Search Results for: wellness

1. “It is health that is the real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” —Mahatma Gandhi2. Go shopping at your local farmers market.3. Read The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living, by Amid Sood, MD4. Read The Kind Diet, by Alicia Silverstone.5. Watch Supersize Me.6. “The part can never be well unless the whole is well.” —Plato7. Run a 5K, 10K or half-marathon.8. Listen to “Eye of the Tiger,” by Survivor.9. Read Wherever You Go, There You Are,by Jon Kabat-Zinn.10. Watch Forks Over Knives.11. “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” —Mark Twain12. Try a new kind of exercise, like Zumba or TRX.13. Buy and cook a vegetable you've never eaten before.14. Read The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin.15. Watch Food Inc.16. “A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.” —Irish Proverb17. Get a massage.18. Buy a bicycle, or get a tune-up on the one you have.19. Read Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson.20. Try going meat-free or vegan for one week.21. Get your blood pressure checked.22. Find out your wellbeing score at YourWellbeingScore.com.23. Walk or bike to work.24. Read ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running, by Danny Dreyer.25. Try going to bed an hour earlier.26. “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” —Abraham Maslow27. Take a break andmeditate.28. Unplug and spend time with friends.29. Read Start Strong, Finish Strong: Prescriptions for a Lifetime of Great Health, by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, M.P.H., and Dr. Tyler Cooper, M.P.H.30.“You're in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.” —Dr. Seuss31.Go trick-or-treating!

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Music Shapes Your Mind With Renee Fleming   [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note. Renowned soprano, Renee Fleming has performed on some of the world's biggest stages, performing in operas, concert, theater, and film. And she was the first classical artist ever to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. But now, the five-time Grammy award winner is using her voice to help improve our wellbeing. For her new book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, Renee has curated a collection of essays from leading scientists, artists, musicians, creative arts therapists, educators, and healthcare providers about the powerful impact of music and arts on health and the human experience. She's here to talk about how this project came about and why she is so committed to sharing this message. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:53] PF: Renee, thank you so much for joining me today.   [0:00:56] RF: Thank you, Paula. It's great to be with you.   [0:00:58] PF: Oh, it's such an honor to have you on the show. Most of us know you as an acclaimed and accomplished performer, but what our listeners may not know is that you are also an incredible advocate for the healing power of music. So, I was curious to know how you began discovering that.   [0:01:14] RF: It was basically, I'm a performing artist, so I've known my whole career that it has a powerful effect on people, the music. I've gotten so many letters and met so many people who have said, "Your music got me through cancer, or lost, or any number of things." But I was surprised to find that researchers were studying music in the brain. I was following all of that kind of armchair, newspaper reading bits about this type of research, because I had somatic pain that I was trying to unravel, and understand. Like, "Why my body was producing pain so that I wouldn't perform?" It was kind of a connection to stage fright, but a connection to performance pressure overall. So, that's how I stumble across this and then I met, Dr. Francis Collins at a dinner party, which he outlines in the introduction of the book. But it was extraordinary, because I had just started as advisor to the Kennedy Center, and I said, "You know, I think the audience would be incredibly interested in this. Do you think we could provide a platform for the science?" Because he had a new brand initiative at the National Institutes of Health, and he said, "We're discovering that music, and incredibly powerful, it activates all known mapped areas of the brain when we engage with music."   [0:02:34] PF: Do you think that it helps that you're coming from as a performer versus a scientist? Are people more willing to maybe listen to you or attend something that you're doing than if it was going to be an academic who is presenting on it?   [0:02:50] RF: Well, when I perform, doing a wonderful National Geographic program now, then I'm touring around, certainly the US, but I hope to get to other countries as well with it. I'll be in Paris with this project. So, they made this stunning film, and it goes with an album that I won a Grammy for last year, called Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene. But as I tour and perform, I offer to these performing arts venues, and programmers a presentation on Music and Mind. I bring the audience and they're actually cast with finding local researchers, healthcare providers, therapists, music therapists, art therapists. It's broader than music, although music has probably, I would say, the most research at this point. Because it was easier to measure than dance or visual art, but they're all powerful.   [0:03:41] PF: Is it a challenge to make it accessible to a general audience, or do you find that's pretty easy to do?   [0:03:47] RF: I would have thought so, but I'm the general audience. When I sat for two days at the National Institutes of Health, and heard ten-minute presentations in panels, two days of it by all the scientists and researchers. I thought, "I'm not going to get any of this" and I loved it, I ate it right up. I think we know intrinsically, and we know kind of instinctively that the arts have power. But now that science is vetting it, validating it, bringing a body if rigorous research to back it up, and paying for it. So, the NIH spent $40 million just on music and research, mostly neuroscience. It's incredible. And they're going to continue to spend money because there's a there there, and it is healing, and especially for a specific – at this point, we have some very proven tracks of the research. Then, they'll continue to kind of build on that.   [0:04:45] PF: Do you think that's going to help with funding arts in schools, because right now, that's a big challenge. I know I live near a small community that just got its band program cut, because they had to choose between football and band. So, do you think as we see more research and funding goes into that, is that going to change how schools and educators view it?   [0:05:04] RF: Well, there's a whole section on education in this, because research has studied the benefits of it. It shows that it improves focus, it improves attention in terms of kind of tuning out extreme noise. We know about self-discipline, obviously, and some of the things that come just with practice. But it also help kids with identity, with the sense of building their own individualness, and creativity, frankly. Steve Jobs wrote an incredible book on – actually, it was Walter Isaacson about him and creativity is all through it and the arts. All that all came from the arts. So, I definitely think that not only do we need arts education back in schools, because also, truancy is a huge issue. We're having real problems after the pandemic with kids not coming back to school. But if it's only S, and not STEM, you'll find that a lot of kids will just check out, because they need to be engaged in things they enjoy. So, yes, I feel strongly about that.   [0:06:07] PF: That's incredible.   [0:06:08] RF: I also think, frankly, the creative arts therapist would be a huge benefit to schools, to add them as adjunct to the arts educators. Because they're trained in pro-social training, they're in pro-social behaviors, they're trained in a very different way from, say, arts educators, and they would work really well together, and also lift morale for the whole thing.   [0:06:29] PF: Yes, because we talked so much right now about Gen Z and anxiety. Gen Alpha is going to be an extension of that. As your book really shows, there's so many ways that music could be the bomb that treats a lot of those issues.   [0:06:45] RF: Absolutely. I saw turnaround arts at work in DC. That was the initiative that uses all the arts. The class that I witnessed was visual art. What the teacher said to me – first of all, the kids were so quiet because they were so engaged in learning – this was second grade, learning about photosynthesis. They were drawing and it comes to life for them. If you marry the two things together, education works well. A couple of the teachers said to me, it really works for trauma, for kids who have all kinds of different kinds of trauma. Visual art therapy is extremely helpful. Music therapy is more of a one-on-one activity, or a therapist with a group. Of course, choirs. A lot of science now showing an incredible benefit by singing in choirs.   [0:07:32] PF: One thing that you did during the pandemic was your Music and Mind Live with Renee Fleming. That was an amazing program. We're going to include a link to that on the landing page for this, because it's still out there. People can still go. As you said, music helps with trauma, and COVID, the pandemic, the lockdown, that was a trauma for us collectively.   [0:07:55] RF: Definitely.   [0:07:55] PF: What is that? You received almost 700,000 streams on that program. I really encourage our listeners to go check this out. What do you think it was that resonated so well with everyone? Because I know it resonated with me, but what were you seeing?   [0:08:10] RF: It was viewed in 70 countries, so that was exciting too. I think it was the lockdown, actually that prompted people's interest, because we found out immediately that everyone's response to COVID and to isolation was to try to reach out creatively in all different kinds of ways, rooftops to windows. So, that was a real aha moment, I think for people, so this all really made sense, it hit home. People had to stop and kind of remember our roots.   [0:08:41] PF: As you studied it, is there anything that you found particularly surprising? What has been like the main learning point for you about what music is doing for us and can do?   [0:08:51] RF: Well, there were couple of things. I mean, one is, a researcher in the Midwest, Jacquelyn Kulinski, who discovered that singing two or three times a week improves vascular health in people with, to some degree of cardiac failure. That really surprised me. But the analysis is that, for this population who are often sedentary, they're probably not well enough to be running on a treadmill, singing is exercise. The pulmonary benefits of singing for lung COVID. That's sort of a no brainer, I get that, because we're all about breathing. Another recent one that surprised me was that, a study in the UK on post-partum depression. They found that, actually singing in a choir is more beneficial than any other activity to treat post-partum depression. The worst depression, the more it works.   [0:09:42] PF: Oh, interesting.   [0:09:44] RF: The countries in Europe are adopting this now. The World Health Organization is working on an initiative to get this adopted in other countries as an actual treatment.   [0:09:52] PF: That's amazing. We need to overhear. Less drugs and more music, right?   [0:09:57] RF: Absolutely, yes. Absolutely.   [0:10:00] PF: As you've learned all this, has it changed your relationship with music at all? Has it change how you perform or has it change what you listen to when you're not performing?   [0:10:08] RF: The answer is yes. This year, come January 1st, one of the last chapters in the book is about the NeuroArts Blueprint. I work very closely with them. Susan Magsamen and Ruth Katz have created an extraordinary visionary initiative that blends in all kind of aesthetic experiences. So, nature is number one. Nature, music is one of the large research areas, but it's also architecture, visual art, and dance, and more. I think the encouragement in her book, Your Brain on Art, that was a bestseller last year, is that we all can engage with art forms, whether it's doodling or watercolor, we can do anything. We can sing to ourselves. January 1st, I just said, "This is going to be a rough year. I am not going to get sucked into looking at my news feed all day. I am going to live in the NeuroArts Blueprint." So, I'm reading one novel after another. I'm going to plays. I'm going to concerts, opera, of course. I'm walking out in nature every day and I can't tell you how much happy I am. It really works.   [0:11:14] PF: That's amazing. That is something I think, well, Live Happy should be just sharing that like every week.   [0:11:20] RF: Thanks. Absolutely.   [0:11:21] PF: Because that is a big concern for people, the climate right now. By that, I mean, of course, the political climate, and the news that we're getting, and the division that's going on. And so, yes, to understand that within your book, there's actually a blueprint that tells us how we can avoid this is an incredible gift, like, run don't walk, go find it.   [0:11:42] RF: No question. The idea is that, of course, we want to be active and activate the things that we can that each of us as individuals are capable for any of those things that we care about. But you can't live it all day long. Most of us are not in a position to be able to do this. It's not our job, it's not our family. So therefore, you have to create some balance for yourself. Anyway, that's working for me.   [0:12:06] PF: That's incredible. Let's talk more about the book, because it is an incredible volume of work. It's essays from musicians, researchers, writers, educators, healthcare experts. How did the idea for the book come about? Because this is massive and I'm just trying to imagine sitting down and saying, "I'm going to have 600 pages, and it's non -academic."   [0:12:26] RF: So, I was inspired by David Rubenstein, who's the chairman of the Kennedy Center, who has a couple of TV shows and he decided at some point to take his interviews and publish them. He would edit them. I'm in his first book, which was about leadership. I thought, that is a great model. Forgetting the word out even more about the intersection of arts, and health, and the benefits of it. So, that was the idea. Of course, in my naive thinking, I thought, other people, they're going to write their chapters, and so, this will be easy. Took almost three years. It was a huge amount of work. Jason, who's on with us now, I couldn't have done it without him. I'm so proud of it. It's a really magical and unique book because there's nothing else like it. My publisher said, he was just so moved because he had no idea any of this was happening. There are stories of young people who are visionary, who've seen need in their communities, and they create incredible programs. Like Francisco Nunez in New York, who created a choir program to mix kids of different social strata. There's one in Philadelphia too, that's based on El Sistema, which is this incredible group, it's called Play on Philly. Then, you have all the artist chapters, Rosanne Cash's chapter [inaudible 0:13:47], an undiagnosed brain disorder that had to be operated on. And of course, for 10 years, people were telling her, "Well, I think you have headaches. I think it's probably hormonal." This is women in healthcare. So, her chapter is incredible, but they're really interesting. You can kind of just drop the needle on things that interest you. It's not a book that you would ever need to read cover to cover, unless you're that kind of person.   [0:14:12] PF: That's what I loved about it, because you can choose what speaks to you at that time and whatever kind of approach you want. If you want it to be sciency, we can certainly go find that. It's really something for everyone and meets the reader where they're at.   [0:14:28] RF: Really, if you're interested too, because some of the chapters are about movement disorders, really relate to people who have friends and family dealing with that, and/or Alzheimer's and dementias. It's fascinating to learn about the science. It starts with Evolution, Ani Patel, and then Dan Levitin, who also has a new book coming out in August, who does neuroanatomy for us. And Nina Kraus does hearing, why everything you wanted to know about how sound affects us. That sets it up, and then you can pick and choose your kind of subjects.   [0:15:01] PF: So, how did you decide who would participate in the book? Because you have an all-star cast there.   [0:15:06] RF: Some of its availability too, especially for the artist chapters, but everyone had to be related to this in some way. But I wanted to present a wide variety of – show the breadth of the field as it is now. In fact, if I were to do it now, I would probably make it even broader, and include more of the other art forms, because I know more people now. Every year, as I present and am involved, I meet people in different sectors who, again, are related. Health and wellness is so important to us right now, pain, some of the research on pain. I have a friend, actually, this is not in the book, but she had a type of aneurysm, a bleed in her brain, and was in excruciating pain from it, and couldn't – n lights, no looking at screens. The doctor said, "Listen to music." She discovered that the only music that helped her was Jimi Hendrix as loud as she could possibly play it. The minute the volume came down or it turned off, the pain came flooding back. So, I sent this, I thought that was surprising. I sent this to some of the neurologists who were working at the NIH. I said, "What do you make of this?" They sent me a study that had sort of brain photos, FMRI photos of excruciating pain in the brain, which was like circles, and red, and thick. Then, same person listening to music, and all the red was gone, all of the symptoms had subsided. So, to what degree, I don't know, but it was right there. There was a visual representation of how listening to music can affect pain.   [0:16:43] PF: I think people would be just absolutely amazed to find out how many different areas it affects. I think we all maybe have our own interests. I used to write about heart disease. I know some things about how music affects hearts. But with your book, it's almost like there is nothing that music doesn't affect.   [0:17:03] RF: It's kind of remarkable, but I can only – the thing that – I had a hard time understanding it when I first was exposed to all of this, even as a musician, but it was evolution that really gave me the way in to understanding why it is so powerful.   [0:17:18] PF: So, what would you consider music's best kept secret to be?   [0:17:23] RF: Well, those are definitely some things. But when you think about what's in the future, for instance, there is a 40 hertz vibration study at MIT that is showing with both light and sound that a very specific speed of wave can clean up plaques in the brain. So, imagine you'd go to CBS someday and step into a booth and practice hygiene for your brain. You could also embed that in music because it's not a very attractive sound, the 40 Hertz, which a composer at or MIT did, I performed this piece. Again, you could go to a concert hall, and come out, and be that much kind of fresher, cognitively. So, there are some amazing things in the future, I think.   [0:18:07] PF: I love that. As people listen, they're like, "Well, music can do all these amazing things for us, but how do we start?" We see how scientists can do it. We see what researchers are doing. How does an everyday person who's listening to this, how can they start using that power of music?   [0:18:21] RF: I would say, we do it already, we all use it. We use it to work out, we use it – we kind of use it as a tool to help us do something. For instance, when I walk on flat, I don't enjoy it. I like hiking in hills, but I don't care for walking on flat as much. So, I have trouble keeping my tempo up. But if you audiate, which is a musical term, if you imagine a song with a brisk tempo, and beat like This Land is your Land, you'll keep your pace, and you don't even have to play it out loud. So, that's useful because I can still talk to people and kind of have that in the background in my head. Then, the other thing is definitely for anxiety. I highly recommend that people use music for anxiety and depression. So, Dr. Vivek Murthy, our Surgeon General talks about this now. Music is really powerful for depression, and we have natural opioids in the brain that can be released with this. There's no question that it's beneficial. Now, here's the trick. It's all taste-based. It's what you like, what speaks to you. I can't tell you, "Here's a playlist with 10 pieces. They might work, but you might find something better." So, that's something that's always interesting to explain, because people assume, because it's me, it's classical music, but it's not. It's really individual.   [0:19:38] PF: I remember attending a brain health seminar in Cincinnati several years ago, and they had been working with brain injury, and there was a teenager who was in there with a bunch of non-teenagers, and he only wanted to listen to heavy metal. They're like, "That's going to fry his brain." So, they finally were like, "Let's try it." That's what he responded to. He had a TBI, and he responded well to heavy metal music.   [0:20:04] RF: I had a music therapist, actually, tell me in Atlanta who works with veterans that when she wants to calm down, she listens to Metallica. So, the whole room just went, "What?"   [0:20:15] PF: Enter Sandman, okay.   [0:20:18] RF: Right. Yes. So, yes, there's no question about that individuality. There's a beautiful chapter by a music therapist named, Tom Sweitzer, who has a kid come in who is really almost becoming a danger to himself and the people around him. His way in was heavy metal. This kid has stayed with him and continued all his therapy. But this is a really creative therapist who's built the largest, I would say, private music therapy organization in the country. It's in Middleburg, Virginia. He serves the whole community. So, that's a picture that shows what can happen.   [0:20:52] PF: It has so many blessings for us. It has so much hope for us. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find this book and how they can find your Music and Mind Live series. But as I let you go, what is your biggest hope for this book? What do you want people to get from it, and what do you hope it does to be part of the language about how we view music in mind?   [0:21:13] RF: Well, I hope people share it. I mean, I hope – it would be a great birthday or holiday gift for any music lover in your family or arts lover. Frankly, my whole purpose for doing this is because I am passionate about the work. It has affected me tremendously. It's not my field, it's not what I do, but I've become sort of the chief advocate. I love the people that I meet through the world, the scientists, and the researchers, and the therapists, and the whole ecosystem. I will say, it is growing very quickly.   [0:21:46] PF: Well, that is fantastic news for us, because we need it, I'd say, more now than ever.   [0:21:51] RF: No question, no question.   [0:21:53] PF: Well, I so appreciate the work you're doing. I appreciate your time with me today. Again, I really look forward to sharing this with our listeners.   [0:22:01] RF: Thank you, Paula. Wonderful interview. Thank you so much. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:22:07] PF: That was Renee Fleming, talking about how music and the arts can improve our physical and mental wellbeing. If you'd like to learn more about her book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Wellness, follow her on social media, discover her music, or access her online resources, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Mindful Flower Arranging With Talia Boone [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 477 of Live Happy Now. We've all heard the advice to stop and smell the roses, but this week's guest also wants us to take a moment to arrange them. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by Talia Boone, a social entrepreneur whose work has centered around human and civil rights issues. As you're about to learn, she discovered flower arranging as a form of meditation and self-care. In the height of the pandemic, she launched Postal Petals to help others relieve the anxiety they were feeling. Today, her company's mindful approach to flower arranging is being used by companies, individuals, and community groups who are discovering just how life changing her workshops can be. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:48] PF: Talia, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [0:00:51] TB: Yes, absolutely. Paula, thank you so much for having me. [0:00:54] PF: You are doing something that is truly different. As soon as I read about it, I was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe, it had never crossed my mind before. We talked so much about the benefits of nature here at Live Happy Now, and you are using floral arranging as a form of healing. So, I wanted to know, you've got a very interesting story. Can you tell us when you first realized that that could affect your mental health? [0:01:21] TB: Yes. So, the interesting story came to me very unexpected way. So, I have a really good friend, and she and I, whenever we get together, we're really intentional about doing things that we've not done before, always trying some new activity, never like, "Oh, let's go to lunch, or let's go to dinner." That's boring. Always, let's do something different. For one of our friend hangs, she actually suggested that we try flower arranging. I was like, "Cool, I haven't done that before. Let's do it." I liked it, not just because I was really proud of what I've made, but just something about the experience I just enjoyed in a different way that I had other activities. I ended up doing it again, I thought – because I live here in LA, we had the second biggest flower market in the world. I just was like, I'm just going to go down to the flower market, and grab some flowers, and come home, and arrange them, and just kind of see what happens. I went home, and I arranged them, love the flowers again, did it again, did it again. I just liked the way it felt. What I started realizing is that, I would go down to the flower market, just pick whatever feel good to me. I never knew the names of anything, except for the basic like roses, and calla lilies, and things like that. But I just would go down and just pick whatever felt good, whatever colors felt good, whatever shapes really spoke to me. Then, I would go home, and pour a cup of tea, and I would just arrange, and I would just feel like all of the worries of the day, the week, the anxiety, the stress would just dissipate while I arranged flowers. Even the process of just like prepping them, and pulling the stems off, and the thorns, all of those things, I just found it really, really therapeutic. Without really having the language for to call it that then, it became my go-to form of self-care. So that, you know, fast forward a couple of years later, whenever I feel stressed, that's what I would do. I would instinctively go to the flowers. So, fast forward to the very early days of the pandemic, I was starting to get very stressed out as they kind of – as two weeks went to four weeks, went to six weeks, and then it just looked like an endless amount of time that was going to kind of consume us in the home. I started to get really nervous, as I'm sure most of us did, with the uncertainty of what it meant for ourselves, our livelihoods, our families, all of those things. My therapist, we've kind of we're trying all these different things to see how I could kind of calm myself down. I'm very much a person that's into what I call lifestyle medicine. I believe diet and exercise, the right kind of food, the right kind of serving your body in the way that it actually needs it natively is what I kind of will always gear towards. I'm very, very cautious about medications and things like that. So, those kinds of things weren't options for me, and she didn't really recommend them, but that's not a route that I wanted to go. I know that prescriptions for medicines that calm your nerves were at an all-time high during the pandemic. [0:04:11] PF: Pharmacists are banking, right?   [0:04:12] TB: Absolutely. She actually said to me, she's like, "You know, Talia, I haven't heard you talk about arranging flowers in a few months. Why don't you try that and see if that helps you feel better." That ultimately started the journey for what is now Postal Petals. So, that's how I got the love of flowers, how I understood the kind of healing benefits. But then, once she suggested that I arranged them as a way for me to deal with what I was going through in the pandemic, that ultimately ended up being the one suggestion that led to starting Postal Petals. Because when I started looking for a company that could ship me fresh cut flowers to the house for me to arrange, I just couldn't find it. There were so many options to ship me ready-to-use arrangements, but there was nothing that allowed me to arrange them myself. That journey is ultimately what led me to recognize that there was a hole in the market, being that, what I was looking for did not exist. I just felt like, if I was looking for this, there's got to be other people who are as well. Then, I just saw an opportunity to enter into the flower industry. It was a time when events weren't happening, weddings weren't happening, people were hoarding toilet paper. They were definitely not buying flowers at the grocery store. Nobody was really thinking about flowers in that way. So, I took a chance, and decided I'm going to start this company, and we're almost four years later and Postal Petals is the best thing that could have happened to me professionally. I'm in love with this company, I'm so honored, privileged to have been chosen to build and run this company. [0:05:44] PF: That's amazing. For novices, what are we talking about when we talk about flower arranging? Because I'll be honest, the only flower engine I do is take it from the paper around it and put it in a vase. That's about as fancy as I get. So, what does flower arranging really entail? [0:06:03] TB: You know what it entails? It entails patience, it entails you allowing for the time to do it, it entails you allowing yourself to express yourself creatively. So, we are quite conditioned as a culture, particularly here in America. I think in other cultures, I know that they do a lot of flower arranging, and in Japanese, historically in Japanese culture, they arrange flowers specifically as a form of self-care, and meditation, and mindfulness. So, we're just kind of catching up to where flowers had been for many for quite some time. But, the actual act of flower arranging is, realizing that flowers don't always come as perfect as they come in these ready-to-use arrangements. You have to realize when those flowers show up to your florist, they've got leaves all over them, they've probably got bugs crawling in, and there's probably petals that are wilting and dying. So, it entails you being willing to work with those flowers in the same way your florist would, to kind of strip through all of the muck, or all of the waste to really hone in on the beauty. Then, once you hone in on the beauty, really put attention into thinking about where you want to place each stem. So, it's this idea of slowing down to get through that process. So many of us, it's so easy to your point, Paula, around just grabbing a bouquet from the grocery store, running some water in a vase, and plopping it into a vase. But when you stop, and you spread that bouquet out, and you decide that you're going to rearrange it. Now, you see, "Oh, there's leaves in here, let me pull those leaves off the water, off the stamp so that they don't poison the water. Let me adjust the height a little bit, because I want it to look a little bit more full. I think this petal, this bloom would look better over here next to this bloom." So, it's just that process of prepping the flowers, which is trimming them, removing leaves, removing thorns, removing what we call guard petals. But then also, kind of thinking through stem by stem where do those flowers best show up in the arrangement that would bring you the most joy. Then, really take your time to go through that process. I think once you kind of lose yourself in that experience, when you come out of it on the other side, experiencing a piece that I just can't even explain it. I think it's very similar to the way that people talk about gardening, and how they find it just so therapeutic. Most people who haven't done it would say like, "Why do I want to get my hands in the dirt, and do this, and do that? I don't want to do that. I could just buy my vegetables at the store. I could just have a florist deliver my flowers." But there's something about engaging with nature, whether it's in the dirt of a garden, or flower stems, as you're arranging. There's something about that process that is just so incredibly calming and therapeutic. [0:08:45] PF: This seems like such a mindful activity. You can't really be looking at each one, and deciding what you're going to do with it, and be thinking about, I've got to go pick up the kids from school, and I need to stop at the grocery store, and all these other things, you really have to focus. Is that a big part of the therapy side of it? [0:09:03] TB: Yes, it is, because it really forces you to just be present on what you're doing. It's interesting, because we offer our boxes as, you can get them on demand, but we encourage people to, as we say, kind of schedule and regulate self-care as a part of your routine. So, we do subscriptions, where you can get them every week, every other week, or once a month. The reason I say, kind of center your wellness, kind of schedule your wellness is because, when those flowers show up, you have to get them out of the box right away. So, whatever other things you're stressing about, whatever other things are pulling on your time or your attention, you're going to have to make time to pull those flowers out of the box, get them in some water, get them hydrated, and then go through that experience of arranging them. So often, we're in this hustle and grind culture, where we all are wanting to multitask, and do so many different things at the same time. Whereas, it really does in this way force you to pay attention, to be present, to not allow your attention to be diverted. Because if you're looking at work emails, and trying to arrange flowers at the same time, chances are, it's not going to turn out as beautiful as you want to. You're going to cut something too short; you're going to – there's something's going to happen. So, it's just an opportunity for you to design. It's also one of those things, I find that even people who are reluctant to try it, once they start their focus, they're dialed in. One of the things I love most about workshops is that, people come in all excited, and with all this energy, and they think it's going to be like a party. Once they start arranging, the noise dies down so much, because people just – they zone out, they just really, really get into it. It's a similar feeling to me. Result is different, and the experience and the textile is a little bit different. But kind of like when you're fixing puzzles, which is relaxing. You can be doing other things while you're fixing a puzzle, but it's going to take you a lot longer, because you're not going to be paying attention to what goes where and what makes sense. Flower arrangements really are a puzzle, they're your puzzle. It's for you to decide how you want them to turn out, but you have to give them the attention they deserve in order to know exactly where you want them to go. So that when you're done, and you twirl it around, you're going to be like, "Wow, I've made that, that's amazing." You definitely want to be present for that. Otherwise, the other side of that experience, if you're not present, is you're going to be, the whole week that you have them up, you're going to be noticing all the things that you would have changed if you would have been paying attention. [0:11:29] PF: So, I think you brought up to really great points without maybe even realizing it. So, when someone knows they're going to get these flowers. So now, you have this anticipatory savoring where it's like, they're really looking forward to this experience. Then, you have the experience itself, which we've talked about. Then, you have that, as you said, that week afterwards, where you're looking at these flowers. I think that probably brings back a lot of wonderful feelings, calming emotions, just by looking at that. [0:11:58] TB: You're absolutely right. I thank you for noting that point, Paula, because that's exactly it. We talked about or starting to talk more and more about self-care, we're offering them something that's really, at the end of it, they have this really beautiful reminder of that experience. You want to repeat that, because it just feels so good. There's nothing about flower arranging that you come out of, and you're like, "That was terrible. I'll never do that again." [0:12:23] PF: That flower bit me. [0:12:24] TB: Yes, they're so beautiful, like you absolutely love them. Then, also too, throughout the week, you have an opportunity to continue to engage with them. You want to keep trimming them and changing the water to extend their vase life. If one flower starting to fail, you pull that guy out. Sometimes, I even will, midweek, I'll take the whole arrangement out, lay it out, and design it again. Because sometimes, you just need a little bit of a, "Oh, I did a little bit of a huzzah. Let me give me myself a quick 15 minutes and I'll redesign this." It starts to really change the way that you think about flowers. Instinctively, even now, people when they see flowers, it brings a smile to their face that makes them happy. But when you're also able to add to it, that you were able to release anxiety or release stress, that kind of really changes even the way that you feel when you even see flowers. Because now, you've attached this really calming experience to it. Now, you've attached this kind of this mindful, and therapeutic experience to it. It really goes to elevate the relationship that we have with flowers. I think it's a missed opportunity when we allow florists to have all the fun, but we don't take on that experience ourselves. [SPONSOR MESSAGE] [0:13:37] PF: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Most of us are feeling a lot of stress these days, and one thing that can add to that stress is comparing ourselves to others on social media. It's so easy to start feeling like your life doesn't measure up. But with help from therapy, you can learn to focus on what you want, instead of what others are doing. Therapy can improve your coping skills and change the way you look at your world. BetterHelp is a great place to start. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire and you'll get matched with a licensed therapist. You can always change therapists at any time at no extra charge to make sure you get a therapist who's right for you. It's completely online, so it's flexible, convenient, and works with your schedule. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/livehappy today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com/livehappy. We'll be right back with the show, but now, Casey Johnson, Live Happy marketing manager and cat owner extraordinaire is back to talk more about her adventures with PrettyLitter.   [0:14:46] TB: Paula, as you know, I'm a proud cat mom of three adorable cats. But, let's be honest, no matter how cuddly they are, those litter box odors are not so cute. Before PrettyLitter, it felt like no matter how much I scooped, our place always smelled like a litter box. With PrettyLitter, I found a product that is the perfect blend of beauty and functionality. That pretty crystal masks the smell at the litter boxes, and now, you don't even know I have three cats until they sit on your lap. So, to all the other dedicated cat parents out there, I highly recommend trying PrettyLitter. [0:15:17] PF: We're going to make it easier for them to try. They can go to prettylitter.com/livehappy and use the code LIVE HAPPY to save 20% on their first order and get a free cat toy. That's prettylitter.com/livehappy, code LIVE HAPPY to save 20% and get a free cat toy. Again, prettylitter.com/livehappy, code LIVE HAPPY. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES]   [0:15:39] PF: You have turned Postal Petals into an entire movement. So, if someone's listening to this, they might think, "Oh, she sells flowers." It's like, "No, that's not what's going on here." You are doing community workshops; you even do online workshops. Talk about the workshops that you offer, and kind of what you see happen through the course of these workshops. [0:15:59] TB: Yes. So, thank you for asking that. We absolutely are not just flowers. I always say flowers are their tool. We are here to help introduce people to an attainable form of self-care, and mindfulness, and mental wellness. So, we do a series of free community wellness events where we incorporate movement, meditation, and then mindfulness with the flower arranging. So typically, it'll be maybe it's hiking, maybe it's walking, or like a restorative yoga session, followed by a breathwork session, or a guided, or sound bath meditation. Then, we take that really, once the body's already in a calm state, your mind has already kind of started to settle, we bring that energy right into a truly peaceful floral design workshop. We kind of guide people through, here's the flowers, and they walk into the space with the flowers, and it's just flowers everywhere. They can pick whichever flowers they want, and they go back to their stations, and we guide them, in a really kind way through the design process. We're really careful around not telling people where to put each stem. But instead, giving them tricks and tips like, "Cut the stems at a 45-degree angle, make sure you don't allow any leaves to fall below the waterline, because it'll poison your flowers. Be conscious of where you cut based on where you want the blooms to fall on the arrangement," things like that. The most rewarding thing after we do the free community wellness events, and then some of the corporate stuff that we do as well, is really the way that people without fail will comment about how unexpectedly good they feel after having gone through the experience. Because most people will say, I never thought about flowers in this way. I loved flowers. I've always loved flowers, but I've never, I've never experienced flowers in a way that I'm leaving feeling so relaxed, and feeling so centered, and feeling so calm, and feeling like I've addressed, I paid attention to my mindfulness today. That's really what we appreciate most. Then, even when we do our corporate workshops, or our workshops with – we do that private, we call them Petal Riot for design workshops. But we'll bring them in, and they'll say like, "Oh, there's going to be men in there, are men going to want to do this? We have come to find out that the men love it. They absolutely love it.   [0:18:11] PF: That's amazing.   [0:18:13] TB: Yes, the men love it. Many times, they are far better designers than they ever thought they were. I have been wowed so many times by the arrangements that some of our male workshop attendees have put together. They sometimes are dragged, kicking, and screaming to that workshop. But by the end of it, they're among the best, and typically, at the top of the class, it's really interesting. It's funny, because, I'll tell you, Paula, a trend that I was starting to notice when men would be in the workshops, whether they were the virtual workshops or the in-person workshops, is that they would naturally become very competitive. They would always want to make their arrangement better than everyone else. I would see this over, and over, and over again. I was thinking like, geez, I don't understand what that is. I really want this to be relaxing. I don't want it to feel like a competition. I was talking to a male friend of mine, and he was saying, he's like, "Talia, I think what you're not realizing is that for most men, competition is self-care."   [0:19:08] PF: That's a great way to look at it.   [0:19:09] TB: Yes, exactly. That's why they love watching games. That's why they love going to sporting events. Because for man, a lot of that is self-care. I never thought about it like that. But it also really helped me to kind of also even understand how to reach men, and how to, really, instead of discouraging the competition, encouraging it for those who need it, because everybody's journey is their own. While competition for me is not self-care, being able to be sensitive to, and to pivot, and adjust on the ways in which we're addressing each person in the class to make sure that we're meeting them where they are. So long as they leave with an experience of feeling exactly the peaceful and mindful experience that we want them to have. That's what we want. So, I say all that to say, it's a different experience for everyone that comes in, but collectively, regardless of the way that they get there through their flower arranging experience. Whether it's through the joy and peace of it all, or the competition of it all, they all leave saying that they never thought in a million years that they would have that kind of experience, or that they would leave feeling as good as they felt after arranging flowers. It really, it's a beautiful thing, and it's my favorite thing of doing workshops. At the end, I'll say, "How was it?" And they're just like, "This was amazing." [0:20:25] PF: How rewarding that must feel. [0:20:27] TB: Really. It really is, because it's, to your point as we were talking around this really being something that hasn't really been done before in the way in which we're doing it. It really is a unique offering, and it's validating every time I get that response. Because sometimes, people who have not had the experience find a hard time understanding why they would want to have the experience. Because we've been so traditionally conditioned to experience flowers as this ready to use product from florists. They just deliver them to your door, maybe you take some pictures, throw them on the ground. Then, you don't really engage with them again, until you're tossing them out into the trash because they died. The whole time you've had them, you've missed all that opportunity to really engage with them, those flowers, and those stems in a really, really meaningful way. So, I get it, why people don't understand it. But it's so rewarding when they do get it because they don't – once they get it, they don't do it just once, they keep coming back for it, and I love that. They're hooked on it like I am, and I love it. [0:21:26] PF: There you go. You did something really interesting and profound with Amazon. I want to hear about this. I was reading about this on your website, and I thought, oh my gosh. I'm not going to say anything more, because I want your words to describe this. [0:21:42] TB: Yes. Oh, God. Paula, thank you for bringing that up. That was actually one of my favorite events, very special to me for a number of reasons. But that event, Amazon had Amazon Studios, put out a film back in 2022, called the TILL movie, which was the Mamie Till-Mobley story about the lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till in the south, while he was there visiting family. It's a story that growing up in the African-American community, you've always been very much aware of, as well as stories just like it that happened, that have been happening for generations to our ancestors, men and women in our family who have come before us. When that film came up, and they were releasing it, they reached out, and they said, "Hey, we're doing a series of screenings and talks about, we want to have you there." This particular screening that we did was a screening for black mothers. It was a screening of the project, and they never meant to have like a panel discussion about that film, and what it brought up for them being mothers, and the way that they protect their children in general, but their sons, their black sons growing up in this country, in particular. When they came to me, I just said to them, the themes in this film, in other films like it, incredibly traumatic for us in our community. These bring up very negative feelings, very real vulnerabilities, and threats to our livelihoods, even today. So, I said to them, "I would love to work with you all, but I want to be really careful about the way that we engage in this type of space. Since we know that these things can be incredibly traumatic to our community, I want to make sure that we don't send them out into the world with that trauma from the screening and from the conversation that we can instead make sure that we're really intentional about the ways in which we can start to relieve some of that pressure before we leave." So, the idea that we came up with was to do one of our make and take bloom bars, after the screening and after the panel discussion. So, what happened was, the ladies went in, they did the screening, they had their panel discussion, and we were in a separate room in the back. You could kind of see, yes, they were coming out of that room, the weight of the film on them. But then, when they saw the flowers, and they got closer, and start to realize that the flowers were for them, you could visibly see the weight of the film starting to break away. As they were gathering up, and starting to pick the flowers that they wanted in their arrangements, and we started kind of fixing them up and wrapping them. Then, they started to converse with each other about the flowers that they were creating, and the flowers they were choosing, the arrangements that they were creating, it completely changed the spirit and the energy in the room, where the ladies were able to use the flowers as a way to decompress, and to kind of level set kind of their energies, and the spirit of kind of how they were feeling coming out of it. It just completely changed it, where they were talking about the flowers, and they were talking about the beauty of the flowers. As they were able to continue to have some of the conversation about the film, their perspective was very much shifted based on the fact that they were able to look at it from a different way, because their energy had been shifted. Then, they took those flowers, and we had a whole portrait studio set up for them. So, we were able to kind of memorialize the moment with those flowers, and with those women in the portrait studio, and to think that they were able to go from watching that screening, and really taking in those really heavy, heavy messages at the film. To ending with being given flowers, and smiling in a portrait studio was just really beautiful to see. Also, just a true example of the absolute healing powers of flowers. In real time, we were able to see how these women went from carrying the weight of this movie and their lived experience relating to the movie. And seeing the flowers being able to decompress that, and allow them to leave feeling less heavy than the film. [0:25:45] PF: As I read about that, I was thinking how it's really helping heal a traumatic experience for them. So then, I wonder, I know you have so much research on your website. I love the fact that you just have research that says, "Hey, it's not just me." There's science behind this that shows how good this is for us. But what do you see being able to do in terms of helping people work through trauma? [0:26:09] TB: Again, thank you for asking that. That's another thing that we're actively doing now, is beginning to partner with licensed mental health practitioners to start to develop floral healing curriculums that speak really specifically to various ailments. Mental and emotional health ailments that people may be going through. So, we're now really thinking about in addition to what – as our curriculum start to be formalized, really very intentionally beginning to partner with the social institutions that sit at the centerpieces of our communities. Thinking about schools, and community organizations, even rehab facilities, correctional facilities, aging, and caregiving facilities. Seeing how we can begin to take our flowers into those spaces and help with things like self-esteem, emotional intelligence, mindfulness. When you're thinking through rehab, and things like that. But even, people who are in facilities where they're having to find more healthy ways to express themselves, as opposed to coming angry or, or taking on substances, or anything that's not healthy and saying, "Well, let's put that energy into the flowers, and really being able to have curriculum that's very intentionally crafted to help people use the flowers in that way. The way that I love to describe this is, we are really giving people an attainable way to achieve, to reach for their mental, and emotional wellness. For some, they require that to be done in concert with professionals, in concert with medications, just kind of depending on what their unique condition is. But for many people, just the act of tending to your emotional and mental wellness, tending to acknowledging the anxiety that you're feeling, acknowledging the stress that you're feeling, and giving yourself 30 minutes to an hour each week or every other week. Just to kind of put that energy into the process of arranging flowers works wonders for your total emotional health. [0:28:04] PF: That's incredible. I'm so excited to see where this goes, because I know you've been at it for a while. But I also realized this is just really the beginning of what it can accomplish, and like I said, I hope you'll stay in touch. I hope we can watch and see it grow because you're doing a lot of amazing things. [0:28:20] TB: Thank you so much, Paula. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:28:28] PF: That was Talia Boone, talking about how mindful flower arranging can relieve anxiety and improve our wellbeing. If you'd like to learn more about Talia, follow her on social media or check out her Postal Petals workshops. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy into your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.   [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Changing the Conversation on Mental Illness with Patrick J. Kennedy [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 469 of Live Happy Now. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and today's guest reminds us that we can't just be aware of the problem. We need to take action. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by mental health advocate Patrick J. Kennedy, whose new book, Profiles in Mental Health Courage, shares the dramatic stories of people who are living with mental illness. Because of his own challenges with mental illness and addiction, the former congressman is on a mission to change how we view mental illness in this country and, importantly, change the way we treat it. His bold plan for the future of mental health includes bipartisan action to identify, treat, and manage conditions earlier to enrich the lives of all those affected. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:54] PF: Patrick, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:56] PK: Paula, it's good to be with you. [00:00:58] PF: Well, this is Mental Health Awareness Month, a fantastic time to talk to you. I'm so impressed because you have been very open with your own mental health and addiction struggles. So I wondered what led you to initially disclose all that. [00:01:12] PK: Well, I didn't really have a choice. Being a Kennedy and in the public eye, I tried to keep my addiction secret as all of us try to do because of the shame and stigma. But I had a roommate in drug rehab who sold his story of being in rehab with me, with a Kennedy, back when I was starting my political career. Of course, I thought my political career would be short-lived after that disclosure. But I was fortunate to represent a district in Rhode Island. My constituency, the only thing they disliked more than drug addicts were people who ratted on drug addicts. I survived that election, and then I went on to Congress. Because I had been outed, I was able to put my name on mental health bills, whereas my colleagues might have been more reticent because it was already out. I wasn't afraid like most of my colleagues would have been to be asked, “Well, why is this something you're signing on to? Does it perhaps maybe – do you have a mental illness or addiction?” Of course, most of my political colleagues don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But I had already been out it, so it was less of a risk for me, obviously. [00:02:30] PF: Being part of such a high-profile family, obviously, that was why your roommate from rehab wanted to sell the story because it had a net worth to it. But what was that like then for the extended family? Because most families – I'm not a scientist. I won't say all, but I would say most families have an issue of mental illness and addiction somewhere in their family. But they work very hard to keep that quiet. For it to come out in such a public family, how did that play out? [00:03:00] PK: Well, power of the silence and the stigma is so overwhelming. My family was well-known to suffer from addiction. They say addiction, alcoholism runs in families. In my family, it galloped. It was just serious, and everyone knew it but us. There was – if you went through the Kennedy section of the bookstore, two-thirds of the books would have been covering the various “scandals” that my family, my father, my mother had been through because of a direct result of their alcoholism. Yes, the problem with me coming out is that it kind of added to that narrative. I felt shamed by it because I grew up with a mother who was shamed because of her alcoholism. I would literally try to hide her when my friends’ parents would come over to pick up my friends from our house. I'd be trying to hide my mother because I didn't want any of them to see her inebriated in the middle of the day. I used to watch Saturday Night Live, and they'd do skits about my dad. I mean, it was really powerfully painful. I mean, being open about it now is kind of a way I fight against that shame which still exists. I can't help but cringe when I have to talk about this to some extent. But I find that it's therapeutic because this is a brain illness. No one wakes up, Paula, and tries to shame themselves, their family. Put their own physical lives at risk, become potentially at risk for being arrested. People don't choose to live on the streets. They don't choose to have untreated mental illness and end up in our criminal justice system. I mean, we still have not turned the corner to really understanding that these “behaviors” of people with brain illnesses are symptoms, and they're not reflections on a person's moral character. Now, being in recovery myself, I have a moral responsibility to do everything I can to keep myself from falling back into addiction. I attend 12-step meetings. I have addiction-certified psychiatrist. I worked the program, as they say. I have a moral obligation because if I drink or drug, I put not only my own life at risk. I put others at risk. I had three DWIs, and I'm – by God's grace, no one was injured. But I can't take that chance again and none the least of which I just don't want to go down that path again. I'm so grateful I have the life that I have today. [00:05:55] PF: Do you think it's more impactful because you are in a position of being able to – people will listen to you. You're in a higher-level position. Do you think it makes it more impactful, your story is more impactful, and that it feels more universal to others if you can be open about it? [00:06:12] PK: Well, when I came back from one of the DWIs and I had to go to rehab, I was asked to come and meet with so many of my congressional colleagues in Congress who I thought wanted to talk to me about legislation. Of course, I'd show up with my staff because the staff do majority of the work in Congress. My colleagues would always say, “Could you and I just talk?” Then they would tell me their own stories. [00:06:39] PF: Oh, wow. [00:06:39] PK: It occurred to me that I was the only person they knew in Congress that has a drug addiction and alcoholism. What was amazing to me is because of the anonymity and the shame of these illnesses, they knew no one else that they were working with who also shared their own illness except for me. I met with colleagues who none of them knew each other had these illnesses, and they would walk around in the halls of Congress not knowing they were walking by someone who had similar life experiences they had and were suffering from similar struggles. I wrote this Profiles in Mental Health Courage because it's still a big deal for people to share their stories. As I said, I didn't choose to do this, but these people who are in my new book, they chose to use their real names and their real stories to try to break the stigma. Unlike a lot of these self-disclosures, these people really told it all. Today, you hear a lot of people say, “Oh, I have a diagnosis,” or, “I'm in recovery.” But they don't really describe what it's like to live with these illnesses. Yet in this book, these 12 people really tell their full experience. It's a very diverse group of people who have different illnesses. I hope it's going to be helpful to people who may think of themselves as being unique and all alone. In 12-step recovery, we have some big book, and we get to read about others who also like us have had these experiences suffering from alcoholism and addiction. I have found those so comforting reading these stories because then I realized I'm not alone. Yet most Americans don't often benefit from that experience of being in recovery and having all of those tools easily accessible, especially hearing that they're not alone and what they're going through is really quite common. That was kind of the point for me to try to interview these people and have them share their full stories. [00:08:53] PF: It is so thoughtfully written. One thing that really struck me is how it shows just the universality of mental illness, of addiction. It's indiscriminate. It can take out anyone from any walk of life, any profession, vocation. How did you identify who to write about? It sounds like it wasn't very difficult to get them to open up and tell their stories, which was amazing to me because they are so personal. [00:09:21] PK: They opened up to me because, frankly, I was able to ask them to do it for our country. It’s not me, but I have this great last name. When my uncle challenged the country to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country, that kind of feeling is alive when I talk to people. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. I just gave them that opportunity and platform and told them, yes, they were taking a big risk at disclosing their own challenges. But they also felt they had an opportunity to help others. For those of us in recovery, that is the key to our own recovery is making our own experience worthwhile, so we can try to help someone else. In helping others, we get liberated from our own self-imprisonment and our own self-centered selfish behavior. It's really the antidote for our illness to speak out and not be shamed and to help others. That's the way we get freedom from ourselves. [00:10:35] PF: Do you have an overall goal for the book? I imagine your goals for this book are not measured in sales. I feel like you have such a grand plan for this. What do you hope to see as a result of this book coming? [00:10:47] PK: Well, thank you, Paula. I started a campaign. It's not a political campaign for office. It's a campaign to build a movement for those suffering from mental illness and addiction, which of course, are treated separately in our reimbursement systems. We do not have a system, so to speak, that treats these as biopsychosocial illnesses. Biological because they're brain-based; psychological because they're mental health; and social because if people don't get support of housing, support of employment, they're just not going to have the same opportunities to succeed in recovery, which of course, we don't emphasize in the treatment of these illnesses. We only treat them in acute episodic fashion, as opposed to treating them as the chronic illnesses that they are. I have something called the Alignment for Progress because I believe we have to align financial incentives. We spend tons of money on the criminal justice system, on fire and police, on emergency rooms, on lost days and productivity and disability. I mean, we are spending so much money not taking care of these illnesses that I think if we align the budgets to actually prevent many of these illnesses from pathologizing, i.e. let's treat these like we do cancer, which is screen for stage one. Not wait till people are at death store and in a stage-four crisis. These are the things that I think we need to build into a national agenda. When I was in Congress, I could go to any special interest group, and they would tell me. The labor unions would tell me, “This is what is overtime pay. These are health benefits. This is pension and retirement. These are safe working conditions.” They literally have their whole agenda organized. I hate to say it but in mental health and addiction, we do not have a consumer-driven movement like every other patient advocacy movement. We don't have a common agenda. Everyone is marching up to Capitol Hill with their own diagnosis and bipolar over here and depression over here and anxiety over here and alcoholism over here. Even alcoholism and opioid use disorder are treated separately in terms of people's mindset. You could go on and on. The problem is we're all united on 99% of the same things, and yet we're not organized like a AFL-CIO or a League of Conservation Voters. [00:13:21] PF: Why do you think that is? If you look at the sheer volume of people who are suffering from it, you would think that someone else would have thought of this before now and started bringing it together under one umbrella. [00:13:33] PK: Well, the psychologist can't convene the psychiatrist and vice versa. The peer support people can't convene the social workers and marriage counselors. The schizophrenia people want SMI as the priority, which they deserve. Then we need mental wellness, but we don't really have that covered because that's not a diagnostic group. That falls into public health category. My point is no one's been able to kind of bring them all together. As I said, I was really honored to be the author of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act because as I said, I was outed, so I had no choice in the matter. I felt like I could put my name on a bill that had mental and addiction in it because, essentially, I had already been outed. That bill really affects all groups because it calls for reimbursement by insurance companies, including the federal government, for mental illness and addiction in a way that's no different from other chronic illnesses like asthma and cardiovascular disease and cancer, so forth. That is a bill that is kind of like a medical version of civil rights. It affects everybody that's kind of marginalized from these illnesses. Because of that, I have kind of a unique opportunity to kind of pull everyone in together because everyone, whether you're a psychologist, social worker, peer support specialist psych, you all benefit from this. If you're an inpatient hospital or an outpatient clinic, they all benefit from ending discrimination in reimbursement and coverage by insurance companies. I'm the guy that brought that, so I can call these people and basically say to these folks, “This is the new frontier for us. We need to band together and build a voice.” I often say it's like that Godfather film where they say, “We're bigger than US steel,” back in the fifties, talking about organized crime. This is the biggest special interest group in this country. If you count all the families affected by overdose, suicide, those living with these illnesses, there's no doubt everybody's affected by these illnesses, including the family members who are often left out of the narrative. If we ever organized, can you imagine the power we would have to transform the system? That's what I'm after. In the back of the book, I have a QR code which links people to a policy guide. I'm literally trying to get donors to allow us to build literally a movement. Let's get the number of people that care about this on listserv. If someone's running for office, they know how many people in their district, whether it's a state or federal office care about this issue. If we start doing those things, I am telling you we'll get more than the money we're getting today, and we'll get more of the urgency than we're getting today. [00:16:47] PF: How are you seeing the attitudes changing? How is that going to affect how it moves forward? Then part three of this question is in what still needs to happen. [00:16:57] PK: If we normalize this, if we allow people to get screened at every place of their medical system, if they're a cancer patient, they had better be screened for anxiety and depression and trauma. If they're having heart disease, they're four times more likely to die of a heart attack if they have depression. If they are diabetic and they don't have their alcoholism treated, just forget treating diabetes and so forth and so on. Our whole medical system ignores mental health and addiction. I think the more people we normalize this and just treat it as part of treatment for every illness, the less kind of bound up and stigma will be. Look at what we've done with HIV/AIDS. You look on the TV and you see ads for HIV drugs. Look on the TV and there's ads for erectile dysfunction and STDs. I mean, there's no difference in terms of the stigma that those illnesses had to overcome and the stigma we have to overcome. We can do this. We just have to do it as soon as possible because too many people are dying out there. [00:18:16] PF: Do you see it getting worse or getting better? Are there higher incidents of mental health problems? Or are we just more aware of it? What's the research and numbers showing? [00:18:25] PK: Well, the bottom line is we're playing a lot of catch-up because we've never invested in this space. Today, there's greater demand. Part of that's reduction in stigma. But part of it is the real trauma that people are living with today and the toxic world that we're living in and the ubiquitous technology that's sapping us. I think we're going to continue to see tragically worse and worse statistics in terms of the number of people dying of suicide and overdose, unless we take a fundamentally different approach. That means not just treating these illnesses after they occur but doing our best to try to prevent these illnesses from occurring by embedding, if you will, coping mechanisms, stress management, problem-solving skill development for our kids in elementary and secondary education. If kids cannot learn to self-modulate, in other words, understand how to manage their emotions, they can learn all the numeracy and history and literacy and not be successful in life because if you can't manage your feelings, then you're just not going to be successful in life. Then what we need to do is, just as I said, screen early so that for those who have kind of more predisposition for illnesses, severe mental illnesses, schizophrenia, bipolar, we know who's at risk. We could deploy a lot better early detection and screening. We need to be doing that because if we intervene, for example, with people who have their first psychotic break, we can dramatically reduce the disability that comes from that illness. We just don't treat people with schizophrenia, and we don't get their coordinated care, which is the evidence form of intervention put in place until after they've had multiple psychotic breaks, which frankly really pathologizes their illness, which means they have to take higher medications for their illness. If you have to take higher medications, then there's higher side effects, which means people don't want to take those medications. Imagine if we treated them early and they didn't have to take those high doses. They could probably stay compliant and live much more productive meaningful lives. [00:20:58] PF: Is this a solvable problem? Can we manage it if we start really working together and implementing these solutions that you're talking about? [00:21:07] PK: 100%. We can do this. We could literally – if we have this as an objective, we can align all of our federal agencies and departments and coordinate with county and municipal and states to really address this in a comprehensive way. I said there's so much cost to us not doing this. We just need to organize ourselves with all the resources. Now, when there's a tornado or hurricane or fire, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, comes in to manage the aftermath. We need a FEMA for our homeless population with mental illness. We need a FEMA for the scourge of addiction in this country, which means we need a comprehensive approach. When FEMA comes in, they support the housing. They support the employment. They give small business loans. They help with food. They will help with clothing. They coordinate with Social Services. We need that type of approach for these illnesses. We need a multipronged systems-based approach to addressing these. If we do that, and we can do that, we will dramatically reduce the number of people dying of these illnesses and people who are suffering. Keep in mind, even if someone's not dying, they're dying inside. They're not living their full lives, and they're not living their lives. It's one thing to live physically. It's another to live spiritually and socially and emotionally. We don't look at that in our medical system and understand the value of people living free, of being hostage to their brain illness. [00:22:58] PF: You're doing such incredible work. We're going to let our listeners know how they can find your book. We'll give them links to the work that you're doing, connect them with that QR code, and so they can really support this. Because I know it's something everyone's concerned about, everyone is affected by. I think a lot of times, we don't know what to do, and we feel like, yes, there isn't a joint movement. There isn't something that I can do that can help affect change. I so appreciate all the work that you're doing and the fact that you're going to let our listeners jump in and help you on that mission. Patrick, I wish you the best of success with Profiles in Mental Health Courage and with all the other amazing projects you're working on. [00:23:33] PK: I want to thank you for allowing me to come on, and I appreciate the chance to speak to you and your listeners. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:44] PF: That was Patrick J. Kennedy, author of Profiles in Mental Health Courage, and an advocate for mental health and addiction education and treatment. If you'd like to learn more about his initiatives, discover his book, or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Gen Z and Mental Health With Deborah Heisz [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:03] LM: Thank you for joining us for episode 466 of Live Happy Now. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And while we look at mental health all year long, this is the perfect time to take an even closer look at something we all should be talking about. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And today I'm joined by Live Happy CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, to talk about Gen Z and mental health. According to recent studies, Generation Z is experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. Today, Deb and I are talking about what's causing this Mental Health crisis among young people and what we all can do about it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Deb, thank you for coming on the show. [00:00:47] DH: Thanks, Paula. It's always a joy when I get to spend some time with you talking about things that we're both passionate about. [00:00:53] PF: Yes. And May is Mental Health Month. We're doing this. This is the last episode of April. Tomorrow we start a shiny new month looking at mental health awareness. And this was a fantastic time to sit down and talk to you. You and I had had this conversation offline about The World Happiness Report and specifically its findings on Gen Z. And so, that conversation was so good. It's like let's do this on the air and talk about it. [00:01:20] DH: I think The World Happiness Report, for us it's kind of a landmark thing. It turns out we started Live Happy while they were working on the World Happiness Report. We of course didn't know that at the time. It's kind of we're parallel in age. We have the same age. What's interesting to me is the World Happiness Report really has started to take a deep dive into human well-being, which is something that wasn't taking place before that. I mean, positive psychology wasn't that old to begin with. And then for governments and for social agencies to really start looking not just at health concerns of their population. But, also, mental well-being of the population really hits the world happiness. A lot of that data is in the World Happiness Report. It's really kind of a cool thing for us. But I think for this year, it's interesting because something appeared that we hadn't seen before. Something really near and dear to my heart. And I kind of want to preface this conversation by reminding everybody or telling everybody if they don't already know, neither Paula nor I are scientists. Paula is an editor, gatherer of information, interpreter of information extraordinaire. One of the best interviewers I've ever met. And truly passionate about what we do at Live Happy. I am an MBA who runs businesses. I'm also a parent of teens who happen to – that's why this episode is particularly interesting to me. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff. But anything we say might be or actually is opinion. This topic is one that needs to be talked about. Needs to be talked about broadly. Which is why even though we don't have the scientific background, it's such a passion thing for us. And I know that you think, just like I think, people need to be talking about this. And what they need to be talking about is the well-being of Generation Z. I mean, when I'm retired, they're the ones who are going to be leading the world. We should really, really care about how they're thinking about themselves. What they're feeling and what they think of the world around them. There's a lot of concerning information in this year's World Happiness Report. [00:03:16] PF: Yeah. Because the thing that really struck me is, overall, in most countries, the happiest generation is the youngest generation. In the US, we were exactly the opposite. Our happiest generation is the Boomer. And then each subsequent generation just gets less happy. And by the time we get down to Gen Z, it's dismal. And that's alarming. Because we know that how happy you are in adolescence is a predictor of your happiness in adulthood. Where would you like to start unpacking this ginormous subject on? Because I'd really like to talk about what's driving it. And then, also, what we can do? Because there's no easy way to turn this around. [00:03:56] DH: No. No. There isn't. When you just mentioned that how happy you are at a young age, in your teen years, is a predictor of how happy you'll be later in life, the truly disturbing fact is that tends to be your happiest point in life. Your teenage years, you tend to be happier than you are later. If they're starting at a lower set point, that does not bode well for the future. If they're already less happy than 30-year-olds, how much less happier are they going to be when they're 30 than 30-year-olds right now? It's very concerning. And the question that everybody has to be asking is why are they less happy than prior generations? Why are they less happy than their peers in other countries or in other regions of the world? It's very concerning. And it's something that people really should be standing on the rooftop screaming, "We've got to do something about this." [00:04:47] PF: Yeah. I think it's like an all-hands-on-deck kind of crisis. Because if they're not happy, then they're giving birth to the next generation. You can just kind of extrapolate what goes on down the line if we can't turn this around. [00:05:01] DH: It's not something that's going to fix itself. It's something that people need to start looking at and saying, "Okay, what's causing this? How do we make changes? What is controllable?" It's always like, "Well, that's great. But I can't really control that." But there's a lot more that as a society we can control and influence that I think we realize. But we have to start. And the way to start is by at least talking about it. [00:05:24] PF: Absolutely. After we had talked about that, you were going to look up some things. Because you were very inspired not just from a professional standpoint. But as you mentioned, personally, you have children who fall into this age group and below. What were some of the things that you found as triggers that are preventing children from being happier? [00:05:45] DH: Well, I think two things really struck me as being things that impact the younger generations right now. And one of them is directly related to where they are in life. My kids – this is not being a scientist. Everything in the world around children is going to somehow be related to my children and to my brain. My kids are looking at college. They're looking at going to college. They're looking at what kind of life am I going to have after college? And I've had several dialogues with my son and his friends about I'm never going to be able to buy a house I'm like, "You're 16. What makes you think you're never going to be able to buy a house?" And they look out and they see the economy and they see all of the information about how expensive you're looking at going to college. How expensive going to college has become relative to what you earn afterwards. They see rising interest rates. They see rising home prices. And if you tell someone who's 16 years old that they're going to have to graduate from college $200,000 in debt and buy a house that's going to cost them $300,000 $400,000, they're like, "What? I will never be able to do that." Numbers they can't get their heads around. But more importantly, the media and the economy is telling them they won't. When we're looking at what's going on in the world and we're exposed to media, our kids are super exposed. I mean, they're on their phones. They talk to their friends. We all know that depending on which version of the internet you're looking at, which site you're looking at, you get different views. And their views may not be what we're seeing. But we do know that they look at the world very differently than the way we look at it. There's a great book by Jason Dorsey called Zconomy which really examines the difference about how young people approach business. How they approach looking for a job. How they approach everything in life. And how different it is from the way the Millennials, the Generations Z and how they approach it. And one of the interesting things to me that he points out is they're more like Generation X. They're more like my generation. How they think about it than they are with the Millennials. And what's cool about that to me is, first of all, I'm Generation X. Therefore, I can relate. And my kids think I'm cool. No. But I like to think they think I'm cool. But when I was growing up, we were coming out of massive inflation. We were coming out of the Reagan Era. There was a concern about jobs. We were pre-recession. But there was this hugely unstable economic outlook in our minds. And so, we all became focused on doing better, on personal achievement. Generation X is very focused on doing what they can do to control their environment, and career path, and working harder. And what's interesting is Generation Z is like that. Although, they don't have the hope that we had. We were always kind of told we can work really hard and control our future. And for some reason, all of this financial information and all this financial fear is manifesting differently in them. I don't think they have the hope they're going to be able to achieve what their parents achieved. That American dream of every generation's better. Maybe we've kind of reached the end of that where they're thinking I just want to catch up. I'm not looking to being better. I'm looking to not falling backwards. [00:09:03] PF: And do you think, too, growing up with parents who maybe are millennials or even Gen X and those parents were given everything and didn't learn how to save in the ways that they spend their money differently? And now Gen Z is like, "I don't want to be broke. I want to be able to do these things." [00:09:24] DH: I will say that Gen X and Millennials, as we know, are more likely to have credit card debt than Baby Boomers. Right? And they're more likely to be in debt. And I do think that there is a debt fear that the next generation doesn't want to be in debt because they've seen the oldest part of that generation live through the 2008 economic crisis. But the youngest part didn't. My son is 17. He was born in 2007. He does not remember 2008 when people were losing jobs and homes. But it does have a follow-on effect. There's that I don't want to be in debt. I don't want to owe people money. I just want to live my life. One of the good things I think though is, like the millennial generation, they care more about the environment. They care more about the planet. They care more about all of that. Here's the challenge. That doesn't necessarily manifest itself in hope. Right? [00:10:14] PF: And right now, it's more like a discouraging thing. Because every day we're seeing like, "Oh, here's one more atrocity that's being committed against the planet." And it's like just that constant drum beat of one more thing going wrong. One more species being extinct. [00:10:30] DH: And you look at it from a standpoint of – last night I was talking to my son and he needed to buy something. I pulled out my phone. I was going to order on Amazon. He's like, "Mom, don't order it on Amazon." I'm like, "Why?" He goes, "That's bad for the environment." Like, what? Everything gets trucked. Everything gets moved. But in his mind, having an individual package sent to the house is bad for the environment. Versus him going to the store and buying it. And I'm like, "Well, you use the same gas in the store to get –" never mind. Let's not introduce logic into the conversation. And he said, "I don't want to support big business. I want to support small business. I don't want conglomerates." That's what's in their head. They're scared of the environment. They're scared of their financial future. They don't see enough action being taken to improve those things. They don't know where they're going to end up. They don't know that the same jobs are going to be there. We look at AI like, "Oh, this is really cool." They look at AI like I was going to be a developer. I was going to be a writer. Am I going to have a job? [00:11:24] PF: Right. Do I just need to learn how to write prompts? Is that what my future holds? [00:11:29] DH: The future holds – scarier, right? A little scarier. I do think that that – now describing a problem, you hope there's a solution. I don't know what the solution is. But I do know that I think that has created a lot of what they're seeing and feeling. And as parents and as people interact with young people, we need to be cognizant of that's their starting place. Their starting place is the world is not healthy. Our generation is killing the Earth. Our opportunity isn't the same as your opportunity. I'm never going to be able to afford a house. I'm going to graduate – if I graduate from high school and go to college, I'm going to end up in a ton of debt. If I graduate from high school and get a job, I'm not going to have the same opportunities I would have had had I gone to college. It's a horrible choice to have to make. For some reason, that generation is focused on not what could be but what is right now. [00:12:18] PF: It's so very interesting. And as you and I have talked, one of the big things driving their mindset is what they see on social media. Because unlike where we grew up with television. And let's face it, it was a pretty sugarcoated TV land when you and I were growing up. We didn't have Dateline with a new dead person every week. It was a completely different world. the social media and how it is just constantly exposing them to new tragedies, to new dangers, to new ways to bully one another, what do you see that doing? You and I have talked about some of the studies that we've read. Can we kind of unpack that a little bit? [00:12:59] DH: I do think social media is a huge. And we go to conferences where they talk about social media having a huge negative impact. We need to acknowledge though social media has a positive impact as well. The positive impact is the ability to communicate, to build relationships, to find like-minded people. Maybe you live in a small town and no one around you seems to have the same interests as you have. You can go on social media and actually interact and have some meaningful touch points with people that are like you and figure out that you're not that weird. That there are other people like you in the world. Or have a conversation with somebody that maybe lives a long way away or maybe still talking to friends at school but you're able to communicate with a larger group and it feels more social and a little less isolated. Because we all know, social isolation is a big driver of depression and negative outlook on life. I do think, in a lot of ways, social media has helped kids feel more involved, more included. Flip side of that of course is the bullying and stuff like that. Is tragic and is an issue. But for me – we could do a whole episode on online bullying. But for me, I think the bigger thing is this FOMO, right? And this not having a good image of yourself when you engage not in that dialogue nature of social media. But in the observing nature of social media. There's this great study that was done. I think it was done by the Mayo Clinic. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that once again. Not a scientist. But it talks about how, in adolescence, the part of your brain that processes emotions, it develops faster than the part that develops judgment critical thinking. You can have emotions and you can make decisions emotionally as teenagers are prone to do. We all know teenagers do not necessarily stop and think. That critical thinking isn't there. You can respond emotionally to content you're seeing on social media and not really think about it critically. That can develop body image issues in girls particularly. Well, although, boys as well. My son goes to the gym all the time and he really is focused on how he looks as well as being healthy. But body image issues can come into it. Because even though you're seeing it on social media, you don't necessarily think that's not real. Unless it's obviously not real, right? And the other thing is they can see people doing things. And those people look really happy. And they can emotionally react and go, "All those people – that looks like so much fun because all those people are doing it." And then they think, in order to be happy, they need to do that. [BREAK] [00:15:32] PF: We'll get right back to my conversation about Gen Z and mental health. But in addition to this being Mental Health Awareness Month, we have Mother's Day right around the corner. And if you have a new mom in your life, why not give her the gift of a good night's sleep? Did you know that 70% of new parents lose about 3 hours of sleep every night during their baby's first year? Why not help her make the most of the hours she does get with luxurious bedding from Cozy Earth? These super soft bamboo sheets will immediately become her favorite thing. Cozy Earth is so sure that she'll love these sheets that they offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on every purchase, which means these sheets will last her through the hardest days and longest nights of motherhood. There's no better way to give the gift of self-care, improve her sleep quality, and enhance her overall wellness. And even better, we're going to give you a discount so you can give her the luxury she deserves with Cozy Earth. Head over to cozyearth.com and use the promo code HAPPY35 for an exclusive 35% off. That's cozyearth.com. And the promo code is HAPPY35. Now, if you're a fan of being comfortable both day and night, I'd like to invite you to check out the incredibly comfy clothing line from Franne Golde. You want to live in these clothes that are designed to make you look your best while feeling amazing. My personal favorite is the magic pant, which is soft, stretchy, and stylish, and will take you from a day in the office to a night on the town. Franne Golde is providing Live Happy now listeners 20% off their first order of $75 or more. Go to frannegolde.com/podcast and use code HAPPY for 20% off. That's frannegolde.com/podcast for 20% off your order of $75 more with code HAPPY. And now, let's get back to talking about Gen Z. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:17:35] DH: There's this discordance between what they're seeing and what's real. You brought up we watched television. We watched television. We knew that wasn't real. [inaudible 00:17:44] wasn't real. We knew the Loveboat wasn't real. [00:17:48] PF: Wait. Wait. What? [00:17:52] DH: Fantasy Island wasn't real. We watched it and it was entertaining. But we knew that wasn't real life. Social media, I don't think kids get that the image – I think they get it if you talk to them about it. They know it's not real. But, emotionally, they're reacting to it. And so, they may know it's not real. But they still create worry and concern in them. Too much social media, it creates this image that they think they need to live up to. And then they add on, "I'm never going to have enough money. I'm never going to be cute enough. I'm never going to –" whatever it is. It creates a problem. And I do think that's a big driver of why they're unhappy. [00:18:29] PF: There's an organization called Ruling Our eXperiences and they deal with how social media affects young girls. And one of the things that they found is how greatly it – as you had talked about the eating disorders. But it said it also is leading to mental health things like suicidal ideation. And it's become more accepted among teenage girls to go to that place. We didn't have that issue growing up. You didn't think these kids are picking on me, I'm going to go kill myself. And I've seen things recently where there was like an 8-year-old boy that committed suicide after being bullied. And it's just online. And it's just astounding to me that these things are filtering through to our children. Those are the outcomes that we're getting because they somewhere are getting the message that that's the only way out. [00:19:18] DH: Yeah. It's tragic. And we do know – we do know that there's more suicidal ideation comes along. But the question is, for me, it's always is it just that people are talking about it more? Or is it actually new? And then when you start looking like an 8-year-old, thank God, that's a huge outlier. But it's not as taboo to talk about as it was when I was growing up, for sure. It was a really rare occurrence that you heard about it or thought about it. Heard about it at school. It just was not that prevalent. And so, you kind of wonder how much just introducing an idea is part of an issue. Right? But then again, if you don't talk about it, then you can't solve the problem. This stuck. One of the things that I thought was really interesting, and I know I started off this way on social media, was we always want to point at the negatives without pointing at the positives. And I think when we look at generation, we really need to look at the fact that they were hit much harder by the pandemic than any other group. And social media helped get them through that, that isolation sense. [00:20:23] PF: Yes. [00:20:25] DH: But that pandemic I also think significantly contributed in our country overall negative outlook. By social isolation, I mean kids staying home for two years as opposed to going to school. [00:20:38] PF: And this was during key times of development. How does a kindergartner learn social skills if they've been at home for two years? [00:20:47] DH: Right. And then a lot of them, homeschoolings weigh up as a result too. Kids didn't go back to school. They continued their social isolation, which is interesting. Like, "Oh, they could go back to school. But now they're comfortable at home. They don't want to. They don't want to go back out and interact with people." And you hear about people that were at the wrong time in terms of development and they missed their prom, they missed their graduation. They started school. But I'm not as concerned about them. Because that's going to end up being – that was a really sad thing. But you kind of got your social skills by the time you're 16 or 17. But you're right. 10-year-olds are very different. They're not fully socially developed. They haven't figured out how to interact. Doing team projects at school. Just playing on the playground. All that stuff, which decades of research showing how important that stuff is to kids is just gone for a couple years. And they ended up in their little cocoon and their little bubble. And there's fear of social interaction. Learning how to interview for a job, learning how to write a resume, all that stuff that we need to teach not in college. You need to learn how to do that in high school. Well, there were no jobs to go get. You missed that too. There's just so much that they missed. I look back and I'm like I would be so sad if I didn't have that part of my life. And they didn't. [00:22:08] PF: Yeah. Like you said, there's no way to go reclaim that. We don't get a doover starting in 2020. Although, I think we all deserve one. But, yeah, especially the kids. How do we start reaching out? And how do we start creating a different world knowing what they're going through? [00:22:28] DH: Well, I think, first thing, except there's a problem. First of all – and the World Happiness Report is great. There's a problem we have to start talking about. I don't think anyone knows the answers. They kind of know the answers to various smaller issues, like social media intrinsically is not bad. But we should monitor what our children are doing on social media. We should know what they're doing. We should monitor the amount of time. We should balance online interactions with real-world interactions. Don't leave them to their own devices. Don't say, "Oh, well, here – literally device. Here's your iPad and go." In fact, my kids call – probably not a nice word, but they'll call not a nice descriptor. But they'll say that's an iPad kid. Meaning that kid doesn't socially interact. [00:23:14] PF: Wow. That is amazing. That is amazing that it now it actually has that phrase. [00:23:19] DH: It's a negative connotation. And I'm like, "Don't say that." But that's what they mean, "Oh, that's an iPad kid." We as parents need to acknowledge that we're responsible for how much time, and how much interaction, and what they're doing, and knowing what's on. I mean, my kids hate it. But you will keep your find my phone on. Because if I can't find your phone, I can't find you. And if I can't find you and I can't find your phone, you don't need a phone. And I'll know where it's going to be. It's going to be here in the house. Right? But we need to take responsibility and not demonize social media. Because if you tell your kid it's all bad, you don't need to be doing it. You're not telling them the truth. I mean, when we did research for this podcast, as light as it was, being that we're not scientists, but when we did research for this podcast, where did we go? We went online. [00:24:08] PF: Internet. Yeah. [00:24:09] DH: We went to the internet. I mean, the internet's a tool. It's pervasive in their life. Y ou can't take that away. That's not going to work. And social media is part of that tool. I need to do a deep dive into X, Y, Z. And I find a Facebook group that talks about X, Y, Z. It's part – actually, they wouldn't find a Facebook. They'd find an Instagram. But – [00:24:30] PF: Or TikTok. Until it's banned. [00:24:31] DH: Or TikTok. Exactly. But it by itself is not evil or detrimental. But we have to monitor what they're doing. We have to know what they're doing. We have to set limits and boundaries and be parents. And we also need to encourage them to develop face-to-face social skills. Actually, get out and talk to people. Learn how to shake somebody's hand. Learn how to have a conversation. Learn how to interact with somebody who's an adult on a regular basis. But we're not going to fix it by fixing social media. Social media itself doesn't fix it, right? But I do think it all stems back to having the dialogue. Understanding that where the youth go is where we go. This country, the United States, was really built in its current form by the Baby Boomer generation. I mean, I'm Generation X. I'm right behind them. But if you look at everything in our society in general, it's Boomers that are – which is a negative word too. iPad kids and Boomers. It was really built by that generation. And as Millennials and Generation Z move into positions of power and authority, they're going to have control over our economy and over our lives. And what they care about is different than maybe what the Boomers cared about. And acknowledging that, and having dialogue, and caring, and paying attention to what they care about and starting to work on some of those things. I mean, I don't know or care what any listener's position is on global warming. But I will tell you that our generation, our generation Z, they aren't talking about global warming. They're talking about impact, litter, oceans being dirty, air being dirty. They are looking at the whole thing of are we taking care of the Earth. In a way, I think past Generations really didn't. Even though they said that they did. That generation is fully embedded in polar bears are dying. We need to take care of the oceans. And we're missing out on animals that used to exist. And we have too much pollution. And they'll even tell you, "But electrical cars aren't the answer because there's battery parts that are bad for the –" they're looking for answers that they don't have. [inaudible 00:26:56] find them. [00:26:57] PF: Yeah. And I think this this is where it's really – where you talk about social media and the internet having so much purpose. What is done – we used to be so removed at polar bears are dying. But that didn't affect me. Now they're watching a video. They are seeing things in real life. And it affects them profoundly. [00:27:16] DH: It does. And a lot of it has to do with – back to the point that they are emotionally developed but not critically developed, critical thinkers. Has to do with their source. If somebody is attaching great meaning to something, they're incredibly smart, they don't have the cognitive reasoning that jumps in to say, "Is that right?" right away. They can be easily swayed by what they're seeing. And I'll tell you one thing that drives me crazy is advertisers know that. [00:27:45] PF: Yes. [00:27:45] DH: They know that if they drop that ad into social media and they get an emotional reaction either because it's funny or because – it's not as simple as we were. It's like it was cool. No. They actually make them laugh or they make them cry. They know that whatever it is they're advertising is going to be affiliated with that emotion. They know that. And that there's not necessarily critical thinking to parse that in younger people, in teenagers even. And so, they take advantage of that. We just have to be cognizant of the fact that they don't have straightforward news like we used to have. Just the facts, ma'am. Right? That doesn't exist anymore. They get all of everything that's going on in the world from a million different directions. Some of it's cultivated. Some of it's made up. Some of it's got meaning attached to it. We need to have those offline conversations. And as non-parents, have those offline conversations. Don't just assume it's just going to happen. That somehow these people are miraculously going to figure out that that's not real, or that this is real, or that this isn't important. And know that everything that we're bombarding everybody with, including ourselves, is manipulating us in one way or another. Try not to do that. They need to know that it's going to be okay. And I don't think the way our media is set up, you and I have talked all about, I can't tell you how many times I've said be wary of what you put in your head, my kids, to people we've talked about, Live Happy, you worry what you put in your head. So you start believing it. And they are inundated with stuff that tells them they're less than, that tells them there's something to be scared of. We've got to start balancing that with the other side. There's a lot to hope for. There's a lot of good coming down the pipe. We've got to spend time and energy creating that content. And aren't we lucky that we get to do that for a living, Paula? [00:29:35] PF: I love that. But you know what? I'd also love to hear is what our listeners think. I'd love to hear what they're doing with their children, with other Gen Z. If they want to drop us an email, editor@livehappy.com, and let us know. And let us know what you'd like to hear more on this topic. Because it is a mental health crisis that we've got to resolve. Because it's not going to resolve itself. [00:29:59] DH: Well, and our commitment to our listeners is you're like, "Yeah, you guys have been babbling about the problem. Didn't feel any better today." That's okay. Our commitment to our listeners is we're going to try and get some of the experts out there that are studying this on the podcast. Not next week. We're going to be doing some additional podcasts on this topic in the future. Some more expertise than we have. But it was such a standout moment in the World Happiness Report this year. We felt it was worth talking about. And at least creating the thought or the dialogue where people can say, "Hey, we need to be talking about this." Because we do. We really, really do. I think if you don't know how disenfranchised that generation is feeling right now, you just need to be aware that that's what's going on with them. And we've got a moral obligation to help them find success and find happiness in their lives. And they're not starting from a good spot. [00:30:55] PF: All right. Well, we'll do what we can. We'll start working on it. [00:30:59] DH: All right. You get on that, Paula. [00:30:59] PF: Yeah. I'll put it on my to-do list. But, thank you. Yeah, thank you for having this conversation. As you said, we are going to be talking with some experts about it. Bringing some other people in to really look at specific areas that we can make improvements in. Specific things that we can do. And, again, we'd love to hear from our listeners, editor@livehappy.com. We want to know what you want to hear and what you're. [OUTRO] [00:31:27] PF: That was Live Happy's CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, talking with me about Gen Z and mental health. We'd love to hear what you think about this topic. Be sure to drop us a line at editor@livehappy.com and tell us what you think. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Create a Humor Habit for 2024 With Paul Osincup [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 450 of Live Happy Now. What's so funny about 2024? You're about to find out. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm talking with Paul Osincup, a speaker, corporate trainer, and author of the forthcoming book, The Humor Habit. Paul recognizes the importance of humor as a tool to relieve stress, improve our physical and mental health, and to make the world more enjoyable for ourselves and those around us. He's here today to tell us how we can create our own humor strategy for 2024, and make it a healthier, funnier year. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:39] PF: Paul, welcome to Live Happy Now. [0:00:41] PO: Thank you, Paula. This is my first time doing any kind of show or back and forth with a Paula. So, I'm excited to do it with Paula. [0:00:50] PF: I know we can do like Paul and Paula Show. [0:00:51] PO: That’s right. [0:00:54] PF: I'll run that up the flagpole and let you know how it goes. [0:00:56] PO: Yes, check with the supervisors. [0:00:59] PF: So, I'm really excited to have you on the show. For me, it was a great way to start the year, because you are all about humor and how we can develop it and use it. And honestly, coming into 2024, there's people with a lot of trepidation, and they're not feeling that there's a lot of humor right now. So, we want to kind of get into that. But first, I'm interested to know how you got into the subject of humor? How did you study it, learn its benefits? And like, are you a naturally funny guy? [0:01:28] PO: Well, I mean, I suppose there's part of the natural proclivity for it, because I'll tell you a quick story. The first time that I noticed the impact of humor, I was in third grade, and my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Temple, I was speaking in class again when I wasn't supposed to. And Mrs. Temple looked at me and goes, “Paul, you have diarrhea of the mouth.” The whole class goes, “Ooh.” Like, “Sick, burn.” And I was on the spot, and I was feeling like, totally cornered. She goes, “You have diarrhea of the mouth.” So, I put my hand under my chin and I go, “Oh, sick. It's running down my chin.” Everybody laughed and the whole class. Mrs. Temple goes, “You need to go to the principal's office.” So, I went to the principal's office, and I realized even in that moment that my little sophomoric yet, age-appropriate come back there, it got me out of this stressful situation where I was feeling put on the spot by my teacher. But then in the principal's office, and a principal, there was another adult there, said, “Well, why are you here, Paul?” And I told him, “Well, she said I have diarrhea of the mouth. I said, it's running down my chin.” And they were trying to be stern, but I could see they were kind of smi – they were like, “You know you shouldn't do that, Paul.” And I was like, “They can't be that mad at me because it's kind of funny.” I remember that moment of thinking, “Oh, this humor thing got some power to it.” But then, fast forward to my career working with college students in distress, like severe mental, cooccurring mental health and substance abuse issues. I was kind of living this double life. I was also performing stand-up and improv, and I was noticing at work how humor helped disarm people at times, helped bring my team together. So, I started researching it. I was just really interested and I kind of just became a humor nerd. I started doing some presentations on what I had learned on the power of humor, how I use it, and one thing led to another. Now, that's what I do for a living. [0:03:27] PF: That's fantastic. I love that because I think we really underestimate humor, and we try to put it in its place. Because throughout – I'm sure you heard this throughout your life as well, where people would say, “Well, humor is just not appropriate here.” It's like, “Yes, it is.” There's almost always a way that humor can be used appropriately in any situation. For me, it's been like the great stress reliever. Make somebody laugh or even make yourself laugh. It changes the tenor of the situation entirely. [0:03:58] PO: Yes. I mean, how sad is it if we spend a third of our lives at work? So, if there are people saying, “Well, it's just not appropriate.” Here, it's like, “Well, I don't want to live in a world where we can go a third of our lives without accessing a basic part of the human experience, which is our sense of humor. I mean, that's just crushing the human spirit to me. [0:04:20] PF: It is, and what happens because as children, we like to tell little jokes, and we like to laugh, and we kind of get away from that. We become grownups and think that humor is like we can go to a stand-up comedian show. We can go laugh there. We kind of reserve the spaces where we incorporate laughter. How does that happen? [0:04:39] PO: Yes, it's interesting you bring that up because I call it chronic seriousness. Over time, we develop this chronic seriousness. So, if you are someone who identifies as an adult, you may be suffering from chronic seriousness or may become an adult someday, but what happens there's a study Gallup’s World Happiness Report, over 1.4 million people surveyed across 166 countries that are propensity to laugh, like nosedives, when we hit about age 23, which is coincidentally, when we start to hit the workforce. We graduate from college and we get families and we complicate our lives with these things like jobs and promotions and variable rate mortgages. It's like, all of a sudden, I got to be serious, and I got things to do, and everything is just so serious. We don't start gaining those laughs back again. As you said, as kids, we laugh a lot more, have a lot more fun. We don't start gaining those laughs back again until we're nearly 80. [0:05:37] PF: Oh, my god, that's a long stretch. [0:05:40] PO: Fifty-year desert of laughter, where we're limiting our own access to a resilience tool that's built into the human psyche. [0:05:48] PF: Well, talk about that a little bit, because what does laughter and humor do for our overall health, our physical health, as well as our mental health? [0:05:57] PO: Yes, well, on a real basic level, like when we find something humorous, and when we laugh, but you don't have to laugh necessarily. Even just when your brain finds something funny, we get a dose of all these feel-good chemicals that flood our brain. By dose, I literally mean dose. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins flood our brain. We get all this like feel-good chemicals coming into our brain, and it lowers cortisol, which causes us stress, when we find something funny. That even happens just when we smile, when we start to smile. So, for all the listeners, if you're listening to this right now, just put the shape of a smile on your face. You don't even have to mean it. You could be thinking anything right now. Like, he has no idea if I'm doing this or not, or whatever. I really have to pee right now. Whatever you're thinking, it’s fine. But just by putting that shape of a smile on your face, or finding something amusing, you're changing your brain chemistry to all of a sudden start having some happier chemicals in there. But a next step further, people who use humor to say, cope with life's struggles, I call a developing a humor habit. Like, there's all these habits we can create to see the humor in life more often and rewire our brain to do it. People who do that actually end up becoming more positive, more optimistic, more resilient in the face of adversity. People who develop a humor habit, believe that they are more likely to get through traumatic situations and get through to the other side. So, there's a lot it does for our own wellbeing and mental health. [0:07:24] PF: So, what about people who have dark humor? Does that have the same kind of effect? [0:07:29] PO: Yes. Dark humor could have the same kind of effect. I mean, it kind of depends. I mean, there's a lot of research about, say, people in professions like police officers, medical professionals. Dark humor is really needed in terms of resilience to help people get through those difficult times. It is said too, that like dark humor, people who really liked dark humor, may have even higher intelligence levels as well. That being said, if you get really into super dark, or sarcastic humor only as your only type of humor, there is some research that shows that that can start to go the other way for you a little bit and you start to depress yourself. [0:08:08] PF: That's good. So, you can kind of balance it, like the kind of humor you use and that you listen to. That's an interesting point, too. If you say to skew toward dark and sarcastic humor, and you think like, I might be having a dark humor problem, can you correct that by listening to say lighter types of humor? [0:08:26] PO: Yes. That's a good question. I mean, I haven't seen necessarily research on it. But I know from my own experience, and working with people all over the world around this, that the more you explore, and I call it even like lowering your humor threshold. One of the habits that I talked about is letting yourself laugh more. I was somebody who, like, as a comedian, you think I'd laugh all the time, right? But I wouldn't laugh very much. I have a friend who just laughs all the time, really gregarious, and I was always jealous. I would watch my favorite comedies or go and see a comedian. I would kind of just sit there intellectualizing all of it, like, “Ah.” Do you ever do that to where you’re like, watch a show, it’s like, genuinely, something's funny. But you say to yourself, like, “That's hilarious.” But you don't laugh, right? Why not laughing if it's so hilarious? So, I would find myself doing that, and I thought, well, this can't be good. I should be laughing more. So, I kind of trained myself to let go and laugh a little more. The first step is to go into situations, whether it's watching a movie or a show, or going to a comedy club, with the intention to laugh. And instead of thinking like arms folded, like, “This better make me laugh”, thinking, “I can't wait to laugh”, and go into it with a smile on your face. Then, the second is to kind of fake it till you make it or kick it up a notch. So, if there was something that would kind of make me smirk or smile a little, I would just let out a little, “Huh.” And if there was something that gave me like a little, “Ha-ha”, I would purposely kind of push it to, “Ha-ha-ha.” Eventually, as I just – not crazy amounts, but I would just push it just a little more than normal. I found myself genuinely laughing out loud more often until now, I laugh out loud, genuinely at things, maybe funny things friends say, or TV shows, or my dog getting trapped in a blanket and running around. I'll laugh out loud numerous times a day. [0:10:18] PF: And that, in addition to the benefits of humor, laughter has its own set of benefits for us, like both physically and mentally. So, you kind of get like a double, they kind of piggyback there together. [0:10:29] PO: Yes. To me, part of it is finding a way to let yourself experience life in a lighter way, like finding the levity, just day to day, in day-to-day moments instead of – I had a job early on in my career, and I was like, fresh out of grad school, and I'd always been real light-hearted and gregarious, and I found myself in this job being really critical of everything. I was really negative. I didn't know where all that came from. There was a lot of drama going on at the place I worked and I was really embroiled in that. I remember thinking to myself, I don't want to live my life as an actor in a drama, just to reach the end to find out. I was the director and it could have been a comedy. The amount of evidence that supports just that thought that we actually have a lot of control over our own happiness, there's a ton of it. [0:11:21] PF: I love that you say that, because as we talked earlier, we've started a new year, no secret, and 2024, a lot of people have anxiety about it. We have a big election coming up. People are concerned. It doesn't matter where you stand. People are concerned. There's so much going on, wars, discontent, division, and people are like, “Okay, how am I supposed to be happier, funnier? How do I find more humor this year?” You have some great tips, like how can we incorporate humor into our lives, even in challenging and uncomfortable times? [0:11:59] PO: Yes. So, one of the things that's important to consider is the overall kind of rewiring of your brain. Just like you would you would do with anything else. I want to learn a foreign language or a musical instrument. It's by incorporating small habits over time, because the priming effect is like our brains are wired to see what we set them up to expect. You're going to buy a new car. You’re like, I really want a Jeep and you start looking at Jeeps on the Internet. And now everywhere you drive around town, there's a Jeep everywhere, and you see all these Jeeps. Well, we can do that with humor, and start to rewire our brain to see the humor more often in life. Instead of everywhere you see Jeeps, you see jokes. Here's one way to kind of start doing that. One of my favorite habits is a humor jar. You have a jar, glass jar, say, and some slips of multicolored paper, and you could do this at work, in your office, or you could do this at home with the family, or both. In your humor jar, you've got those slips of paper, and then when funny things happen randomly, which they do, someone does or says something funny, and everyone cracks up, you write that down on a slip of paper, put it in the jar, and then depending on how many people you have doing it over the course of time, you go back at the end of each month, or quarter, or year, and relive all your funniest moments. And this is bound in positive psychology research about savoring the moment and also reminiscing on past good moments. But you're also wiring your brain to look for the funny moments, savor those funny moments. Remember those funny moments in life, so you'll see more and more of them, because that's what we're looking for. [0:13:36] PF: That's so cool. You know what, like, one thing I do that really helps me and I've got a couple of really funny friends. So, our friends, Doug and Jolene, we text a lot with them. Sometimes it's just like, out of the blue, I'll be like, “I'm not maybe having a great day. But I'm like, what can I say that's going to make them laugh, because then they're going to try to top whatever I texted to them.” And it works. It's a rabbit hole that we go down. And it helps me change my state. [0:14:03] PO: That's great. Why I liked that, too, is it kind of taps into – in my life, things changed a lot for me when I started focusing more on giving a laugh than getting a laugh. I want other people to laugh for them, not necessarily for me. So, it sounds to me like that's what you're doing. Another one of the habits is I call having a humor homie, and you could do it like as a one-week trial where you and your humor homie just make an agreement that like every day this week, or this month or whatever, we're each going to find something that cracks us up and send it to the other with no obligation of a reply back like, “Oh, now I have to watch this video and I don't really have time right now.” Because sometimes you feel like, “Oh, gosh. This one person sends me all these memes or whatever.” But it's just what we're doing is we're holding each other accountable to you look for something funny, I'll look for something funny, and we're going to share it with each other and you're also building up your comedy treasure trove of funny stuff. [0:15:02] PF: Oh, that's terrific. So, you've got a couple of other practices I wanted to talk about, and one is having a mantra. Right now, everyone's like, they're setting their word of the year, they're setting their intentions, they're creating their mantras. You have a whole different take on that. [0:15:17] PO: Yes. Part of it, maybe it's because I'm so into comedy and humor, is that I'm like, I'm a cynical person, right? So, I've been through a lot of workshops and wellness seminars and stuff like that, and some of the stuff really resonates with me. And other stuff is like, I cannot picture myself or take myself seriously doing this. Some of these serious mantras, they work. I mean, the research is out there. They work. So, if it works for you, great. But for me, I can't take myself seriously sitting at my desk going, “I am not angry. I am calm. I am not angry. I am calm.” If I'm doing that, I'm about to put a five iron through my monitor and do snow angels on the carpet or something. [0:15:59] PF: You just sounded like the Headspace app right now. [0:16:01] PO: Exactly. Yes. Except if I was that app, it would be Headcase. Yes. So, you can still have a mantra, but have it be something funny or less serious. For example, Bud Light had these commercials for a long time where this king only liked to drink Bud Light and all the peasants would bring him all these drinks like these fine mead wines or whatever. When he didn't get what he wanted, he would say, “To the pit of misery” with this guy who brought him like a wine or whatever. And the whole town would yell, “Dilly, dilly.” So, for some reason, my wife and I anytime things were not going well in life or whatever, it was like our cross-country skis one time flew off the roof rack and got run over behind us. It’s like, “Dilly, dilly.” [0:16:50] PF: I hope you were on the way back from the vacation. [0:16:54] PO: Yes. It was all the way to, and two skis. It was two skis, but it wasn't like one pair. It was one of hers and one of mine. Like, come on man. But that mantra dilly, dilly like she ended up engraving dilly, dilly at a money clip she gave to me one year for Christmas because it's just an easy way to reframe and go, okay, these sucks but whatever. [0:17:17] PF: So, did it make you laugh? You just lost basically two sets of skis because you can't just buy like a single. Did it change the situation when you're like, dilly, dilly? [0:17:26] PO: Yes. It doesn't always make me laugh. What it does is gives me perspective. It helps my brain remember that like, okay, although this may not be funny right now, there is humor in this. So, taking out of the freak-out from a nine to a six? Hey, your perspective in this whole situation, it's okay, dilly, dilly to the pit of misery. [0:17:47] PF: So, how did someone really start finding that mirthful mantra? Because you can do a song. It might be hard for someone to be like, “Oh, what's that going to be?” Because we can't – I mean, you kind of topped us with the Budweiser, dilly, dilly thing. [0:18:02] PO: Yes. So, it could be something like that Budweiser thing started as kind of an inside joke, so it could be like an inside joke, or saying that happens with you, and your colleagues at work, or at home. It could be a song that you turn into a mantra. You could take a serious mantra, and give it a little makeover, serious mantra makeover. So, take your serious mantra, and in your head, or out loud, if you can do it out loud. Just picture a funny voice saying that mantra. Like, Gandalf, from the Lord of the Rings going, “This too shall pass.” Or Elmo like, “I have a choice and I choose peace.” And that might just give you a little perspective to make you laugh a little bit and go, “Okay. It's not the end of the world.” [0:18:47] PF: I love that. When you do this, how long does it take for it to kind of become second nature? Because we're trying to override all this negative stuff that's been thrown at us all day long. How much work does it take to let the humor override that? And how long does it take to make it a habit? [0:19:07] PO: Like anything. It's different for everybody. But I think, that's why I really liked the ones that start out as little inside jokes or things that you're already doing or saying that you think, “Wait a minute. We may already have some kind of a mantra that I'm just not using that that much.” There was this one hospital team I was working with and a woman said that she was rushing around, running around room to room and there was this one patient she had this woman with a real southern twang voice. She came in real quick to check on her and a woman grabbed her arm and said, “Breathe baby, breathe.” She told her other nursing staff that their whole team now when somebody's getting worked up, they all just go, “Breathe baby, breathe.” So, those types of ones I think are the easiest because they're already in the lexicon. I had one when I was working with college students that were having a hard time, and I had to have disciplinary conversations with them and stuff, and sometimes it didn't go well. I remember this one student at the end of the day. It was a long week. The end of the day, the student and his attorney, and mom left my office, they're angry, and I hear the student just yell, “I hate this F’n school.” I walk into the office and my colleague goes, “How you doing?” I go, “Oh, you know, changing lives.” And that changing lives kind of became one of those mantras where both good and bad. Sometimes we'd have breakthroughs and we'd be like, “Hey, changing lives.” And other times, it'd be like a tough day, like, “Changing lives.” But it kind of gave us a perspective that we’re in it together. [0:20:41] PF: I love that. I love that. So, as the year gets dicey, not that it will. If the year feels dicey, how can we then like make sure like really double down on our humor? Really make it, like find ways to make ourselves laugh, and make ourselves think everything's okay? [0:20:56] PO: One thing is, at times, you don't have to make everything okay. The great humorous Charlie Chaplin once said, “In order to really laugh, you need to be able to take your pain and play with it.” If you're into theater, or comedy, movies, or TV shows. I mean, the real great comedy comes from the pain points in life. The struggles. No one wants to watch TV show where the guy wakes up and loves his job, and everything's great with his family. It's like, who cares? But it's the funny things happen with the struggles. So, what I teach with groups and workshops is to be able to take your pain points, and play with them a little bit. Start with minor things. There's something called humorous reappraisal, where we take minor stressors that we had, and then look back and see how can I reframe that with humor? Or I call it play in the what I could have said game. How can I look back and go, “What could I have done or said in that stressful moment, to add some levity to it so that I didn't get quite so worked up?” That's a good way. There's a lot of research about that, that doing that, actually increases our overall positive emotions and decreases negative emotions more than just normal positive reappraisal. Numerous reappraisal does so even more. So, I can give an example. I always tell people, just start with real minor things, and then work your way up to more real difficult personal traumatic things. But like, let's say you're in an important meeting at work, with all the leadership team there, and you go to make a brilliant point, right? You spill your mug of coffee all over the table. And now, you're immediately flustered, your next getting red, your face is getting red. And you're like, “Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry.” Apologizing profusely and embarrassed, and then you realize later, like, “I didn't even get to make my great point. And why did I let myself get so flustered about this? I wish I could have handled that with some levity.” Go back and play the what I could have said game. What would you have done? What would you have said to lighten the mood and settle yourself down and others down? Maybe you spill it and go, “This is going to generate a latte excitement.” Or, “It's okay, everyone. It's just half and half. Half on the table, half in my lap.” Whatever it is, it doesn't even matter if what you come up with when you're doing this exercise cracks you up. Because you're training your brain to associate these minor stressors and working your way up to major stressors with humor. Eventually, what will happen is, you'll think to play the what I could have said game like a couple days later, and then a day later, and then a few hours later, until eventually your brain is starting to make this humor connection closer to real time than retrospect. And you're starting to be hardwired for humor. [0:23:36] PF: I love that. I love that. There's so much that you can teach us and we're going to tell people how they can find you and where they can see your TED Talk and just all the great stuff that you've done. But before you go, I love this, I want you to tell us about a comedy chaser, because this is something we started doing in our house before like we didn't even realize it how to name. But it was something we had to do this because we couldn't go to bed with anything else in our mind. So, tell us what a comedy chaser is and how we can use this. I love it. [0:24:04] PO: Yes. And that's cool to hear that you've been doing that too, because that's just actually helped me a lot as well. But I'm not going to like screen shame anyone. We all have our screen habits where maybe we're on a certain app too long, or depending on what you like to watch. For some reason right now, True Crime documentaries, and like serial killer documentaries are huge. Some of us watch the news way too much. Whatever it is, it's fine. But a comedy chaser is at the end of the day, make the last thing you watch funny. After you've binged your True Crime thing, before you go to bed, or maybe it's before you get to work or sit down to do some work, make the last thing you watch something funny. Watch a couple of funny TikTok videos or whatever it is that makes you laugh, because then what you're doing is you're replacing stress-inducing hormones with stress-reducing before you go to bed, or get to work, or see your family, or whatever it is. [0:25:00] PF: Then, that's what's stuck in your head too. When you lay down, you're like rethinking that joke, rethinking what you just saw, and it's a much more pleasant experience. [0:25:08] PO: Absolutely. All of those benefits of humor and laughter are flooding your body before sleep, or whatever the next thing is that you're going to do, for sure. [0:25:19] PF: What I've noticed has happened with me is I've started doing that. I tend to have really funny dreams. I don't always remember them, but I will wake up laughing. [0:25:28] PO: Really? Oh, that's great. [0:25:28] PF: Yes. Then, sometimes I'm like, “I got to write that down because I got to try that.” As I've started doing comedy, before I go to bed, I see that happening more and more, where it's like – [0:25:38] PO: That’s awesome. [0:25:39] PF: – you just kind of wake up and you're laughing. You don't know why. It's like, it must have been a good dream. Wish I knew what it was. [0:25:45] PO: See. You're rewiring your brain for humor, and it's even happening in your sleep. That's amazing. [0:25:49] PF: That’s so easy. I can do it in my sleep. [0:25:51] PO: That's right. That's right. Very good. I need you to write something for me. “So, easy. You can do it in your sleep.” [0:25:59] PF: Well, Paul, you are a delight to talk to. I'm glad you could share this with us. Again, thank you for coming on. We're going to tell everyone how to find you and make 2024 a happier, more humorous year. [0:26:12] PO: That's right. Have a great 2024 everyone. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:26:19] PF: That was Paul Osincup, talking about the power of humor. If you'd like to learn more about Paul, follow him on social media or learn more about his book, The Humor Habit, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Take an Inner Field Trip With Leesa Renee Hall [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:01] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 449 of Live Happy Now. If you're looking for an adventure to start the new year, why not take an Inner Field Trip? I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm sitting down with Leesa Renee Hall, a mental health wellness advocate and author of the Inner Field Trip Workbook, which helps us explore what drives us, what oppresses us, and to recognize our personal biases. Armed with that information, Leesa says, we can change the way we move through the world and transform our relationships, which seems like a great way to start the year. Let's find out more. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:38] PF: Leesa, Happy New Year. [0:00:40] LRH: Happy New Year, Paula. Thank you. [0:00:43] PF: It is. It's a shiny, brand-new year. We're all excited about that. We wanted to kick it off with you, because you've got this terrific workbook that really helps us explore a lot of things inside. This is a time when people are looking at new beginnings, and your workbook fits so well into that. To get started, tell us what an Inner Field trip is. [0:01:06] LRH: The Inner Field Trip, it's a way to go internal within, and ask yourself those deed questions about the internalized messaging that you have, that you hold, that you've been socialized to believe that hinders your personal growth. The way I conceptualize the Inner Field Trip, I'm a hiker, I hike all the time. The way I conceptualize the Inner Field Trip is like a hike. We go, we hit the trail, and we go along a rugged, rocky terrain, get to the lookout, and then circle back to the trailhead. The Inner Field Trip is similar to that, but instead of going and driving to a trail and trudging along the rugged terrain, instead we go inner, internal, and we traverse our internal rugged terrain, and see what sights and sounds are along the way. [0:02:03] PF: What's so interesting is a lot of times, even if we think we know ourselves, we might be surprised at some of the pitfalls, some of the uneven terrain that we encounter when we go inside. [0:02:15] LRH: That's one of the reasons why doing the Inner Field Trip, or any introspective work, is so difficult for people, because it's Amanda Palmer, the musician said in an interview once that, it's like you go in to confront your inner part of yourself, and they're in the dark basement lifting weights. You confront them, and they're like these big, muscly things, and it's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. So, it can be scary to go within and ask yourself those hard questions. [0:02:51] PF: Well, tell me how you came up with this idea, because it's very – I've seen a lot of work books I've seen – there's so many ways that you can approach self-discovery and awakening and change, and yours is truly unique. So, tell me how you came up with this. [0:03:04] LRH: I always held a diary, but I hadn't written in one for a long time. I had one when I was young. The typical pink with a nice fuzzy exterior and a lock on there, when I was a teenager. I wrote in them a lot. You fast forward decades later, and I had a few personal setbacks, and I started journaling. I found that it was very therapeutic. At the time I didn't even know it was a thing. I didn't know that one can journal to improve their mindset, to improve their thought process, to improve their health. There's a lot of study around it. It's called expressive writing. There's a doctor or psychologist who's done almost 25 years' work of research into this. So, the time I'm journaling, and I'm just working through these personal setbacks. I was sharing my journey, or my log book, my dispatches, on Facebook at the time when I was using it quite regularly. People were asking me, “Oh, wow. I love what you're discovering. Can you help me out, too? Could you take me on this journey as well?” I started a group on Facebook in 2015, and I offered some writing prompts that came out of my own experience, and people started doing the same thing, journaling. A couple of years later, I wrote a blog post with some writing prompts. I had a very problematic interaction with a person who holds skin color, and gender privilege, and wealth privilege as well. So, I said to him, I said, “You seem so angry. Why are you so angry? Maybe take these writing prompts and sit for 15 minutes and journal.” He told me all sorts of terrible things about who I am. [0:04:54] PF: Oh, wow. [0:04:55] LRH: Yeah. It was terrible. It was awful. I threw the writing prompts in a blog post, and in the first three weeks, it was shared 10,000 times. [0:05:03] PF: Oh, my gosh. That says a lot. [0:05:05] LRH: That says a lot. Then people were sending me small gifts, financial gifts, $5 here, $50 here, through PayPal, saying, “This is such a gift. Thank you so much.” That's when I started a paid community to offer more writing prompts to those who like the process of journaling and being introspective. Then that's how Inner Field Trip was birth. [0:05:32] PF: I love that it was so organic. How it started as your own journey, and then just became you, wanting to share it with others. Then others really clamoring for it. I mean, I love when it evolves like that. [0:05:42] LRH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it was during the pandemic when I started adding art exercises, because many in my community were sharing with me that their inner oppressor, and the inner oppressor is who we meet on the Inner Field Trip. This is a part of ourselves that bullies us and pressures us into aligning with the status quo. So, what we do is we use the writing prompts to meet our inner oppressor, as we go on our Inner Field Trip, and we capture the ramblings of our inner oppressor through the journaling. Many during the pandemic said to me, many of my members in my community said, “My inner oppressor has become raging, angry, or nonverbal.” That they would sit down to journal to meet their inner oppressor, and nothing would come out. That's when I started adding expressive arts. There's a lot of research around the power of expressive arts and helping us to heal. Helping us to give language to what we don't have words for. Now, the Inner Field Trip combines the power of self-reflective journaling, along with expressive arts or expressive doodling to help us to have a holistic encounter when we go on our Inner Field Trip to meet our inner oppressor. [0:07:00] PF: Yeah. That was something I wanted to ask you about, because you do use so many different approaches, like you have the journaling, there's drawing, there's music, there's movement. Why are those different creative approaches so effective in that self-exploration? [0:07:15] LRH: A lot of what we tackle through the Inner Field Trip is, as I said, internalized messaging, but also internalized biases. So, growing up in a culture that tells us that we need to be self-reliant and pull up your bootstraps, and all these messages of individualism. It can be quite harmful to some people who don't have sheer – where sheer willpower is not enough for them to be able to create and maintain habits. There are environmental factors that prevent them from doing so. There are systemic barriers that they face. Some people are experiencing generational poverty. When you don't have enough time or money to create a space to create new habits, that's going to affect whether or not you can go and do these things, whether you can go on an inner field trip. The power of using all these different modalities is to meet people where they are. If you're experiencing generational poverty, well, maybe you can pick up a marker and sketchbook or even a piece of paper and just do it all for five minutes, and see what happens. There's people in my community who have been diagnosed with different mental health disorders as they've gotten older. I have a lot of my community that got a late-stage ADHD diagnosis or autism. If that is the case in how they learn and interact with content is going to be different. So, being able to do the dancing, or listening to music, or doing the doodling or journaling, helps again to meet people where they are. [0:09:01] PF: I think the book is so well laid out as well, because you build in these what you call active rest stops. I love that. Going back to the hiking thing. They put little things in the trail where you can sit and drink your water and catch your breath. You do that same thing. Talk about an active rest stop and what that is. Because to me, as I was going through your workbook, I felt like, boy, this is something you could do, even if you're not doing the workbook. You could build in like an active rest stop day where I do this. Tell us what it is. [0:09:30] LRH: When I hike, I usually go out. I usually do day hiking. I'll be out on the trail for two, three hours. As I'm marching along and hiking along, I will take a rest here and there. It's a long enough rest, so that I can grab a snack, and check the maps to make sure I'm going the right way. [0:09:52] PF: Important. [0:09:53] LRH: Right. So very important. What I'm not doing is I'm not going to pitch a tent and throw up in a sleeping bag and set up overnight. So, the active rest stop is the same idea within the Inner Field Trip. When it comes to creating and maintaining habits, we often try to do too much too soon. Then we end up burning out along the way. In fact, there is a study or something or stat that says, that most people will abandon their New Year's resolutions by February 12th. I believe that's the date. Then you start a cycle again in the next New Year, where you say, “I'm going to do this on January 1st.” Then by February 12th. It's done. It's abandoned and you spend the next 10 months not making the change. What's important to add to this pathway of trying to create new habits is to incorporate rest and pleasure and play. I recently held a gathering with workbook participants, people who bought the workbook, and we're doing what I'm calling a three-day jumpstart to help them get motivated to do the 30-day challenge in the book. One person said that as they've gotten to know themselves through the Inner Field Trip, they understand that they have this fun, dorky side. Then they said, “I'm a dork.” Then others agreed with them. Having the active rest stop means that we can slow down, rest, have some play, incorporate pleasure, so that we are nourished, nourished enough, so that we go ahead and we meet our inner oppressor again. It can't be all work, because rest is not a reward for the work. It's part of the work. [0:11:46] PF: I love that. That is something that is so often overlooked. I love that you've integrated that, and made it such a central part of this whole journey. That is so well done. Now was there a reason you chose 30 days? [0:12:00] LRH: It takes 66 days to form a new habit. 66. At least the inner field trip will get you half way. [0:12:09] PF: What do you do? You bring up a great point. We need this to be a habit. We need to change our way of thinking, but we get half way there. Do you go on the field trip again, or what do you do for that next 36 days? [0:12:23] LRH: Yes, yes, yes. So, yes, going on a field trip again is a great idea. Some people will repeat the book and keep repeating it over and over and over. Another thing to do is to get into community with others, where there's a chapter in the workbook that gives you some tips on how to form a book club, if that stuff interests you. You could do the first 30 days by yourself, do the next 30 days in community with others, and then that will get you closer to that 60 days. You see, the problem, one of the problems with habits and the forming of habits is that it teaches us – most of the advice out there says that if you don't have the willpower to stick to this habit, then you just need to change your mindset. Here's some mindset work for you to do. As I had shared before that people are experiencing systemic issues, which are preventing them from using sheer willpower alone in maintaining habits. A de-colonized approach to habit forming is to get into communion and/or community with others. Because it's when we are with others that we are more accountable, we're more likely to stick with the habit and we're with individuals who are also working towards the same goal. Doing this alone is not fun. [0:13:48] PF: Right. There's also a lot of research that shows just how good community is for our mental health. Just being with others and sharing that. That in itself, do you see changes in people when they're able to, instead of writing – I love journaling, it's such a valuable tool, but if instead of journaling, they're able to sit in a group and say, “This is how I felt and this is what I said.” Then someone else is saying, “Oh, my gosh. I didn't know someone else felt that way. I have the same thing.” What does that do for them? [0:14:18] LRH: Exactly. When I do the inner field trip, either in my community, virtually or in person in a workshop room, not only are we meeting our inner oppressor through the journaling, not only are we meeting the inner oppressor through the arts and the expressive doodling, but we also dance. After we journal and everyone's in their emotions, I throw on Madonna's Material Girl and we prance around the room until that song ends. [0:14:47] PF: I love it. [0:14:48] LRH: It's interesting, Paula, because some people, there's tears dripping down their face, because of the journaling has brought up things, and then you'll see them with their shoulder slump down, their hands hanging at their side, like spaghetti noodles, but yet, and they're still weeping, but they're prancing about the room with everyone else. It is so funny to witness. We do this, we do the music after such an intense journaling, because not only are we doing it in community with each other, but it helps us to discharge some of that energy that might be trapped within. So, that when we sit back down in community, we now feel more freedom in sharing what has come up in the journaling and the expressive arts. [0:15:34] PF: That's terrific. Can we talk a little bit about the effects that you've seen for people going on this journey? What happens when people start looking at their unconscious biases and really drawing those out? [0:15:46] LRH: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It's so magical, Paula. It's so magical. I love it. I love it. I love it. The inner field trip itself was developed in community. People will pick up the workbook, do it on their own and they're great. Some people are like that. I'm a solo hiker. I prefer to go hiking by myself than in a group. Sometimes I want the group, because it's all about the socialization and all that. Some of the things that I've seen happen with people who've gone through the inner field trip is that people's relationships improve, so you can call me a relationship fixer. [0:16:21] PF: Now, there you go. [0:16:24] LRH: But also, for some people their relationships don't improve. I know that sounds weird, right? [0:16:32] PF: Is that because they recognize that they've been putting up with things that – [0:16:37] LRH: Ah, yes. [0:16:38] PF: - they shouldn't? [0:16:39] LRH: Yes. That's what happens, right? There's an awakening that they have that, wow, look at all this toxicity I put up within this relationship. Whether that relationship is personal, or whether that relationship is professional, like in a workplace or so on. Others have, for example, I've seen a few people in my community who have boldly come out and said, “The gender, or the sex assigned at birth is no longer the gender I identify with.” I've watched over several months, or years how they've transitioned and have become more confident and more assured of themselves. Perhaps, that's not going to be your story. Maybe your story is that you found your voice. I have a lot of people pleasers that come through my community. Weak boundaries, porous boundaries. Then they go through the inner field trip and they're able to have much stronger boundaries. Not rigid barriers, but stronger boundaries. [0:17:39] PF: Is that because they have a stronger sense of self? [0:17:41] LRH: Yes. They have a stronger sense of self and they're able to – they're able to find their voice and use it in a much more effective way. Again, it's not about creating rigid barriers. It's not like, they come out with a much more angry, stern voice, but now they're able to advocate for themselves. Ultimately, when we do this work with the inner field trip, it's about holding compassion for ourselves. It's about recognizing our own humanity, that we are messy, that we will stumble along figuratively on this path, and then when we can see how messy our own humanity is, then we can look at someone else's humanity and treat it with grace and love and compassion. [0:18:30] PF: What are some of the stories? Is there any one that stands out of this incredible transformation that you never would have anticipated would happen by someone going on this field trip? [0:18:43] LRH: Yeah, there's several. There's someone who used to be in my community, and unfortunately, she passed on. Just a wonderful advocate for the inner field trip. Her first name was Rachel. When she first came across the inner field trip, she was very timid, very timid, and broken as well. As I got to know her, she shared more about her experience, her life. Over and over, just many people taking advantage of her kind spirit. Once she went through the inner field trip, and she'd been in part of the community for many, many months, and she, in one of our gatherings, in one of our circles, she shared that she was able, finally able to communicate with her ex-husband, what her needs were around the co-parenting. She broke down in tears with us, because she said she had never before stood up to him that way. She thought he was going to rage, or get upset. But instead, he accepted her boundaries. She said, “Wow, who knows how different our relationship would have been,” had she known how easy it would have been to express her boundaries around co-parenting. [0:19:58] PF: That's amazing. [0:19:59] LRH: We cried, yeah. [0:20:01] PF: It sounds like, going through the field trip doesn't just change internally. It really changes the way these people are moving through the world. Then they are having an effect on the people that they come in contact with, because they're interacting with them differently. [0:20:19] LRH: Exactly. When people go through the inner field trip, one of the things that comes out is that they recognize that how they take direct action, whatever that looks like, that they feel more confident doing so in a way that aligns with their personality and their uniqueness. There are a lot of causes that we care about. Whether it's about saving the trees, or saving the pets, or maybe there's a conflict happening around the world where you really care about the plight of those who are suffering. Whatever that cause is, we each have something that we care deeply about. The way that people believe direct action should take place is you've got to go up there and march. You have to hit the – bodies on the line, boots on the ground is what I often hear. For some of us, that's not a form of direct action that we can take. Either, maybe you have a disability and you're not able to put those boots on the ground. Perhaps, you're not able, maybe you're time deficient or under-resourced in terms of time and you can't get to these marches and sit-ins, and so forth. When you can understand yourself better and you're able to work through your internalized issues, that confidence builds because now you know that, hey, my form of activism is writing letters, or my form of activism is holding space in a therapy room, in a session with someone who's gone through some trauma. If, as a therapist, you can sit there and provide compassion and help that person heal, that's your form of activism. Activism, taken direct action, doesn't have to look like this. There are so many different ways that we can show up in the world to help those who are suffering. [0:22:11] PF: I love that. I love that. Again, your workbook really lets people discover what's right for them. They're going to run into some uncomfortable characters on rough terrain inside that field trip. Again, what's so wonderful is there is a community that you've built, that they can reach out to and they can become part of and they can help process it with someone else. [0:22:34] LRH: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. [0:22:37] PF: As we start this new year, what is your wish for the people who are listening to this? What do you hope that they can do and accomplish by going inside themselves? [0:22:49] LRH: What I wish is that we stop trying to become allies. Instead, we look at becoming better ancestors. My wish is that we stop passing on pain and we start to pass on healing. That even if you don't have biological children, or you're estranged from your biological children, we each have something that we can pass on to the next generation. That's what I would like to see us do, that we look ahead and we take on the Iroquois Nation thinking, which is all about looking seven generations ahead and asking ourselves, “What decision am I making now in terms of the habits I'm going to form that I can pass on healing that will resonate seven generations from now?” I wonder how much different we would all be if seven generations ago our ancestors did that. They looked ahead and said, “Okay. I don't know what their faces will be. I don't know what their names will be, but I want to make sure I make a decision now in terms of the habits I develop, so that seven generations from now, my descendants look back and say, “Well done. Well done.”” I think a lot of the things we focus on and the things that are grabbing our attention is a distraction. A distraction away from the work that we need to do, so that we become better and we pass on better things to our descendants. [0:24:23] PF: That is so well said. We are very fortunate to have you in this tumultuous time on our planet – [0:24:29] LRH: So tumultuous. [0:24:31] PF: Yeah. To be able to guide us through this. I mean, this is – your timing on this and obviously, you were put here at this time for a reason and this workbook is such a wonderful way to help us navigate it. I thank you for doing that and I thank you for joining me here today. [0:24:48] LRH: Thank you, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:24:53] PF: That was author and mental wellness advocate, Leesa Renee Hall, talking about her Inner Field Trip Workbook. If you'd like to learn more about Leesa, follow her on social media, or learn more about the Inner Field Trip Workbook, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]