But it's
37:00
Speaker 2: actually a beautiful question, and it's very studiable. You know,
37:05
Speaker 2: which researcher always say is, yeah, it's a great question,
37:08
Speaker 2: but how would you study it? This one would be
37:10
Speaker 2: easy enough. I don't know any study that has looked
37:14
Speaker 2: at the outlock questionnaire which exists in sad patients versus controls.
37:21
Speaker 2: You'd make a good scientist.
37:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to say there's a there's a topic
37:25
Speaker 1: for a master student out there.
37:26
Speaker 2: In psychofinitely, definitely yes.
37:30
Speaker 1: And now, so let's I'm really interested in your alternative
37:36
Speaker 1: ways of helping people with their emotional difficulty. So you've
37:42
Speaker 1: written a book about about poetry to help people, and
37:46
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of reading philosophy for helping people
37:50
Speaker 1: around it. So, so tell us some of the things,
37:52
Speaker 1: some of the different approaches that you have for helping
37:56
Speaker 1: people with their emotional issues.
38:00
Speaker 2: Well, I'm also a great believer in the whatever works school.
38:05
Speaker 2: So you know, if somebody says, you know, I'm absolutely
38:09
Speaker 2: tone deaf. I have no interest in poetry. I won't
38:12
Speaker 2: even try, you know, because I don't want to. I
38:19
Speaker 2: want to pursue a promising angle. But you know, if
38:23
Speaker 2: somebody always loved poetry and I say, oh, really, well
38:26
Speaker 2: let's talk, let's talk about something, you know, the idea
38:32
Speaker 2: that poetry can help. I know, it's helped me personally.
38:36
Speaker 2: It's helped me personally. There's one of my poems in here.
38:39
Speaker 2: It's a very obscure poem. It is called Letter to
38:41
Speaker 2: My Mother. It's by a man named Salvador Quasimodo. He
38:46
Speaker 2: got the Nobel Prize for literature that year. So you know,
38:51
Speaker 2: look on these works. He mighty and despair. You know,
38:54
Speaker 2: here's a Nobel Prize winner. Nobody's heard of him.
38:57
Speaker 1: Wow.
38:58
Speaker 2: So you know, and this is a man who's writing.
39:04
Speaker 2: He is Northern Italy. He's gone to the north for
39:07
Speaker 2: his probably professional reasons, and he's writing about his poor
39:14
Speaker 2: mother who was left behind in Sicily. And now she's
39:18
Speaker 2: getting old and she's not going to be around for
39:20
Speaker 2: much longer. And it's a plentive verse. And before I
39:25
Speaker 2: left South Africa, I would read this poem again and
39:29
Speaker 2: again and I never quite realized at the time, but
39:33
Speaker 2: it was because I was leaving my family, my mother,
39:36
Speaker 2: my father, and yes I would see them hopefully, but
39:41
Speaker 2: it would be sporadic and not like in the daily
39:44
Speaker 2: way that I was used to. But the poem is
39:48
Speaker 2: somehow the fact that this person had shared this experience
39:52
Speaker 2: and now felt so sad at the loss of that
39:55
Speaker 2: was very meaningful to me. And so it is. All
39:59
Speaker 2: of these poems are chosen for a reason. That is
40:05
Speaker 2: why they can really help you, and they have. I've
40:08
Speaker 2: used them myself with my patients. So there's the light therapy,
40:12
Speaker 2: there's the poetry, there's the meditation. I've always been you know,
40:19
Speaker 2: if I'm a person that I'm looking at a picture
40:22
Speaker 2: in an art gallery, I always look what's at the
40:24
Speaker 2: corner of the picture. What did the painter want to conceal?
40:30
Speaker 2: This is what he wanted to show, but what was
40:32
Speaker 2: there in the background. And so I guess that my
40:38
Speaker 2: focus has often been the things that other people haven't
40:42
Speaker 2: really gone for because I always thought that was where
40:45
Speaker 2: you would get the pay dirt. You know, yes, that's
40:49
Speaker 2: what's happening.
40:51
Speaker 1: So tell me where are you spanding? Whereas an explorer
40:55
Speaker 1: like you, spanning as professional time these days is particularly
41:00
Speaker 1: with the benefit of all of those years of research
41:04
Speaker 1: and study. What's interesting you now?
41:09
Speaker 2: Well, I love my work as a psychiatrist and coach.
41:16
Speaker 2: I love to try and help people be the best
41:20
Speaker 2: that they can be and use all my own skills
41:24
Speaker 2: of innovation and exploration and curiosity to put them at
41:29
Speaker 2: the disposal of other people who can then take them
41:32
Speaker 2: and use them in their lives. So that's my clinical work.
41:37
Speaker 2: You know. I've studied many forms of different therapy, and
41:42
Speaker 2: I don't feel wedded to anyone. It's just whatever. I've
41:46
Speaker 2: got this big box of tricks. Well it calls psychoanalytics
41:50
Speaker 2: psychotherapy a trick I guess somebody would be offended, or
41:57
Speaker 2: cognitive behavior therapy or whatever kind of therapy works family,
42:01
Speaker 2: you know, getting people to talk to each other. And
42:08
Speaker 2: I often reference there's a poem by Rumi, the wonderful
42:13
Speaker 2: Persian poet that let me read it to you. It's
42:28
Speaker 2: it's maybe I've got two people, husband and wife, maybe
42:32
Speaker 2: they're fighting with each other. You're wrong, I'm right, you're wrong.
42:37
Speaker 2: Everybody is fighting, but who's right who's wrong? They turned
42:39
Speaker 2: to me like I'm a judge in a courtroom. Listen
42:44
Speaker 2: to this, and I say, here's what Rumy has to say.
42:49
Speaker 2: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is
42:53
Speaker 2: a field. I'll meet you there when the soul lies
42:57
Speaker 2: down in that grass. The world is too full to
43:00
Speaker 2: talk about ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't
43:05
Speaker 2: make any sense. And then they look at me and
43:08
Speaker 2: they say, what's that got to do with our situation?
43:12
Speaker 2: But I've broken the set of the two of them.
43:15
Speaker 2: I said, well, let's think about it. Here. Here are
43:19
Speaker 2: these two people. Maybe and he's saying to one saying
43:22
Speaker 2: to the other, you know, regardless of who's right and
43:25
Speaker 2: who's wrong, let's find a field where we can lie down,
43:30
Speaker 2: we can look up at the sky. We're in the
43:32
Speaker 2: long grass, and then we get back in touch with
43:36
Speaker 2: what drew us to each other in the first place.
43:39
Speaker 2: Once upon a time we loved each other. And look
43:44
Speaker 2: at all the squabbling that's come in the way. Can
43:46
Speaker 2: we find a little bit of that again? That's what
43:49
Speaker 2: the poem is saying, So the poem becomes a vehicle
43:53
Speaker 2: to distract. I don't do it all the time, you know,
43:57
Speaker 2: It's just one in a bag of tricks, the light,
44:01
Speaker 2: the therapy, the cognitive behavior therapy, the analytic therapy, etcetera.
44:06
Speaker 2: So that's the one thing I'm doing is I'm still
44:09
Speaker 2: excited about helping people because I see them change, I
44:14
Speaker 2: see them grow. You know, my own son is grown
44:19
Speaker 2: and he's a psychiatrist himself. So we've done our job
44:24
Speaker 2: by by him. We're working on our grandchildren now, of course.
44:28
Speaker 2: But that's the one thing. The other thing is in
44:32
Speaker 2: the TM world, I've done I've done Transcendence, I've done Supermind.
44:38
Speaker 2: I've got a third book that I'm working on in
44:41
Speaker 2: that trilogy. Right now.
44:42
Speaker 1: I knew there was going to be another book. That
44:45
Speaker 1: was what I was going to ask you.
44:47
Speaker 2: The third book in the trilogy, And it's what happens
44:51
Speaker 2: when you expand as a human being and you become
44:55
Speaker 2: more connected with everybody. You know, right now we're talking,
44:58
Speaker 2: I feel really connected with you. Now. We may never
45:02
Speaker 2: talk again, but this particular connection has a value regardless
45:07
Speaker 2: of where it ends up going. And so it is
45:10
Speaker 2: if I meet somebody. If I friendships, acquaintances you feel,
45:17
Speaker 2: and even people you know and love, you can expand
45:21
Speaker 2: that until you feel like you're very full and you've
45:25
Speaker 2: sort of expanded into a connection. Because we're all going
45:29
Speaker 2: to go, that's right, that's right, We're all going to go.
45:33
Speaker 2: But while we're here, let us experience the fullness of
45:37
Speaker 2: connection with others, connection with the universe, connection with everything
45:43
Speaker 2: that can bring good to ourselves, to other people as well.
45:48
Speaker 1: That is a brilliant quote for ending the podcast. So
45:52
Speaker 1: where can people find out more about you and your
45:56
Speaker 1: numerous books on transcendental meditation on side on poetry. Where
46:01
Speaker 1: can they go to find out more about your work
46:02
Speaker 1: in general?
46:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple ways. I mean, firstly, I feel free
46:07
Speaker 2: to go to my website Norman Rosenthal dot com, and
46:12
Speaker 2: of course I have a page on Amazon which will
46:15
Speaker 2: list all my books and how easily to obtain it.
46:18
Speaker 2: Most of them are available on audible as well as unaudible,
46:24
Speaker 2: as well as in printed form or on kindle, So
46:28
Speaker 2: whichever method works for anybody, there there are this availability
46:35
Speaker 2: for that. So that's how they can find out more
46:38
Speaker 2: and allow me to say that it's been really a
46:41
Speaker 2: great pleasure to speak with you.
46:43
Speaker 1: I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, Norman, and it's been
46:48
Speaker 1: great to chat to an explorer who has done some
46:52
Speaker 1: great stuff and touched many people, and actually will continue
46:56
Speaker 1: to touch many people when you have left this earth
46:59
Speaker 1: through your books, which is quite cool, eh.
47:03
Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend. You take care, congratulations on your podcast,
47:07
Speaker 2: and continue to thrive.
47:10
Speaker 1: Thanks Lor