Latest / Millennial Mental Health Channel / TV Anchor Emily Burris Shares a Hopeful Depression Journey

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TV Anchor Emily Burris Shares a Hopeful Depression Journey · Millennial Mental Health Channel

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Mental health should not be stigmatized. It should not be so difficult to talk
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about. It should be no different from telling someone like, oh my gosh,
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I was down all weekend with the worst head coold. This is Millennial
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Mental Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a Child and Adolescent psychiatry fellow,
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and I'm Eddie Creo, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is here
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because we wanted to start a much needed conversation about mental health. Our goal
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is to teach you as much as we can by sharing our own experiences and
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interviewing experts in the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
0:29
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more. Millennial
0:33
Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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M MHC is a production of Spreaker from iHeartMedia. I nia hello and welcome
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back to Millennial Mental Health Channel. Eddie, are we all about stories on
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this show? I think you want me to say yes, so yeah,
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chack up on my cue there, Eddie. Yes, we are all about
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stories and today we have a really amazing guest that we are excited to introduce
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you to because she has a really cool story and something that we want to
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share with you guys, and something we think that you guys will be able
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to relate with, identify with. Eddie met our current guests on all his
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TV stuff that he does. You know, he's just on TV so often.
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It's hard to keep up with all of that. But it was two
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times. That was it. It was two amazing times. But Emily Burris
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as a news anchor and host in Portland, Oregon. She moved to the
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Northwest when she joined the KOI N six news team as a reporter in December
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of twenty eighteen. Before moving to Portland, she graduated from the University of
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Florida and began her local news career in the Sunshine State, covering everything from
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the twenty sixteen presidential election and that key swing state to several major hurricanes to
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hit the southeast US. Growing up as a Navy bratt, she spent much
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of her childhood in southern California, moved around quite a bit, spending time
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on both coasts. When she's not working, you can find her pounding the
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pavement with her dog, sam Wise, which is a great name for a
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dog just watched Lord of the Rings the other day. Where she's also teaching
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workout classes at Pure Bar South Waterfront. Staying active allows her to take full
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advantage of Portland's incredible food, wine and craft beer scene. She also loves
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hiking, camping, and exploring the Pacific Northwest. Everyone. You can find
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her on Emily dot Burus at koi N dot com or connect with her on
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Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Please welcome onto the show, miss Emily
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Burrus, who thanks for me. Of course, Justin so real quick.
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If Justin was a real like or going in, he would know it's actually
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pronounced coin six not KOI N. So that's your one. That's your one
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mistake. Okay, you can, you can edit it. I won't tell
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anyone. No, we're keeping it so we could shame Emily Burrows is on
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Coin six six News. Yeah, but the actual Yeah, we'll get Emily.
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Thank you for coming on the show. Like Justin mentioned, Emily has
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had me on a couple of times on her show, which has been an
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amazing opportunity, so I thought it would be great to have her on.
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She's talked about her own personal like mental health journey on like her Instagram and
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social media, So she's graciously agreed to kind of share her story here with
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us today. We'll kind of just start with the first question. We have
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a bunch lined up for today. I'll ask you the first one a little
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different than like we typically will have like other mental health professionals, So this
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is a little different for us. So maybe you could fill us in on,
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like, what what does the process like to become an anchor slash reporter?
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Is there a difference between the two titles, like what is the process?
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Give us all the details? What do people say back in the day?
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The four one one give us all that right? The four one one
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the scoop? Okay, I'm your source for this podcast. Gosh, there's
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a couple of different ways that people get into news. I'll I'll try to
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keep it short. But I actually went to school for journalism. I went
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to the University of Florida, Go Gators, which has a great j school.
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I went in Actually not yeah, there we go. If you can't
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see it, Edie's doing the Gator chop. It's great. So I actually
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didn't know when I got to college what I wanted to do with my life.
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I was one of those kids who was an honor student straight A's school
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was always my thing, and I was just always doing the next assignment and
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doing the test in front of me and all of that. And I kind
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of got to college and that's where you have that realization of like, oh,
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but what do I want the rest of my life to be? And
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I realized I'm not going to be in school forever. What do I do?
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So through some trial and error and some gen eds and some things that
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I liked and some things I didn't, I kind of found my way over
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to the College of Journalism and Communications by my end of sophomore year, and
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it was just really lucky to already be at a school that had some amazing
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resources. Started working at the local NPR station that was run out of the
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college and the PBS station WUFTV, so we produced a student run newscast.
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I kind of learned the ropes as a reporter. Decided that being a musical
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theater kid, I had grown up doing some theater and debate and had,
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you know, always kind of found a stage and liked to talk, and
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so I figured that TV, you know, might be the journalism route for
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me. So it ended up just really working out well, I graduated and
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started in Gainesville, Florida. I got my first job at the local ABC
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affiliate there, and Gainsville is considered a pretty small television market. So when
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you talk about local news, there are about two hundred markets in the country.
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New York is number one, La is number two, Chicago's number three.
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It goes all the way down to somewhere in Montana that is like market
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two twelve. So yeah, so it's you know, the higher than number
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of the smaller the market. Gainesville was market one sixty seven when I worked
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there, So small town started out, you know, covering small town festivals
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and fairs and smalltown crime. And after a couple of years, I was
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promoted from a reporter to morning anchor. Did that for a couple of years,
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moved to a bigger market, Fort Myers, Florida, which is if
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you don't know, it's on the Gulf Coast of Florida, just south of
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Tampa. So's it's a medium sized television market, not quite a big city,
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but there's a little more going on. And so in all, I
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was in Florida news for about seven years and did everything from edit video to
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shoot my own stories to anchor the newscast to being live out in the field,
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all kinds of different things. And then from there I moved out to
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Portland, Oregon. I wanted to change and looked like a great opportunity.
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I wanted to come to the West coast. They were hiring for a reporter
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here in Portland, and they worked out really well. I got a job
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at coin and a couple years later was once again promoted to a morning show.
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So now I'm back to doing the morning wake up all kinds of stuff
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super early in the morning. So that was my journey, you know,
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kind of starting small, working my way up, going from reporter to anchor,
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reporter to anchor a couple of times. Some folks do it another way,
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where if they want to go to the network, if they want to
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go to a big city, they might go start out behind the camera,
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working as an editor or a writer or a producer and getting a chance to
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eventually be in front of the camera. Find some different roles at the same
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station. So there's lots of different paths. Okay, I have to ask
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what number is of Portland? So Portland is market. I think we're twenty
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one now, I believe so top twenty five. Yeah, it's a big
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because we actually cover so when you look at the Portland, Oregon news market,
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we don't just cover Portland, Oregon. Our signal extends north into southwest
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Washington, so Vancouver up to probably um probably about a third of the way
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up the state of Washington before Seattle's market picks it up. We cover a
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little bit out to eastern Oregon as well, maybe not quite too address um,
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and then south to Salem, Eugene, Corvallis. We reach a little
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bit of that market as well, and then out to the coast of Oregon,
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so we are a lot of the state, and then we're also you
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know, Portland, which is Oregon's biggest population center. Okay, that makes
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sense because sometimes I'll be watching like the evening news and I get stuff for
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like Cammis or Vancouver. I'm like, I don't care about it. But
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now they're watching the same thing, going I don't care about Portland, and
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if it's yeah, we gotta give everybody a little something. That's fair,
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all right, But thank you for telling us your story and how you got
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to where you are. I always find that a fascinating part of the show.
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We like to ask people what they got degrees in, how they ended
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up where they are. But next question is where do you want to go?
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How far do you want to take this? So do you want to
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go national news? You want to switch where? Yeah? What are your
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ideas? What are your long term goals? That's a great question. Honestly,
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I'm really happy here. I love the West Coast. I love the
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Pacific Northwest. There are so many things here that are just things I love
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to do. Being outside, being able to be outside in all four seasons,
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because one of the reasons I didn't want to stay in Florida was it's
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very hot and very humid almost the entire year. We have we have two
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seasons. There's there's like not quite summer and then oh my god, summer.
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So I just was not a fan of being hot and sweaty and humid
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all the time. So I love that you get a variety of things out
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here on the West Coast, and I get my skiing in the winter,
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some fun snowshoe hiking, hiking and camping in the summer, stand up paddleboard,
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you know, all these fun things. Portland is a great town.
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It's had a rough couple of years as many communities have. But it's coming
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back, and honestly, I never thought about going to network as a as
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a goal for me. I'm someone who really enjoys having a home, nest,
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my own space. So I like getting being able to go to work
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and see the same folks every day, come home to my place every day.
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I have some friends who do work for national news networks and as correspondents.
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They are typically based in one city, so they might be based in
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New York or Philadelphia or Chicago, but a couple days a week or sometimes
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more than that, they are on a plane headed to wherever the big national
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story is happening. And while that, you know, fuels them and it's
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what they love, I like having just a little more stability in my day
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to day, so I'll probably stay at the local level. It's really nice
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to get to connect and really feel like you're a part of the community.
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That's cool. So you mentioned in your bio mentioned Florida, Oregon, both
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coasts. You talked a little bit about like the weather, but like what
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other adjustments was like were there for you? Like going from Florida, you
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mentioned like small town news and small town like I laughed, like I think
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of like parks and rec if you've ever Pawnee, and like the little things
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that would happen, they were like a big deal, like that was their
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news, Like Yeah, what what adjustments did you have to make? What
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what adjustments did were like impacted you? Like going from from coast to coast.
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Well, one of the biggest things going from Florida to Oregon, out
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here to a bigger city was realizing, um, parking is a premium here.
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Like driving around. You know, in Florida, everybody drives everywhere and
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everything has a parking lot. So driving my car around and having to brush
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up on my parallel parking skills or to tell to decide if it was worth
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driving somewhere for the day or if I could take the train, or you
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know, just stuff like that. But I think that that was probably more
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of just a smaller to bigger city adjustment than anything else for me. I
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you know, I moved out here not knowing anyone. I took a chance
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on this job. But I think there's there's two things that made that move
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a pretty smooth adjustment for me. The first being that I did grow up
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a military bret, and I have moved before and could do it again.
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And I have learned to just you know, appreciate the positive sides of really
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kind of blank slate, starting over somewhere new and putting yourself out there and
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meeting people. But also this industry, like I said, is pretty small,
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and you get to know folks even outside of your own station. So
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I know anyone who's seen Anchorman probably thinks of like that back alley fight that
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all the new stations get into. I can tell you I have never done
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that. I have never swung brass knuckles at anybody in an alley because they're
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the competition that has not happened. I got to meet a lot of the
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other reporters here in town who are often like me, you know, younger
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professionals in their twenties or thirties. They've moved around as well, and you
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have these shared experiences from work. So some of my closest friends here in
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town are anchors and reporters at other stations, and building that kind of instant
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community really makes a place feel like home pretty quickly. Okay, between Fox
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twelve k T you guys, KGW, which one's the best one who would
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win in a back alley fight? Yeah, who would win in a fight?
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Mm, I don't know. I think I think Fox has a few
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more people on staff, so they have the number advantage. But I feel
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like I feel like Coin could be pretty scrappy if we had to. I
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think I think K two is the wild card. I don't know, all
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right, chalk that up. Justin taking notes, I had a question.
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It seems like being on TV every day and being so connected to your your
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community that you'd be very recognizable to thousands and thousands of people around you.
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What's that like? Is it hard? Is it hard to make friends?
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Is it hard to the dating world that a thing like give me your experiences?
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It's interesting, for sure. It depends, you know. I think
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it depends on where you go. I can go out to a bar where
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if it's mostly mostly twenty and thirty somethings in the bar, I probably won't
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get recognized because quite honestly, a lot of kids, I say kids at
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a lot of people my age. You know, a lot of the younger
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folks don't watch as much local news day to day. They tend to get
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a lot of their news online or they might be you know, on our
14:26
website, but they're reading the article. They're not going to watch the two
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hours of television in the morning, so some people do. But usually if
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I'm out with the younger crowd, not going to get recognized as much.
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It's always the days when I'm in the grocery store and i have no makeup
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on and my hair is in a baseball cap and I've got like a hoodie
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and crocs, and like, without fail, someone will recognize the like from
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down the aisle. I'm like, how did you even? I look nothing
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like myself? But I've learned to It kind of threw me off at first
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the first couple of years, but I enjoy it now. And honestly,
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unless I'm just having a real bad day, I welcome the opportunity to say
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hi and meet a viewer face to face, or anyone who maybe they're not
15:09
a regular view or maybe they just recognize me on the news, but I
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think having that moment to actually stop and looks them in the eye and say
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hey, it's nice to meet you, and have them see like I'm out
15:16
buying my you know, pasta sauce just like the rest of them, and
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like I'm a human too. Like I enjoy those humanizing moments I get to
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connect with folks that a lot of community events, you know, different five
15:28
K's benefit concerts, things like that, And I just think that's a great
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opportunity for people to realize that, you know, the media in big quotes
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is in some cases just your neighbor who's also a member of this community.
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That's the take home point for Today News anchors buy pasta sauce too. I
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can't remember the last time I made my own. Sometimes the week just gets
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busy, totally fair, you know. One of the reasons why we wanted
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to have you on the show, like one of the reasons that popped up
16:07
in my head was one you again having me on and seeing how much like
16:11
mental health was something that was important to you and something that you want to
16:15
information that you want shared with the masses, and also seeing like on your
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own social media posts that you've talked about and you've been open about living with
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depression and anxiety, Like can you talk to us a little bit about that,
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Like when you were first diagnosed, where were things like leading up to
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it. We've talked about it a lot on our show of like sometimes like
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we don't necessarily know what's going on and when we're trying to cope with what's
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happening, we're trying to do the best we can live in our life,
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and we just don't know that there's there's an answer behind all the symptoms and
16:45
things we're dealing with. So I used to repeat the question because I keep
16:48
talking every time I'm about to ask a question, what was that like for
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you, like when you're first diagnosed, and then what were things like for
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you leading up to a diagnosis. Honestly, I love talking about this now,
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and one of the biggest reasons is because I feel like I didn't have
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that many people to talk about it, you know, some of the years
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that I was really struggling. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression a couple
17:08
of years ago. Gus, gosh, it would have been well twenty end
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of twenty twenty, so not until I moved to Portland. I had been
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in my career professionally on you know, by all external appearances, succeeding you
17:22
know, in my life for you know, over a decade, but behind
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the scenes, I was pretty stressed and h and some days were pretty tough,
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and there were a few things that I think got me to a breaking
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point. First being as a journalist, you know, in my professional world,
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in my years as a reporter. These days I sit behind the desk,
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but for many years I was going out responding to breaking news. Do
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you think about things like car crashes, house fires, shootings. Some stories
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are good, but some of those stories are really really tough, and oftentimes
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you're showing up to let me try, and I want to say, this
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is right, right. A lot of the news that we cover is great
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and positive, but some stories, those breaking news days, fires, car
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crashes, shootings, that's really hard. You're showing up as a reporter,
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walking into the worst day of someone's life, and there's a lot of trauma
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that I don't think I was really aware of the things that were happening around
18:26
me that I was that I was also internalizing. You know, you tell
18:30
yourself, oh, it's it's work, it's my job. I'm going to
18:32
compartmentalize it, shut that part of my brain off when I'm done for my
18:34
day. But you're a human and that stuff sticks with you, and over
18:40
time, I think that just that built that built up after several years.
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The other thing you know that we all know happened in twenty twenty and the
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pandemic hit. Things got pretty stressful for a lot of folks, and the
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world around us changed. I was so fortunate to still have a job and
18:55
have a lot of my day to day remain the same, but it was
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a really stressful time. I went through a pretty significant breakup after moving to
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Portland that was tough for me personally as well. And then really the thing
19:07
that was the tipping point for me, I think was a huge personal loss
19:14
for my family. My younger brother actually passed away in twenty twenty, unrelated
19:18
to the pandemic, but he was twenty six years old and had just a
19:22
cardiac event, and it was horrible for our family. And it was also
19:30
really difficult to be dealing with a loss that was so different from what the
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rest of the world was also experiencing in terms of loss and some of the
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trauma of COVID nineteen. So just layers and layers of isolation that really felt
19:45
like they were compounding on a stressful work environment and just trying to keep pushing
19:51
forward, pretend like nothing's wrong, everything's fine. Even before my brother died,
19:56
I was noticing my relationships at work restrained. I had a short fuse.
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The cameras were on and I was smiling, but behind the scenes,
20:04
there were days where I was not a fun person to be around, and
20:07
any little thing that would go wrong on air, go wrong on the show,
20:12
which when you're working in live television happens every day, you know,
20:17
things go unplanned, it would derail my whole day. And it got to
20:22
a point where I realized, you know, my behavior, my attitude,
20:26
just the way that I was feeling on a daily basis was just untenable.
20:29
And then when my brother passed away, I knew that I needed to reach
20:34
out right then and there and get help before I got to a point where
20:38
we're reaching out to try and get help was even going to be feel too
20:42
difficult. So I found a therapist. I was actually still home in Florida
20:48
with my family at the time after my brother had passed, and then I
20:52
found a therapist in Portland and set up an appointment for when I got back
20:55
and started therapy when I got back here, and a couple months into therapy
21:00
started to peel back some layers. You know, obviously I was dealing with
21:03
my brother's death and some immediate depression and grief from that but then also starting
21:08
to look back at the last few years and even my life back to high
21:11
school and realizing, gosh, I was that kid that always chalked up,
21:18
you know, it, chalked it up to being a perfectionist, checked it
21:21
up to having really high expectations for myself and others. Right and you and
21:25
you put some of these patterns together and realize, oh, my gosh,
21:26
I have been setting some really unrealistic standards for myself for a long time that
21:33
are really stemming from some pretty deep rooted anxiety. It just it had snowballed
21:37
to a point where it forced me to deal with it. And I'm so
21:41
glad that I did, because I, you know, started therapy, noticed,
21:45
you know, some improvement just from being able to talk about it and
21:49
try to actually vocalize what I was feeling internally. I started medication, So
21:56
I started a generic of Lexaprobe, So now I take it daily medication for
22:00
depression and anxiety. And anyone who has taken SSRIs knows that usually it takes
22:04
a while to really kind of start up. So after a couple of weeks,
22:10
all of a sudden, I just started to notice that I was feeling
22:14
like myself again, and I've had a conversation with a friend and I tried
22:18
to kind of explain it to her, and I said, you know,
22:22
I almost feel like, for the last couple of years, my baseline had
22:26
been so low and I needed something good to happen to me each day to
22:29
bring that baseline up. Now I feel like my baseline I start each day
22:34
so high, and things can go wrong, I might dip down, but
22:37
I can come back up again. I just I feel like I'm back in
22:41
a good spot where I used to be. And she got emotional. I
22:45
got emotional. She's like, I'm just so happy to see you happy like
22:48
this, just I'm so glad to see you back. And I realized,
22:52
I'm like, there aren't as many stories out there. I don't think of
22:56
people who hit a road, hit a hard time, found resources, or
23:03
had someone reach out to them. You know, we're able to get the
23:04
help they need and saw an improvement. I had only ever heard scary stories
23:11
or horror stories in it, and I understand I am. I am very
23:14
lucky here in the experience that I had, you know, having a medication
23:18
work for me and not having to go through a very difficult trial and error.
23:22
But I think one of the reasons that I was so worried about reaching
23:26
out for help for so long was that I had not had these conversations with
23:30
people, you know, anyone else telling me like, yeah, I had
23:33
a tough time and I got help. And as I started opening up to
23:37
more people in my inner circle, to friends and family, I heard from
23:41
more people, Oh yeah, I've been I've been on an antidepressant for three
23:45
years. Oh yeah, I took some back in college. I had a
23:48
member of my immediate family say, yeah, I took some for a couple
23:52
of years. I grew up. I had no idea, you know.
23:56
And and so that's kind of what prompted me to be a little more out
24:00
open and to use the platform that I do have in news and in media,
24:04
because if if my story hits one person and makes them think, oh
24:07
gosh, maybe maybe that's kind of where I'm at, or I'm glad that
24:11
she was able to find help, maybe there's help out there for me,
24:15
then then I want to do that. Yes, thank you, Thank you
24:18
first, like a million times, thank you for sharing that I you're sharing,
24:22
like there your high school experience, and like even going back that far
24:26
of like how much you were able to not cover up, but like maybe
24:30
just like deal with stuff enough to be like, yeah, this is normal,
24:33
this is okay, Like this is just how things are. Like I
24:36
just wish like so many of the kids that I talked to at the high
24:38
school that I'm at like would understand or like would get to hear. And
24:41
I mean that's why we put this stuff out so that people can hear it.
24:45
It's like sometimes it is the way that we've been used to live in
24:48
our life, like is not maybe the best all the time, and like
24:52
at some point our body and our mind is going to decide for us that
24:55
this time that we get help. And for some people they're able to do
24:57
it for days, weeks, months, years, decades, and then at
25:02
some point it really does come to an end where you know, we need
25:06
to try something different. So and I really appreciate you sharing that, like
25:08
for a long time hearing like the horror stories of like maybe it doesn't get
25:12
better, or the medication is tough for my psychiatrist, a psychiatrist is not
25:18
giving me the best meds, like it's and I appreciate you sharing that,
25:22
but also sharing like but it did end up working out and it was helpful,
25:26
and it's still helpful, so I think it's almost it's almost kind of
25:30
the same thing as like customer reviews. You're so much more likely to be
25:33
vocal and get online and talk about something if you had a bad experience,
25:37
and you know, not as often do you get on and say like,
25:41
oh, I went to this restaurant and it was fine, no complaints,
25:42
you know. So that's where it's like, you know, you tend to
25:47
hear a lot of like the worst case scenarios and I and I and I
25:49
don't want to in any way negate those experiences because that's horrible. And I
25:53
hope that everyone who is struggling is able to find help, that it works
25:59
for them. But at the same time, there is this silent group out
26:03
there who needed some help and got some help and it's working and they're great,
26:07
and you don't always see the struggle that got them there, And I
26:11
just I wanted to be that narrative that I wished i'd had those years when
26:15
I was struggling and should have reached out, but felt like, well,
26:18
everyone around me seems like they're fine, so I'm fine. I'll keep pushing
26:22
you know. Yeah, I love the point you made to where you said
26:26
the lexapro or setlepram the generic name psych just here it helped you get back
26:33
up to your normal, But in therapy, that's where you really started working
26:37
on some of the things that led to the depression and the anxiety. And
26:41
that is such a beautiful point because it's something I tell my patients all the
26:45
time, is that the medicine is supposed to help you get feeling better sooner,
26:49
and then therapies really where you start working on it, where you start
26:52
understanding why you got that way, how to fix those things. You mentioned
26:57
that you had a lot of perfectionistic tendency, and in the United States that
27:00
is glorified. Perfectionists are told, oh, well, you're the ones who
27:04
are going to be successful. You're the ones who can do well in business,
27:07
who can do well in TV, because you're going to sacrifice a little
27:11
bit of yourself to make sure that your product, what you're putting out is
27:15
acceptable, is up to your standards, so you're valuable to other people.
27:21
But my question is along those lines, so what else have you learned about
27:26
yourself that maybe you found in therapy that helped you make some of those changes.
27:32
And then two part questions, how have people responded to your story?
27:36
Because yes, we do tend to hear more of the negative stuff, how
27:38
about when they hear the positive stuff, which your experience been. I want
27:41
to start with that because when I first posted a few things on social media
27:48
and on TV and kind of opened up about it a little more, it
27:51
all kind of stemmed from an offhand comment that I had made just in conversation
27:56
on the morning show. We had been in the middle of a live interview
27:59
and it was something related to mental health, and I just mentioned very conversationally
28:04
in the interview, like it was talking about some new treatment for treatment resistant
28:08
depression, and I had had made a point to say, like, I
28:11
just think it's great that there's another resource out there, you know, as
28:15
someone who has dealt with anxiety and depression and has found a treatment that worked
28:18
for them, I just I want that for other people. Moved on,
28:22
like asked my next question, like it was. It was that quick,
28:26
and I got several emails from viewers more than a typical response of hey,
28:30
I noticed you said that you have depression on TV. I had no idea
28:34
that really that really stood out to me. Thank you so much for talking
28:37
about this, and I was like, wow, I barely talked about it,
28:41
so that, you know, that got me thinking. I was like,
28:42
okay, I'm actually I'm going to put this out there for folks and
28:45
and see what resonates. And I was blown away by the response that it
28:48
got. Gosh, hundreds of comments on Facebook and Instagram and emails from viewers
28:53
who reached out and said, you know, I've I've struggled with this for
28:59
a long time. I had no idea that this was something you dealt.
29:00
Was just thank you for sharing, all the way up to someone saying,
29:04
you know, my daughter saw this video. I posted a video on Facebook.
29:08
My daughter saw this video and sent this to me, and it made
29:12
me realize that I need to reach out and ask for help. And you
29:15
know, people saying that they were going to reach out and that it was
29:18
what they needed to yeah, to seek therapy or to maybe not be so
29:23
afraid of medication that I mean to me, I'm like sitting at my computer
29:26
just like bawling reading some of these messages from people. I just had no
29:30
idea, And from that point on, I was like, Okay, I
29:33
you know, I will talk to anyone who who has questions from here on
29:37
out because I just think, you know, mental health should not be stigmatized.
29:41
It should not be so difficult to talk about. It should be no
29:42
different from you know, telling someone like, oh my gosh, I was
29:45
down all weekend with the worst head cold. So that's been the response,
29:49
and I'm I'm happy to do it. In terms of other things that I've
29:52
learned, Boy, we've really had fun unpacking productivity, anxiety and and just
29:57
that the stress, right, you know, to your point of just like
30:02
being you know, to your point justin of being in America and hustle culture,
30:07
you know, strive for perfection. The grind is so idealized, you
30:11
know, girl boss, all of this stuff right, just unpacking that and
30:15
and really being able to take a step back and look at like what for
30:18
but for what? You know? And that's not to say that you shouldn't
30:21
still take pride in your work and strive to do a good job. But
30:26
at what point do you give yourself a little grace? You know? We
30:30
um my therapist will sit there and say, you just rattled off your day
30:34
after complaining that you felt like you weren't productive enough, and like that.
30:38
You just listed so many things. You know. She's like, if any
30:41
of your friends told you that they just had that day, would you look
30:45
at them and say, hmm, you were kind of lazy today. You
30:48
need to you know, you need to day a little more. You wouldn't
30:51
if you wouldn't talk to your friends like that. Why are you talking to
30:52
yourself that way? I was like, wow, okay, yeah, so
30:56
that's been really that's been really helpful, especially you know, in a in
31:00
a career that is so tied into social media and public appearance, and there's
31:06
there's always someone next to you getting a big story, winning an award,
31:11
you know, increasing their social media presence on top of their game. Right,
31:15
It's just it's so easy to play the comparison game. And just learning
31:21
to cut myself some slack has been has been good. Oh okay, two
31:25
things. First, thank you for making our job easier just by you talking
31:29
about your own experiences and how you've gone to one place, come back from
31:34
it, learned to kind of cope with these things. Yeah, you sharing
31:37
that just it makes our job easier. If people getting to hear that story
31:41
is so important and so helpful. And we've talked on the show of like
31:45
just the idea of normalization just makes things easier for people. It makes it,
31:49
like you said that mental health should not be stigmatized. It shouldn't be
31:52
the same thing with like people who get treatment in the past and then they
31:57
complete and then they feel like they can't go. Like when you go to
32:00
therapy, you don't get like a punch card that says like, all right,
32:02
you're done for the year, Like no, you can come back whenever,
32:05
you can come back in two weeks, Like it's it's just so great
32:07
to hear a positive story like that. And then your other piece of just
32:10
like unpacking all these things when it comes to like productivity and the shitty culture
32:15
that we have in terms of like work and having to do certain things and
32:19
and tying our almost like our self worth to what we're doing and what we're
32:22
gaining and experiencing. It is so toxic that we have to do with that
32:25
and our kids have to do with that. And one of the pieces of
32:29
advice that my therapist gave me that I love was she told me when they
32:32
should stop shooting on yourself, and I said, part of me come again
32:38
shooting yourself. We do this where we get in our head and we're like,
32:45
oh my gosh, Like I should have gotten up earlier because then I
32:47
could have gotten a better workout in. I should have packed my lunch last
32:51
night because then I wouldn't be getting a drive through lunch. I should have
32:53
you know, worked a little harder yesterday. It's like this, It's this
32:57
constant retroactive list in your mind, like all these things you should have done,
33:00
like or you could have worked hard. It's like where does that get
33:04
you? You know, that's it's it doesn't improve your productivity. It just
33:07
makes you feel worse about yourself. So when you when you start to hear
33:09
those thoughts, you know, recognizing that thought pattern, putting a lid on
33:15
it and taking a minute to stop and just look at okay, but like,
33:17
look at all the things that I did do today. And even if
33:22
it is you got out of bed, brush your teeth and made your bed,
33:25
you know, despite struggling with depression right now, you know you had
33:30
a terrible night asleep and you're still at work and you smiled at your coworkers
33:35
today. Just learning to give yourself some kudos for the things that you are
33:38
doing and stop the negativity because what's going on in your head does vibrate out
33:45
to folks around you. That similar to that, like telling you students of
33:47
like, um, what you've said of like the you wouldn't talk to your
33:52
friend like that, you wouldn't like if you would if they told you all
33:53
these things, you wouldn't like. You wouldn't shoot on them or sit on
33:58
them right, like, you wouldn't do that to them. So it's like
34:00
definitely like cutting yourself from slack being like your own. You have to be
34:06
like your own cheerleader, like you have to like because a lot of the
34:08
times, like someone else is not Unfortunately, someone else won't do it for
34:12
us. If we can do it for ourselves, we're not always as dependent
34:15
on validation from other people or from other outside sources that really aren't as important.
34:20
Like if we're able to support ourselves and be our own number one fan,
34:23
then that's more than enough. And the piece that you said of like
34:28
if the best you can do is get out of bed, you brush your
34:30
teeth, you make your bed, you eat for the day, that's totally
34:34
fine too, Like I tell students all the time, like all that I
34:37
ask of you is that you do the best that you can that day.
34:40
If your best is that you crush everything, you get everything done off your
34:44
list. Cool. If your best is like you just made it to school
34:46
and you just got the assignments for the day and then you took them home,
34:50
that's cool too, right. You wouldn't You wouldn't look at your friend
34:52
and say, oh, yeah, you should have studied so much harder for
34:55
that test last week. It's like, no, if your friend was telling
34:59
you, like, I didn't do so well, you probably look at them
35:01
and say, yeah. And remember you were struggling with some test taking anxiety,
35:07
and you got in a fight with your sister the night before, and
35:12
you know, like you had you had other things going on, or you
35:15
had to stay late at your job, Like remember all the other things that
35:17
you were also dealing with. Like, don't sit here and say, oh,
35:21
you should have done this, this, this, because you were doing
35:23
the best. You were doing the best you could in the moment with the
35:27
circumstances that you were faced with, and just always being mindful of that as
35:30
circumstances change, don't look back at your old self and judge the actions that
35:36
were taken when the circumstances were different. Yeah, you mentioned therapy and medications,
35:42
and yes we harp on that in the mental health world that those are
35:45
two very important things. In the combination of therapy and medications is more powerful
35:50
than them individually. But you've also talked about hiking, being outdoors, and
35:57
it sounds like life as a news anchor, especially life as a news anchor
36:00
who hosts a morning show. It's stressful and the hours are bananas, and
36:06
sleep is a premium. What are some of the non therapy, non medication
36:10
things that you have found. Yeah, oh, so many things. And
36:15
one of the things I will say too, that was so helpful in starting
36:17
medication was you know, to your earlier point justin it brought me back to
36:22
that baseline where I was then able to go and re engage with some of
36:25
those activities that can be so beneficial for our mental health. So sometimes you
36:30
need that extra booth to get there and get that momentum going. But one
36:35
of the things that makes such a big difference for me is getting enough sleep.
36:37
And as frustrating as it is, it is so true having good sleep
36:43
hygiene. I mean, I like, I roll my eyes at the stuff,
36:45
but it is so true. I actually set a timer on my phone,
36:51
especially during the summer here because Oregon summers you have amazing sunshine and beautiful
36:55
weather until you know o'clock night, right, which is wonderful if you don't
37:02
have to wake up at two o'clock in the morning. But when my alarm
37:07
goes off at two AM, I have got to find a way to sleep
37:09
when it's light out. So I have blackout shades on every window of my
37:13
condo, and I have an alarm on my phone set for four thirty PM
37:16
to remind me to close the shades and make it darker in here a couple
37:22
hours before I need to wind down and go to bed. I try really
37:27
hard to stop scrolling TikTok, which is such a challenge, but I really
37:34
do try to kind of unwind and start to turn down from social media.
37:37
I have some really cute blue light blocker glasses that are just a trip that
37:44
there's these big giant goggles that I so I put on my blue light blockers.
37:47
I try to avoid some of the blue light and start to wind down.
37:51
Reading before bed is such a great for whatever reason that just it helps
37:57
me, just like conk out for the night. So doing all those things
38:00
just really prioritizing sleep, and that was one of the things that as I
38:05
have learned to better manage my anxiety, I am able to close the laptop
38:09
and say, you know, those half a dozen emails that I did not
38:13
get to today will be there tomorrow. They no longer keep me up at
38:15
night the way they used to. So just learning to manage some of the
38:21
day to day workload in a way that is manageable long term. Prioritizing that
38:25
time for yourself and sleep and rest, it's so important, prioritizing working out
38:30
and staying active. I actually I started getting into pure bar, which is
38:37
kind of a kind of a mix of like yoga, pilates, and dance.
38:39
It's a fun workout, and I started teaching it because I actually realized
38:45
I tried to kind of trick my brain. I was like, because I
38:46
realized that I am a workaholic and I do have a tendency to be a
38:50
perfectionist. If I make working out my job, then I will also do
38:53
that more so that one got some raised eyebrows from therapist. But I have
39:00
actually made it work for me, and she's she's come around to the idea.
39:05
She was like, Okay, I'll let you try this approach. You
39:07
let me know. She's like, why are you going to add one more
39:09
thing to your schedule? I know, but but actually, you know,
39:14
viewing it as a job. I teach a couple classes a week, and
39:16
then I, because I want to be a good teacher, I need to
39:19
go take the other classes and work on my form and stay physically fit.
39:23
So really, I think treating working out like a job, and it doesn't
39:28
have to be a group fitness class. If you enjoy going for a round
39:30
on the riverfront, if you enjoy going to the gym and lifting weights,
39:34
if you enjoy dancing around your living room for twenty minutes a day, whatever,
39:38
whatever movement feels good to you, making that a priority and and scheduling
39:44
it in your day like a job, I mean, that's you're you're working
39:46
for yourself and paying yourself dividends in that way. So I think working out
39:52
in sleep are super super big for me. Also, just being mindful of
39:55
you know, alcohol and caffeine and stuff like just day to day that stuff
40:00
can catch up with you. So learning to at the end of a stressful
40:04
day not automatically reach for a glass of wine, you know, make sure
40:07
that that I'm just being mindful of, like you know, when when I'm
40:10
drinking and why, and when I'm eating and why and if there's an emotional
40:14
component tied to that, just taking a moment to kind of stop and think,
40:16
like, Okay, let's dig into that a little bit. What's going
40:19
on? Is there another there another kinder way that I could help myself in
40:22
this moment. About three years ago, Justin and I were doing an episode
40:28
and we talked about sleep, and I made a comment about, like,
40:31
well, it's not like anyone our age really gets that much sleep anyway,
40:35
and Justin was like, actually, I make sure I sleep like eight or
40:38
nine hours a night. And from then on, I was like, damn,
40:40
I really got to work on my ship because I just got but just
40:46
unintentionally, h man. Yeah. And so from then on, like seriously,
40:52
from then I was like, damn, I should really be sleeping,
40:53
and like that that's been a huge difference for me. We also have one
40:58
of our friends who's been on the show IF times. Her name is doctor
41:00
Kristin Casey. She's asleep psychologist. Like she is, talked to us about
41:05
the importance of sleep And you mentioned sleep hygie and how that how important that
41:08
is? I really like to your point of alcohol, I didn't really know
41:12
how much alcohol can impact my sleep until like here and from justin here,
41:15
from from our friend doctor Kristin Casey, and like I have pretty much I've
41:20
started to be like mindful of you know, if I'm gonna have a drink
41:23
tonight, is it really worth like my sleep being off like just for the
41:27
one drink? Like maybe not. So I've pretty much like I feel like
41:30
there's there's almost a shift, maybe a shift. I don't want to like
41:34
speak for everybody, but like one of my friends, we don't drink much
41:37
like at all we drink. We Lagunita's Brewery makes this hot water that's like
41:44
kind of tastessychas seltzer, but like it's basically just like a Bubbly or a
41:47
Lacroix, but just doing that instead of drinking, and we still get like
41:51
the the like positive reinforcement of drinking without the messed up sleep cycle that that
41:55
alcohol gives us. Yeah, yeah, being mindful of just like our are
42:00
you drinking because you're bored? Are you drinking because it's a social thing is
42:04
it. Sometimes it's just the simple act of like having something in your hand
42:07
when you're sitting there talking with friends, and it can very easily be water.
42:10
Sometimes I'll put bubbly water in a wine glass just because drinking out of
42:15
a fancy glass it's I don't know, I don't know if it's scientific,
42:19
but I think that drinking out of a fancy glass makes things taste better.
42:22
So just, you know, just finding little ways to kind of break up
42:28
those habits or just be mindful of it, I think is important. Not
42:30
picturing you with a wine glass full of bubbly and your big blue blue blocking
42:35
goggles on sitting there at night. Can you see in here right now?
42:37
Because that was literally last night on the couch watching Ted Lasso? Yep.
42:46
What message do you hope that your viewers get from from you through the work
42:51
that you do. I hope that they see authenticity. I don't think that
42:58
you get that from everyone on TV and in media, and I think we've
43:04
I think we've I do think, you know, if there is if there
43:07
are silver linings to kind of come out of the pandemic and this rise of
43:10
social media, and in particular TikTok like I love how I love how authentic
43:15
gen Z and some of these younger kids are being on social media. They've
43:20
grown up with all of this around them. It's always been a part of
43:23
their world, and I see less of a need to put on a front
43:28
in various facets of their life. I try to bring that, you know,
43:31
into my job as well. Obviously there are things about being a professional
43:37
news anchor. I'm still going to present professionally, but I do try to
43:40
find moments in my day and in connecting with viewers online where what you see
43:45
is what you get, like this is this is me, this is my
43:49
thoughts. I'm just connecting with you human to human, and I hope that
43:53
that empowers other people to feel more authentic in their lives, to feel like
43:58
they do have people out there that they can reach out to and connect with.
44:01
If if I'm able to be a positive force in someone else's life,
44:06
then then my job is worth it. Thank you so much, Thank you
44:09
again for being on the show. We're gonna go to Justin now, it's
44:13
take home point time. What do you have for us? Justin? I
44:15
want to repeat what Emily said and say, don't shoot on yourself because that's
44:22
a lovely point. And actually we have a good friend of the show,
44:27
Andy Kepp, who has a millennial or sorry, that's our show in the
44:30
Mind podcasts, that's us. But yeah, he always would tell me,
44:35
don't should your pants, So that was his take on it. A little
44:38
more now, more crass perhaps, yeah, very graphic. I love the
44:44
visual, but Money in the Mind is over is as finished. They released
44:49
their final episode, So I wanted to just show your show love and give
44:53
a shout out to Andy and Aaron the host of that show. We were
44:57
on it a couple of times, and just say what it has been an
45:00
honor to work with you guys, and don't shoot your pants. My take
45:07
home point is going to be that news anchors and reporters by pasta sauce too,
45:12
and the other people just like you and I and there. Yeah,
45:16
I'm gonna leave it at that, Emily, do you have any one last
45:21
take home point for us before we do our outro? Oh man, Yeah,
45:24
I hope this podcast was as fun to listen to as it was to
45:29
record. I really enjoyed getting to talk with you guys, and any any
45:32
time I get to be a little less filtered and a little more real.
45:36
Is time well spent. So I just I really enjoy having these conversations.
45:39
If anyone wants to continue the conversation, I think I'm at Emily Burris on
45:45
most social media stuff, so feel free to connect with me and say hey,
45:49
perfect, We'll add that stuff to the show notes too, so people
45:52
can can have access to it. You can reach out to Emily with that,
45:55
I will give you our same outro that we do every single episode.
46:00
Wherever you listen to your podcasts, you can find us there where there's Apple
46:02
Podcasts, Spotify, whatever other platforms there are. On Apple Podcasts, if
46:07
you'd like, you can leave us a five star review and a comment that
46:08
we can read at some point in the future. On Spotify, you can
46:12
leave us a five star review and I guess a question feature too that I
46:15
still don't know how we would answer it if you left a question, but
46:17
feel free to leave us a question if you'd like on social media at Millennial
46:22
MHC. That is everything that I have justin I think that's everything you have.
46:25
Emily. Thank you again so much for being on the show, and
46:28
as always, everyone take care of you. O mentals