Stress

Hello everybody, welcome to Health Chatter. Today's episode is on stress. And I think we all kind of embrace stress at different levels. So we'll hear a lot about that today. Great guests with us. As always, our crew is with us. We have Maddy Levine-Wolf, who's doing our recording today. Thank you, Maddy. Also Maddy does background research for us along with Erin Collins, Deondra Howard, and Sheridan Nygard. Sheridan also does some marketing work for us as well. Our production manager is Matthew Campbell, who gets all the shows out to you in perfect format. So as you listen to them, however you do them, he's the one that gets them to you. So thank you to everybody. Clarence Jones, my co-host, great, great colleague. Great show and we're having a good time doing it. So Clarence, many, many thanks. Also, Human Partnership is our sponsor for these, for these shows. Community Health Organization does wonderful community health work out in the community and it's spelled H-U-E-M-A-N, hueman you can check them out. Also you can check our website out at Heal My name is Stan Shanedling. I co-host the show with my true colleague, Clarence Jones. And off we go on our show today. We have Brandon. Brandon Jones is with us today. If some of you had a chance, he was with us and did a show on narcissism. And I encourage you all to listen to that show as well. Quite interesting. I learned that I personally learned a lot on that show. and I'm looking forward to this one as well on stress. So Brandon is the executive director of the Minnesota Association of Children's Mental Health, MACMH. His background is in sociology, community psychology, and marriage and family therapy. He's a psychotherapist, professor, and behavioral health consultant. His work as a school-based mental health counselor and specializes in Therapeutic Services Within Communities of Color. Brandon, great having you back. I have a feeling that there might be some other major themes and discussion points that we might invite you to, but today's is on stress. So thanks for being with us once again. That's it. Yeah, let me say this. Brandon, I want you to know I said that narcissism linked a lot of my friends. Okay. Not trying to point anyone out. No, no, we have a lot of people in common. So like, check this out. You know what I mean? So they haven't responded yet. You know, something like that. It's a lot to digest. They will respond when they are ready. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I'm happy to be here yet again. This is a very important topic. Honestly, I think stress is one of those things that shows up in our lives every day. and we don't know how to always manage it for ourselves. And there's no exact way to manage stress. It's very subjective based on the individual. So I'm looking forward to our conversation today. Yeah. So, all right. So, you know, I was talking to Clarence a little bit before the show, and maybe you can help all of us distinguish between stress and anxiety. Oh, absolutely. I think that they're closely related. Let's call them cousins, but they're not exactly the same. So let's start with anxiety. We'll start backwards. All right, okay. Anxiety is a state, well, let me start by saying this. Everyone has anxiety. It's a part of this dehuman condition where we get anxious, we worry, we may fret over things, we may get nervous. That's a part of just the human condition. Anxiety becomes a problem for people when it gets in the way of things that you want to do or things that you need to do. For example, we need to bathe, we need to groom ourselves, we need to eat at least two to three meals a day, we need at least six to eight hours of sleep. But anxiety, when it becomes problematic or even clinical, is when it interferes with those sorts of things. Anxiety can get in your way of going into public places, such as school or a bank. or maybe even a concert, it may affect your ability to go inside of an elevator, go down an escalator, get in a vehicle, get on the highway. It can affect a lot of things. And some of those things are things that we need to do to get to work, school, home, things of that nature. So that's anxiety. Again, we all get anxious about something. It can be a fear of a dog, a spider, it can be heights. It can be a lot of things, but anxiety becomes a problem for people. when it interferes with your ability to do what you need to do or what you want to do. So that's anxiety. And like I said, anxiety is a close cousin of stress. Stress is similar. It's a part of everyone's life. We all have stress, but stress can be looked at in three different kind of dimensions. The first dimension of stress is what we call positive stress. This is like waking up late, you sleep through your alarm and... And you also sleep through your snooze button and you wake up, you got 15 minutes to get out the door, or maybe you forget to plug your phone up overnight and you wake up with 3% battery life and your day is starting a little behind. You may spill coffee on your shirt and you gotta get out of the door. That's what we call positive stress, right? It's this immediate kind of letdown that we end up having. We get a little razzled, but eventually we'll figure out a solution to keep moving throughout our day. So it doesn't slow us down. but it does give us pause in the moment. That's what we call positive stress. And again, everyone experiences this. Some people they'll experience positive stress more than one time in a day. I would say you probably have at least three to four positive stress moments every week, just given the nature of how our lives are set up. You get an unexpected medical bill or your neighbor dog poops in your yard or something. You're gonna have a level of stress that shows up. The second dimension of stress is what we call tolerable stress. Now again, most people will experience this as well. This is like when a grandparent suddenly passes away. Doesn't feel good, you get overwhelmed. One of our main stress hormones is called cortisol. Your cortisol levels are raised pretty significantly due to the nature of the situation. But over time, that stress level should come down, that cortisol level should come down. because you figured out ways to adjust to whatever the event is that happened. Such things, car accidents, unexpected deaths, just bad news. Like Kobe Bryant, when Kobe Bryant passed away, a lot of people's tolerable stress level was up because a lot of people seen him as a very notable figure. These are the things that happened for people. But with relationships, coping skills, things like that, we're able to move forward. But the thing about tolerable stress, is that we can have these moments where it peaks back up. It doesn't get back to where it was initially, but your stress levels can peak with things like anniversaries, birthdays, the holiday season, any type of reminders. It can even be a smell. Any type of reminders of that event or that individual can bring your stress level back up. But over time, it shouldn't be as significant. But again, it's very subjective and it depends on who the person is and what kind of coping skills they have. And then the third dimension of stress, which is what I call the big bad wolf of stress, which is what we call toxic stress. Now this is what people like myself and in my field, we deal with a lot of this, where folks are in this very high level of cortisol, high levels of stress. And usually with toxic stress, it's prolonged, it's very, very complex things are happening, very challenging situations, things like being chronically homeless or unhoused. Things like having a chronic illness, being bullied, being in a domestic violence relationship, you know, dealing with terrorism, living in a concentration camp. These are types of things that can lead to what we call toxic levels of stress. Even living in a neighborhood where there's consistent noise 24-7, sirens, music, people talking, people up and down stairs and apartment buildings. Those things can be seen as toxic stress and your body's responding. Your body's And a lot of times when people are in that toxic stress space, they're not even aware of it because it's been going on so long that it becomes normalized for them. And that's where a lot of my work is, is helping people identify that is not normal. And you can do something about it outside of just leaving the environment. You have to work on those things because your body's still responding whether you're cognitively aware of it or not. So that's a long explanation. But hopefully that gives people an idea of the difference and the connection. Yeah, Clarence. Yeah, so Brandon, I like that idea because from a community perspective, I know that in so many homes, there is noise nonstop. Yep. Music nonstop. I'm wondering about this toxic stress, how does it impact our children? Because I think, you know, I can just think about that as a great starting point for me. Absolutely, it has a huge impact on our children. Now remember, our children's brains are developing until they're about 24 years old, 25 years old. So as they're living in these conditions where there's a lot of stimuli, it's probably the best way to talk about it. Their brains are developing around dealing with so much noise, so much anxiety, if we wanna throw that in there, there's some anxiousness in these spaces and places as well. A lot of kids end up being hyper-vigilant. A lot of kids end up being sensory sensitive. which means that, you know, certain things kind of can agitate them or rev them up. So guess what happens when those kids are taking out of those environments. They go to a library, a museum, a zoo, sometimes even school. They sometimes have issues adjusting to those things. And then we start to see behavioral issues, you know, rev up because those kids are being dysregulated because their stimuli isn't where it needs to be. I was one of those kids. I grew up in a very toxic stress. I've seen a lot of domestic violence as a kid. It's no secret for folks who are familiar with me, they know I've talked about this publicly several times. And I learned that, I had to leave and learn this until late into my, I mean, not late, early into my early thirties, how my body is so regulated to stimuli. In my early thirties, I had a very interesting situation happen. I moved to the suburbs. I moved to the suburbs and I'll never forget my first night in our new town home. I was, I had anxiety through the roof. I couldn't sleep. It was pitch black. All I heard was like crickets outside. I didn't hear no noise, no nothing. I'm a city kid. I'm used to hearing buses and trains, people, the music. And I had anxiety just because I was in a quiet environment, like pitch black. I'd never been in a situation where there was no lights outside. I look out the window and I just see darkness. Then my body was, it took my body probably about a month to adjust to that new environment. And I had to think about, man, what was going on with me? Like what was happening? And it's like, that was probably the first time I've been in an environment that was that quiet. And that's not every suburb, that's just the location that I was in. But I have, my body's not used to that. Even when I went to college, I was at the University of Minnesota, it's hustling bustle up and down all day, every day there. So I was always in these high stimuli environments that at that time I never was in. But that comes from my childhood. I had to be hyper-visual as a child because at any given moment, an argument can break out, a fight can happen, and I was the oldest, so I had to be responsible not only for my own protection sometimes, but also my younger siblings. That was just the role that I assumed as a child. So a lot of that stays with us and we develop certain coping skills and survival skills really around some of the stimuli that happens in our environments. So Let's talk a little bit, you alluded to it briefly, like the physiological effects that, and I can tell a personal story as well, but let's talk about the physiological responses. There are certain things that kind of, I'm only guessing, that kind of put you up and over. from top of the mountain as far as stress, and it really can affect your body one way or the other. I know for one thing it can increase your blood pressure, et cetera, but what can you tell our audience about the physiological effects of this stuff? Yep, when it comes to stress, there's two core, again, I'm a little biased with the research, but two things that I focus on when it comes to physiological. The first one is cortisol levels. Cortisol is your main stress hormone. There's other ones, but that's the key one, because if you manage your cortisol levels, it can have certain impacts on your actual physical and your mental health. So some people who have high levels of cortisol, they may be more prone to like heart disease, things like obesity, things of that nature. So that's one area, and I'm gonna come back to that one. The second one is what we call your synapse brain development, your synapse connections. Now this is the part of your brain, and I'm gonna try not to lose the audience here by getting real nerdy and talking about brain connection. But this is the one that's key for our development. Like I said, between the ages of, pretty much from when you're born to when you're about 25 years old, those synapse connections are starting to, they're developing, and then there's a pruning process that takes place when you go through puberty. Just like our bodies go through puberty during those preteen years, so does our brains. And what happens is those synapse connections start to adapt to how you live your life. And we start this pruning process for things that your body has identified what you need for survival. So for myself growing up in the household that I grew up in, I knew for my survival, I needed to use hyper vigilance is just one of the key things because I'm always like assessing what's going on. That comes from my senses, right? So you know, many of us learn about our five senses when we're younger. and that we're always assessing our environment. So that's one of the key things that happens with our snap connections. Cortisol, again, is subjective based on the person. Depending on your environment, how you've adjusted that environment, some of your coping skills you have, it will determine how much cortisol you have in within your body. But again, that's one of the key things to pay attention to. You can get a cortisol, I think it's called a cortisol scan. There's probably a bigger fancier title for that. If you're ever curious and you go to the doctor, they can let you know how much cortisol is actually in your system as well. So does it change, the cortisol levels change as you get older or is it just kind of a response to stress? That's a good question. I'm not sure. I would have to look that up to see if it changes as you get older. I would assume it does just cause your hormones do. Yeah, right. So I would assume that there are some changes that happens within the body for an individual, but I would have to do some further research to confirm that. Yeah, Clarence. Yeah, Dr. Barry, I wanna ask you this question. How do toxic stress manifest itself in your work? For me? No, I'll talk to Dr. Barry. I wanted to, I know I love what you were saying about it, but I just wanted to know from him, how did toxic stress manifest itself in the work that you were doing? You're on mute. We can't hear you. All right, we'll come back to you, Barry. We'll come back to you. So let me ask this question then, Brandon. You talked about growing up. Do you think our world, with this statement, our children want to live in a better world than we did? Do you think the world, the stress levels of the world is gonna be better for our children and for us? I think they're gonna be this, I think this is an interesting question. I actually think about this pretty often as a father and also somebody who works with young people. I don't think that they're gonna, I don't think the stress levels are going to be worse. I think they're gonna be different. Yeah. And what I mean by that is this, the kids that we have today, the last two generations, the generation Zs and the new alphas that we never really talk about yet, because they're all under the age of 13. But these kids are growing up in this fast paced world that we didn't have. Our world was fast paced for the time, but in this time, I would say culture, youth culture probably shifted maybe every 10 years or so. In this world, youth culture shifts probably every four years or so. The last time I was in school-based therapy was 2017, 18. Now, even if the pandemic didn't happen, I think this still would have took place. The young people who are in school now, they are very different than those kids. They are very, it's like, it's almost night and day because youth culture shifts over. Their influences shift over, their interest levels shift over, their language shifts over, so the culture changes. So what they're stressed out about also manifests differently than what we were. It's some of the core stuff that when we grew up, relationships, parental issues, some politics, but not that much. These kids are way more political than I think we've ever seen before. Mental health is a new phenomenon, but it's not that we didn't deal with our mental and emotional health before. We just didn't talk about it the way that we talk about it. Now, I can log on to TikTok right now and any diagnosis you wanna learn about, you can click on it and I guarantee you'll find somebody under the age of 25 talking about how they live with that diagnosis. That is unheard of. To have that level of access that's at your fingertips 24-7, and to have multiple perspectives and people who are seen as authorities or influencers, that's a different world, and that's going to bring a different level of stress. Another key thing to the stress of today that I think we should talk more about is the economic situation. There's a lot of uncertainty for folks who've been around for a long time. We have folks who used to work in jobs they'll get that good job out of school or they'll start their career early, they'll stay in that job forever. Nowadays, you're lucky if you have an employee stay in the job for two years. It's a different world. And these young people, they're not concerned about their economic future. They're in the gig economy. They're just gonna figure it out as they go. That's a whole different level of stress where you hop from one job to the other, where we had a generation, two generations before, that were a lot more secure in making sure they get a pension. making sure that they have insurance after they retire, things of that nature, that's a different world. So we're gonna see different responses to stress. And I also think that we're starting to see a clash of the generations as far as what's the best way to move forward? There's a lot of differences in how we see the world based on our generations. Yeah, so let me ask Maddie and De'Andre, I just wanna bring you in, because Brandon is talking a lot about by young people. I know that you're younger than Stan and I for sure. But what are some of your thoughts about stress and about what Brandon is saying? Um, yeah, that's a good question. I think for me, I think I'm always thinking about what we were kind of talking about earlier, the difference between stress and anxiety. Cause for me, I think oftentimes those two things are very conflated. And I personally have a hard time, like, separating the two, I think I'm constantly, like in therapy, I'm constantly using like stress and anxiety interchangeably. And so I feel like knowing that there is a difference is important. I think for me, I didn't actually realize that I had anxiety until COVID started. I think some of that is based on my childhood and how I saw anxiety manifesting in one way. I thought that was the only way that anxiety manifested. And I was like, oh, that's not what I'm experiencing, so I must not be anxious. And then I remember once COVID started happening, my anxiety was manifesting in these nightly panic attacks. And I was like, oh, maybe I am anxious. And so, I got into therapy, ultimately I started taking Lexapro and my anxiety and stress has, I've been able to manage it a lot better. But yeah, I mean, I also think it's interesting thinking about, and Brandon, maybe you can speak to this a little bit, is that like, I feel like right now we live in such a high stress environment. There's so much going on in the world that causes stress and anxiety. But I also have to imagine that like, people had the same levels of high stress and high anxiety. like a hundred years ago. So is it that like our world or in our life is getting more stressful and anxiety producing, or is it more of like you were saying with kids these days about how sources of stress and anxiety are just shifting? Great question. I would say that it's a shift. A hundred years ago, we were going into the great depression. Today, we are not in a great depression. I don't think the level of stress that folks had a hundred years ago, It's nowhere near where we are today. You did not have to hunt for your own food. You didn't have to worry about someone coming and confiscating your land. You didn't have to worry about, if you were a woman and you were at the age of 18 and you weren't married yet, you will be ousted from your family 100 years ago. Today's world, we have things that we stress about, but we have no context for history and how stressful those times were. I think that- in today's world, and this is one of my old man, get off my lawn things. I'm getting older, so this is where I'm coming from. I think we make things more stressful than we need to be. We put our nose in business and we worry about things that are a little bit out of our control sometimes, which makes us overwhelming. And we've created this world where we have a lot of panic and fear over things that might not necessarily concern your individual life. I think has come with this, it really started in the 90s where we created the 24 hour news cycle. There was a lot of panic that started around that time. And then it just manifested with social media where we are today. Literally you can log on your phone right now, find some tragedy that's thousands of miles away from you. And then you have anxiety about it and then you have a desire to do something when really you probably can't do much about it as an individual. And that's not to sound so crass, but that's how that's the world we live in today. where a hundred years ago, you didn't have that access. You'll be lucky if you heard about something that happened a month later in a newspaper. Like you may have had some radio access to a hundred years ago, but really we didn't have so much access to things. And also we have more of a community feel a hundred years ago as well, where people, now it was still segregated in various different ethnicities, but people paid attention to the community and they developed their collective and their group in space. So it was a lot more localized. Where in today's world, we're more global focused. So we worry about everything all around the world. Where before we really worried about our front and our backyard more than anything. That's so interesting. Thank you. Absolutely. I think about stressors, what causes these things. And it's just like, you don't have to think very far. It's just like going to an airport today is... a completely different story than years ago. I mean, I distinctly remember meeting our friends, loved ones, whatever, at the gate. At the gate, yeah. At the gate. And you would walk into the airport, go down to the gate, thank you very much. Now, as good as... is air transportation is about, you know, get you there quicker. In my estimation, that's the only advantage. Otherwise, the whole episode of just like going to an airport and navigating all this stuff and going through security and et cetera, et cetera, is a stressor. It really is a stressor. And, you know, for many people, they can't handle. I've heard people say, I'm done traveling by air, you know, just for, you know, as an illustration. So stressors is one thing. The other thing, and Maddie, you brought this up, is panic attack. I had a panic attack. I've only had one in my life, and it's when I had a detached retina in my eye, and it just put me over the edge. And let me tell you, physiologically, when you have a panic attack, from a high level of stress, it really... it really does something to you. And when you get over it, you remember that stressor. You just remember it. It becomes like almost part of your psyche going forward. And hopefully that's a way that your body that copes with things similar to that going forward. Yeah, Clarence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So since we're telling the story, don't tell my story. I'm allergic to walnuts and one day I ate some walnuts and I ate some muffin with walnuts in it. And I'm sitting up in my kitchen, all of a sudden I'm getting a panic attack and I'm ready to run in front of a truck. I was ready to run out of the house into a truck because I was just so freaked out. Fortunately the door was locked, no I'm kidding. But fortunately, I just kind of just. kind of relaxed, but so I do realize that this is a very, very serious topic. I want to ask Dr. Barry a question because we were talking about toxic stress. I wanted to ask you the question about how was toxic stress manifested to show itself in your previous work as a doctor? Hopefully you can hear me okay now. We need you now. Yeah, I think the biggest issues are were always the unhealthy behaviors that people resorted to in order to cope with stress. And oftentimes it was with self-medication, you know, drinking more, smoking more, you know, starting drinking, starting smoking. So it was unhealthy behaviors that people were just trying to use to get things under control or to escape from those kinds of things. And I think that's what wound up. you know, really happening or at least from a clinician perspective, those are usually the fallout that you had to deal with. But again, it didn't, it wasn't always getting at the underlying condition, which Brandon was, you know, really very eloquently laying out all the issues. And for me, what I've seen over time is this 24 hour, you know, seven days a week bombardment with things. coming at us all the time, either on TV or social media. And it's sort of like the brain doesn't get a rest from stress. It's just constant all the time. And I think that ultimately takes a bigger toll. And I'm assuming that Brandon is going to help us to learn a little bit more about the kind of things that we can do to sort of help manage this. you know, as Brandon, as you said, stress is a part of life. And there's a positive side of stress. It gets us out of bed in the morning and, you know, doing all the things that we, that we need to do. Uh, it's just that when it, uh, it gets a little, a little bit overwhelming, um, in a sense, how do we deal with that? You know, it's interesting to me. Uh, let me say this. It was interesting to me that when we got the, uh, the research, uh, information, there were so many different factors that causes stress. I mean, we talked about stress in working, talking about statements. I mean, it was just amazing how much stress has been looked at and measured and how many people are stressed out. So can we talk a little bit more about some of the good stuff about stress? I mean, Dr. Barry, I think you started with that. Brandon, what's some good things about stress that we can talk about? Cause I feel kind of down right about now. Yeah. You're a little stressed. It's just a chair, man. Well, I would say, you know, too much stress obviously is not that good for you, but again, it is a part of the human condition. I think the way that I've kind of helped master my stress is I use it as an awareness tool. That's how I know if I'm doing too much or if I'm not enjoying an activity or I know that I need to delegate onto someone else. So I'm in a leadership position. So it's a little different from myself sometimes but I know when I feel stressed out about a meeting or a grant or a assignment we're on, that's when I'm like, okay, I gotta start delegating work to my team because these are things that I just can't take on at the moment. So really it's a good awareness tool for individuals. I know that's not everybody's condition, but I would say just in general life, your stress should be kind of like an alarm system for your body that you need to do something. That may mean some movement, it may mean some meditation, it may be a relationship that needs to be readjusted. Like you might need to, you know, create some distance between you and this individual that's stressing you out. I think a lot of us just assume that stress is supposed to be in all our engagements and we end up tolerating a lot of things that we probably shouldn't tolerate. But I like to use it as an awareness tool first. Again, one of the key things I think for stress mastery is acceptance. And you as an individual have to identify what you're willing to accept in your life. And then from there, you can decipher what you need to do to manage your stress. So by using stress as awareness tool, It kind of helps give you options to what you need to do based on the circumstance that you're in. You know, our excellent researchers put together some, what I think are some really interesting things like 55% of Americans are stressed during the day compared to the global average of the number of stressed people is 35%. So what the heck is going on in the United States compared to other places in the world? I mean, what's going on here? Well, let's look at how our society is different than every other, not every other, so most of the world. Right, right. One of the things that happens here is we're divided on a lot of political issues. That causes a lot of stress for folks. Whether we're talking about liberal versus conservative, Republican versus Democrat. race and racism is a huge stressor for folks. And then also if we talk just about gender and sexual orientation and gender identities, those are just those core things alone. I can see us being at that 50, 55% mark because those are huge social stressors that we see. Then to stick it to the next level, we have things like bills, our economic system. We have to pay for everything, inflation. The prices change on things, but your income doesn't always change. Then there's the pressure of living this American life, which we know this idea of what is supposed to be as a American individual has changed over time. Where you want to have the nice house and the dog and the children and be married, but our lives are not necessarily the same. We have over 50 percent rate of divorce. We have folks who have blended families now. We have folks who are not in heterosexual relationships. We have different religions. Like we're just in a different world and space and the expectation is still something that's based off of, as Maddie was saying earlier, 100 years ago. Right. We've changed, we've changed. And I think that's why we're stressed out is we still have these ideals that have not caught up with the times for us as individuals. We have to redesign. what it means to be healthy Americans. And we have to buy into that identity as well, which means that we do have to address some of the issues that I already raised. You know, it's interesting because I want everybody in our listening audience to say, don't get stressed out when you hear all of this. Yeah. I mean, just because we're changing doesn't necessarily mean that that's bad. It's how we as human beings cope going forward that's a little different. But you bring up some interesting ideas, Brandon, like housing is a big issue. The future of our nation, and how individuals perceive it. You brought up political climate, violence, and how it's become, unfortunately, kind of almost like a norm in our society to have violence. Which I, yeah, to me that's really, really sad. And then of course you mentioned race. There's also an interesting one, from women, body image becomes, I'm not keeping up on how I look. And that could be a stressor. Especially when you see, everything on social media where everybody looked beautiful and you know the whole thing. Yeah and I think getting older, getting older is a stretch of a lot of hope because they like, he like, oh no I don't you know, it's those kinds of things that we're, as you just said, we have a changing perception about how the world should be, you know, everybody's expected to be younger, you know, so it's a lot of things going on. And people go through lifestyle changes. Yeah. And that could be from in and out of work or you have a severe medical issue that creates a lifestyle change or deaths in the family. All those things. It just seems like, wow. Yeah. I think our society has changed. Another change that has happened that contributes to this high level of anxiety and stress, and you brought up women in body image, so this is what brought this thought to mind, is we've noticed an increase in mental health concerns, anxiety and depression with young girls, and they're associating that with social media. And what has happened is, we used to call it keeping up with the Joneses, where society used to be fascinated with the rich and famous life. We used to see that in magazines and on TV and just be like, wow, that's amazing. You know, and having aspiration and even fantasies about living that life. And then this interesting thing called Instagram was created and Twitter or X now. Now you can reach out and touch those people. And with cosmetic surgeries and other things and also products, you can wear what they wear. You can... look like they look. You can be like these individuals without necessarily being those individuals anymore. That does something to us. And there's something about status and hierarchies. And it'd be a great research project. So if anyone's out there thinking about a PhD, this is the, here's a, here's a golden ticket for you. You can make your name and be somebody. Think about how hierarchies have always been about a part of human nature and think about how we've manifested that in today's world around brands, around status, around people. We went from keeping up with the Joneses to keeping up with the Kardashians. Now I look at my kids, they're Swifties. They know everything about Taylor Swift. I know nothing about Taylor Swift outside of paying for things with my kids. But they also idolize all these people who are regular people, but they're influencers. So they have YouTube channels and they do different things and they do lives and all this stuff. That's what they're into. So. That creates a hierarchy as well, but those are regular, everyday people that they may run into at the mall of America or at the airport. So we are, we have this interesting dynamic that's taken place that many people aren't really paying attention to where the hierarchy has somewhat shrunk and regular everyday people are on this idolized level, but due to the internet, they are, they're just regular people. I mean, you can literally run into these people at the grocery store. but they have some notoriety. So it's an interesting dynamic that's happening, but it also causes stress because if you can't go live, if you don't have that many followers or that many people liking your photo, then you feel bad about yourself. And that's something that we have to look at when it comes to mental health. So again, I'm just piecing together a puzzle here. So if anybody wants to take it further and research it, I highly encourage you to do so. So have coping skills changed? Absolutely. Absolutely. Just because of all of these stressors? Yeah, I think that, I think we're starting to learn about different types of coping skills. Before it used to be walk away. When I was a kid, walk away from a situation or take a time out or have a glass of water. Now it's do yoga, drink a fancy tea, think about time management, take time off, set better boundaries. Positive thinking. So yeah, we were adding to the level of coping, which I think is good because again, I said this earlier, coping and coping skills are very subjective based on the individual. Everything's not gonna work for everyone. I remember when mindfulness came into the social service world, we were all taking the first 10 minutes of our meetings to sit in silence together. That wasn't something that worked very well for me. My mind was just racing with so many different things. I had anxiety doing that. I'm like, we need to stop doing this. This is not mindful at all for me. But what does work, what I learned is if I put a pair of earphones in and listening to a conversation or some music or something, I can focus that way, but that's not for everyone else. That's just something I learned about my own anxiety level and stress level is that that's my coping skill. So it's great that we have this variation of things to do, but it's very important for people to figure out what fits for them. Yeah, like for me, you know, going on a roller coaster is incredibly stressful. Yeah. For other people, it's like. It's exhilarating. The best exhilarating. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Clarence. Yeah. So, so Brandon, let me ask you this question. I mean, we've talked about a lot of things. How do you tell your, your clients to say no? That's a great question. The hardest thing about saying no, and this is what I've taught and coached and even counseled people with. is acceptance for what comes next. People are okay to say no. People will say no, but they're not ready for what comes after that no. The unknown expectation for what that no is going to set off is what prevents people from setting that boundary with others. So again, since you can't always predict human behavior, you can influence, but you can't always predict it, you have to be okay with whatever takes place after you state that no. You may lose a relationship. You may lose a friend. You may have nasty words shared back at you. You may end up in a situation where you feel isolated or lonely, but you have to be okay with that if that's the course that's gonna help you deal with that situation or that individual better by saying no. That's a very scary place for many people. Cause we are human, we wanna keep our relationships intact, but sometimes it's necessary for your own healing. to detach from that individual or that situation. Thank you for that. You know, one thing that I've noticed, and maybe Berian Clarence, you can chime in on this as well, is today I perceive a lot of extreme highs and extreme lows. Yeah. As opposed to like, you know, when I was younger. Yeah, we had highs and lows, but not way up and way down. It was more kind of even keeled up and down. Is that a fair assessment, Brandon? Oh, absolutely. I think, again, we're in a society that creates that drastic difference, like that huge contrast between things going well and things not going well, which is why I think positive thinking is a key thing. where you start to develop your level of gratitude for the things that you do have and also your level of resilience. So when things don't go well, you can start to see, you can, how have I managed these things? I'm still here, I'm still an individual. I still have people who love me. I still have resources, but we have to have a level of gratitude and resilience and that balance for ourselves to kind of help create that balance. Cause what you see is that extreme high and extreme low. A lot of people, they're so down on themselves. They don't have appreciation for life. I see this a lot with young people when they break up with like their first real relationship. It's like, oh, I'm never gonna date someone again. And I love that person. I gave them my all. And it's like, it's gonna be okay. You know, you're 18 years old. You're probably gonna meet 10 other people that you fall madly in love with. And it's gonna be fine. But again, when you've had that one experience, it creates that variance of high and low. and you can't always see what's in front of you or what could happen. But again, you have to have a level of resiliency and some gratitude for what you've dealt with. Everything, take it as you go and try to deal with the ups and downs as best as you can. Last thoughts, Clarence. You know what, I'm thinking about my last talk because I mean, you've given a lot for us to think about. But I just think, you know, Give us some tips. I mean, if you were talking to the public, I mean, you know, you got two minutes to say something politically. Don't worry about being political. Just, you know, you can be politically incorrect, but respectful, just, what would you tell people? Yeah, I'm gonna share a concept. Now, I'm working on a book, so this will be in the book once it's finished. But it's something I call the ABCs of resiliency. So whenever you're dealing with stress or anxiety, This may be an easy way for you to think about how to kind of manage through those situations. Now, again, I'm going to preface this, this subjective. So you're going to have to figure out how to add in your own puzzle pieces to this puzzle, but I'm just going to give you the framework. So the ABC is a resiliency. The A is for adaptive awareness. What do I mean by that? Once you become aware of what your stressor is or what causes your anxiety, you have to adapt to that change, which means you kind of have to accept. what has happened, but you also, now that you know what it is, you can start doing things about it. So you have to be able to kind of have some discovery there to figure out what's the stressor or what's this thing that's causing this anxiety for me? Which then leads to the B, which is for balance and boundaries. Now you think about boundaries, a lot of people go to what you said earlier, Clarence. They want to just say no to everything. Yes, boundaries are about saying no, but that's not the only thing. Boundaries are our expectation for how I want to be treated. and the expectation of how I treat myself. A lot of people struggle with that because they just assume that they should be treated any way that someone, the way that other people treat you is what they accept. Instead of saying, nope, this is not healthy for me, this is what I need for myself. So being a little selfish there is okay. So make sure you find your balance and your boundaries. Now your balance is in a lot of things. How much you wanna do for others versus what you do for yourself. Balancing your time and your energy, balancing... know, your compassion versus your accountability for other people. But you have to balance these things as much as you can. And there's other balances that people can find for themselves as well. And then the C is what I call consecutive constructive choices. That's a long, don't try to say that five times fast. Indicative constructive choices, which means do the best thing that you can do for yourself, but make it consistent. I met so many people in my career. that they would try the new thing and it would work and they would never go back to it because it was unfamiliar, it wasn't in their comfort zone. They just didn't have it. They just didn't build it into their habits. Try to build those things into your habits. They're going to help you get better. Sometimes that consists of constructive choice, maybe finding a new person to connect with, going to a new location, accessing new information. Sometimes it's okay to get outside of that comfort zone, but that's one of the key things. I've used this kind of strategy for resiliency in my own life. I've helped coach other people. And what you start to notice is you start to feel a little bit more control over the things that happen and how to manage your stress and anxiety. Thank you. So maybe it should be ABC cubed. What would you say the Q's for? Well, cubed three C's. Yes. Well, I didn't even think of that. I'm glad my book's not out yet. I can add that in there. I give you credit, I give you credit, Stan. A, B, C, Q, A, B, Q. Barry, last thoughts. Yeah, I think the whole idea of resilience, that people are a lot more resilient than they think they are. And I think following the ABC cubed model can help people to see that. But it is this idea of having a balance between understanding that some negative things go on, but also focus on the positive things, especially like, you know, the gratitude, what went well in your day, instead of just, you know, the glass being half full, half empty, you know, kind of situation. I think that that's really the best way to go. And I've always been impressed with actually the resilience of people when they can, you know, stop, take some deep breaths and then move forward. The other point that I really liked, Brandon, that you brought out is the idea that I'm putting it into this toolkit of things that people can use to cope and manage, you know, their stress a little bit better. And the fact is that everybody is individual, it's subjective, and there's no one way. What works for Barry, you know, may not work for Clarence. What But the idea is to realize that there are all these resources and it's okay to try on some of them and see what's helpful and what's not helpful. But there are a lot of resources out there and people should feel comfortable in giving it a try because stress is never going to go away. And it's how do we adapt to that and accept it that we're going to have stress in our lives. And so this is all, I think, very, very helpful. So thank you. You know, my ending thought is hang around positive things, whether it's people, whether it's thoughts, whether it's activities, that really gets you through a lot of things. Brandon, this has been wonderful. You've got incredibly great insights, and we really do thank you for your insights, not only on this, but on previous shows. There might be other ones coming up. When your book comes out, we'd love to have you on the show. We can discuss it for sure. So thanks for being with us. To our listening audience, we've got great shows coming up. Stay tuned for them. We're looking at the future of public health education based on many of the things that have happened in the public health world, access to care and health insurance. Health care disparities is another. huge topic and we'll start delving into that. So thank you for everybody. Thank you for listening and keep health chatting away.