177. Dr. Judith Joseph: How to Recognize High Functioning Depression Signs and Find Treatment

As human beings, we are built with the DNA for joy, but many of us have forgotten how to access it.

And we confuse happiness with joy.

I think there's a pandemic of people just accepting okay.

They're walking around at a five out of ten, they've chalked it up to aging or a consequence of their environment, whatever way they have to justify that they're just kind of just okay.

We have something called anhedonia, and it literally means a lack of joy and pleasure in things that once lit you up.

That's a very dangerous place to be be because we have a tendency to delay our gratification and say, well, I'm going to be happy as soon as I will be happy when I pay off my loans, I find the perfect partner, or when I get that big job.

The science shows us, even when we get those things, we're still not happy.

Happiness is the idea.

Joy, on the other hand, is the experience.

The motto of my lab is understand the science of your happiness.

People like yourself talk about the impact of nutrition and nutrients on our mood and our emotional state.

You're missing out on other points of joy by neglecting your nutrition.

And then, when you're stressed, you make poor choices.

And one of those poor choices is what you put into your body.

How do people start to shift the mindset of, I want to begin to slowly put myself first?

If you don't acknowledge what you're feeling, you are going to.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecca, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.

And today's guest is a really, really special guest.

You're going to get a lot out of this podcast.

It's a category that we don't talk about a lot on the ultimate human, but it deserves a lot more attention.

And it's all about mental health, mental health and resilience.

and some of the hidden dangers of just being okay.

So I want you to welcome to the podcast, Dr.

Judith Joseph.

Thank you so much.

I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah, me too.

You know, it's there's a couple of themes that are common to everybody that comes with my podcast.

And it's all, we always meet in the kitchen and we start running the podcast there before we come in here.

So, and you and I did the same thing.

I'm like, we should go in the other room and start this podcast.

But it was a fascinating discussion.

And you've had an amazing journey.

And I feel like you're in such an incredibly needed niche market of mental health.

I wonder if you might just, for my audience that doesn't know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself and

tell me about the book and your research in high-functioning depression.

Well, you know, probably the people listening, your audience right now, they were just like me, pathologically productive, wearing a mask.

Pathologically productive.

I like that.

It doesn't sound like a bad thing, right?

It doesn't, right?

It sounds great.

We get rewarded for being productive.

But but behind that mask of pathological productivity there's emptiness there's a struggle you know when we sit still we feel restless when we're not working we feel empty and we have something called anhedonia i heard you use that term three times today in the kitchen and i was like i consider myself pretty up to speed on these medical terms and i've never heard that anhedonia Yes, it's a very old medical term that honestly, I went to a recent therapy conference and I asked a bunch of therapists, what is anhedonia?

Many of them had never even heard of it, but it's a term that's all throughout the literature in research, and it literally means a lack of joy and pleasure in things that once lit you up.

So, I mean, it really means meh or bleh.

Meh or bleh.

No, we talked about this.

I said, I think there's a pandemic of people just accepting okay.

Right.

Accepting mediocrity.

I don't mean mediocrity in their, in their socioeconomic life.

I mean mediocrity in their state of their mood, their emotional state.

They're walking around at a five out of 10.

And for whatever reason, they've chalked it up to aging or a consequence of their environment or a consequence of

their job or their career or their spouse or their kids or lack of sleep or what have you.

And

I think that's a very dangerous place to be because

You know, if you were clinically or severely depressed, let's say, you know, generally it would cause you to to seek some help.

If you were really tormented by something, you generally will reach reach out.

But when you're just

okay, you know, you're, you're on the vacation of a lifetime with people you love the most and a place you've always wanted to go.

And you're just kind of,

you can't get out of first gear.

You can't feel your environment, can't connect with it, and you just don't feel that joy.

Is that

what this anhedonia is?

It is, you know, and the way that you're describing it, I hear this a lot.

People say to me, well, that's just being a mom, or that's just being a dad and a provider, or that's just being a human, right?

Or that's just being 50 or 60 or 70 or, you know, 40.

You know, it's, it's whatever way they have to justify the fact that they're just kind of just okay.

And I feel like God put us on this earth to thrive.

We're supposed to have it all.

I want passion, elation.

I want joy, arousal, libido.

I want all the, I want all those upper tier emotions, you know, on the regular.

And I think,

you know, we have a tendency to delay our gratification and say, well, I'm going to be happy as soon as, or,

you know, when I get this job or when I, you know, get the next relationship or whatever it is, you know, I'm sort of delaying and justifying the reason I feel that way now.

And

we had a very interesting conversation.

I thought it was very poignant because now that you brought my attention to it you were exactly spot on you know i just got done a heavy travel in in the middle east and you asked me because i went to egypt and bahrain and some of these other countries especially egypt and you said did you see poverty and i said yeah i saw extreme poverty and then you said did you notice that there were there was also a lot of joy and you know now that you mentioned it there was like barefoot, dirty kids playing in the street that seemed really, really happy

and didn't seem to even realize the environment that they were in.

They were just happy with whatever was going on.

Yeah, that's because joy is our birthright.

As human beings, we are built with the DNA for joy, but many of us have forgotten how to access it.

And we confuse happiness with joy.

We say, like we were talking about earlier, I will be happy when I pay off my loans, or I'll be happy when I find the perfect partner, or when I get that big job.

But the science shows us that even when we get those things, we're still not happy.

We still keep pushing the goalpost further.

Joy, on the other hand, is not an idea.

Happiness is the idea.

Joy is the experience.

It is the when you're hungry and you eat your food, like that delicious food in your kitchen right now.

Yeah, yeah.

Which we're going to have as soon as this podcast is over.

We're going to really

dive into that.

She was like, I don't want to eat.

It's going to make me sleepy.

I'm like, my food won't make you sleep, Deborah.

So when we're eating our food, we're savoring it.

We're like,

you know, when we're tired and we take a rest and we wake up refreshed, that's a point of joy.

When we're lonely and we reach out to a loved one and we feel seen and just, we feel nurtured and accepted,

that's a point of joy.

So there are these human experiences that in my lab, we actually add up those points and we're like, oh, that's how we can tell that you're becoming.

happier.

Wow.

We barely say happy in our research.

But when patients come into the private practice, they're like, Dr.

Judith, I just want to be happy.

And I have to reframe it.

We're going to leave happy.

We're not going to use that term.

We're going to access points of joy daily.

And that's important because some people will never be happy.

They'll never reach that goalpost.

But we all have the DNA to access joy, but we're leaving our points on the table every day.

When you say we have the DNA to access joy, I mean, this is really something for somebody that's listening to this that's like, it's easy for you to say, or you know, know, you're not in my life.

You don't know what I have going on.

And they've accepted that mediocrity as adedonia.

Is that the right word?

Yes.

Adedonia.

And the fact that you're even identifying it as a thing, I think, is very important because I think so many people just have the potential to access joy in their life that maybe they don't know how to do it, which hopefully we're going to talk about some ways that they can.

But

it's, I see it at all levels, you know, and I have been blessed enough to know some very prominent people socioeconomically or, you know, politically or career-wise, but you see it in that sector as well.

So we're not accessing joy because of our socioeconomic status.

We're not accessing joy because of who we're married to or where we live.

You know, that seems to not

be a component of having joy in your life.

So I would love to talk more about your research.

And for people that are listening, you know, first of all, how do they identify it?

And then secondly,

what can they do about it?

Are there exercises they can do to reframe the way that

they're thinking or even the way that they're experiencing the world?

Because I do find a lot of people that go and seek like self-help, motivational seminars.

They're reading the right books.

They're going to the right events.

They're trying to surround themselves in the right circles.

And even they start things like trying to practice gratitude in the morning or prayer or meditation doesn't seem to pull them out of that, that zone that they're in.

And I think in some ways makes it worse because they're like, geez, man, I went, you know, I went to the Tony Robbins event.

I was really excited when I got there.

I got home.

I read the book.

I did the workbook.

You know, every morning I'm thanking God.

And I, I know that.

I'm capable of feeling more.

Yeah, I hear this all the time.

And the motto of my lab is understand the science of your happiness.

There will only ever be one you, ever.

Like, think about that in the history of the universe and in the future.

The chances of us existing are just, it's a miracle.

Oh, it is.

So you're here for a reason.

And when you're using these skills, these tools, these books without understanding the science of your happiness, then you're going to be lost.

You're going to be deflated when it doesn't work.

And when I speak to large rooms of people, I will literally ask them to use this tool for my book called the Biopsychosocial.

Biopsychosocial.

By the way, we're going to link the book in the show notes below.

It's a powerful tool, but it is not democratized.

When we're medical students, we learn about it, we write about it, about our patients.

And I thought, why are we keeping this to ourselves?

Everyone should have this.

So I liken it to a fingerprint.

We all have a fingerprint, but every fingerprint is unique.

Right.

Everyone has a biopsychosocial, but they're all unique.

So when you're not thinking about the science of your happiness, then how are you going to be happier?

Right.

How can you add back your points of joy when you're not even sure where you're losing your joy?

Yeah, what's amazing is you're kind of saying happiness is a process because I think a lot of people say it's a choice.

And I think that people that are not happy would choose to be happy, but it's not like I can just say, okay, I chose happiness today and all of a sudden I'm happy or I'm joyful.

But so what is this?

process that people can go through to start unlocking some of these joyous events in their life and sort of progress towards that state in the now.

Hi guys, Gary here.

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well let's look at the biopsychosocial i use myself as an example okay biologically what am i at risk for so i have a low thyroid and for those who have a low thyroid as well you can fix that

we'll talk about that after the podcast

but if you have these hormonal issues you know, and right now I'm in perimenopause.

So that's another risk factor for being, you know, losing points of joy.

But your medical issue is going to be different than mine.

So understand biologically what puts you at risk for losing your points of joy.

And then know your family history too, because that's important.

And then psychologically, what is in your past?

So for my past traumas, I came from Trinidad to this country with very little.

So I have something called scarcity trauma.

And I make a ton of videos about this.

Really?

It's when you come from very little and you're constantly in fight or flight because you worry that you're going to run out.

Even though logically you're like you know you have money in the bank you can't slow down yeah because you're constantly afraid that you're going to run out for others there could be a personal trauma that has to do with something violent but understand how that impacts your points of joy and for some of us psychologically we have attachment styles that are unhealthy and so we're partnering with people that are unhealthy and not positive for us so we're losing points and then socially That's what's happening around you.

Where are you living?

How much alcohol are you consuming?

What are the types of foods you're eating?

Are they processed?

Are they causing inflammation?

What are the relationships in your life?

Because socially, we know from longevity science that that's a top predictor of your health outcomes.

No doubt.

So, you know, and what are the habits?

Are you smoking?

When you understand the biopsychosocial, you know where you're losing points.

You know where to add the points back.

So I always ask people to start there because like a fingerprint, there's only one biopsychosocial that's made for you.

So understand it.

Do yourself that favor.

So in terms of like, when you talk about the biology, like, you know, you have low thyroid, are you suggesting people actually go get some data on their bodies?

Like, go get, go get some blood work done.

Yes.

Go get some testing done and find out, first of all, if everything's in balance.

I mean, if you're

a woman and you're estrogen dominant or you're a male and you have virtually no testosterone or,

you know, your cycle is off if you're a female and menstruating female, There's a very difficult time, I would think, balancing your mental health.

Because I find it really funny that modern medicine has a tendency to think of this completely separate from this.

I forget the little connection here.

And that we can be sick here and be fine here, or we can be sick here and be fine here.

And I don't think that that's true.

It's not true.

And hormones travel throughout the body.

And even if you do a blood test for, let's say, hormone for a perimenopause or menopause, even that point in time may not reflect what's happening so you want to work with someone who understands that you can't just take one test you may have to look at all these clinical symptoms and then put it all together right but acknowledge that you know those hormones don't just stay in that pelvic area they travel in the bloodstream they impact every cell in your body so that's why many of us again can't access joy.

We don't even understand what's getting in the way of our joy.

So this model is extremely powerful.

In your book, do you talk about what labs they should pull?

I mean, oh, you do.

Okay, great.

So for a woman, because I know you've done a lot in women's empowerment, you came from a women's empowerment event today, right?

She had a picture of her and Tyler Perry with her book.

And so you're on the move like I am.

I love it.

And so she was at a women's empowerment event today.

And we talk about it a lot on my podcast that 82% of all autoimmune disease affects women.

And it actually has nothing to do with sex.

It's not because it's like

certain diseases will be in certain populations because of their hair, sickle cell anemia.

And African Americans, for example, that's a real disposition based on your heritage.

But autoimmune because you're female is not because you're female.

And it's, you know, a lot of functional medicine doctors postulate that it's

because women have a tendency to, they call it caregiver syndrome, you know, to put the needs of others before the needs of themselves and almost feel guilty about caring for themselves.

So if

someone's listening to this right now and they want to go on this journey, and obviously I recommend they get your book and we'll link it in the show notes, but they go and they just get a basic panel.

What kind of blood work are you suggesting they look at?

Well, because I'm a psychiatrist, I'm always thinking, what are the areas we can address first?

Rather than piling on a medication, let's understand where you're deficient.

And in my research with high functioning depression, people are busy.

They're so busy, they don't meet their basic needs.

So what are they doing?

They're eating a lot of processed foods, greasy foods, foods without nutrients.

Convenient, it's on the fly.

And there's a correlation between trauma and HFD.

So they feel like there's a core belief of being unworthy.

So on a surface level, they're like, they're not thinking, oh, I'm unworthy.

So I'm going to eat this bag of chips.

But on a deeper level, they don't love themselves the way they should.

So they're eating foods because I just need to fuel myself to take care of others many of them lack vitamins so you have people coming in tired it's lovely in my wheelhouse i love it yes they're not meeting their basic needs so i do full vitamin panels and i often see low vitamin d low b you know people are not getting good sleep they're not they're just they're just not getting the nutrition to support their brain yeah and then they wonder why they have anhedonia well anhedonia isn't just one one avenue.

There are many avenues to getting joy in our brains, and nutrition is a really important one of those.

So you start with this blood panel.

I imagine you're looking at hormones,

vitamin D3,

you're looking at nutrient deficiencies, which I am a huge fan.

I'm so glad that you said that because

I don't profess to be a mental health expert by any means, but I can tell you in the hundreds of thousands of clients that have come through our clinic system, very often you can pull somebody out of their state of mediocrity, a mediocrity meaning their mental and emotional mediocrity, just by putting the right raw materials into the body.

I mean, at the end of the day, we make our own neurotransmitters, we manufacture them in the body, and the neurotransmitters are creating mood and they're creating emotion.

And so if your factory that's manufacturing those raw materials, neurotransmitters, is broken, or it doesn't have the nutrients it needs to do its job, now all of a sudden you find yourself going down the mental health bandwagon, you know, down and down the mental health road, and it's really nothing wrong with you.

You're just nutrient deficient.

I mean, not only is your factory broken, it's on fire because it's inflamed.

Yeah.

Many of the foods that we're eating and the chemicals we're eating, it's just causing so much inflammation in our bodies.

And it's hard for our brains to be happy when they're inflamed.

Yeah.

And not to say that there's anything wrong with medication, but we're missing points, right?

Two things can be true.

You may need the support support of a medication, but you're missing out on other points of joy by neglecting your nutrition, your basic needs.

Yeah.

You know,

I think high functioning depression is a new term for a lot of people.

I find it very descriptive because there are a lot of people that are very high functioning, meaning they're very intelligent.

They're very successful in their careers

and they're good people.

They're good husbands or wives.

They're good fathers or mothers.

So myopically looking at them from the outside in, there's nothing wrong, you know, and yet they're in this state of adedonia.

So, can you just describe to us what, what is high-functioning depression?

Well, all of the people you described just now, they likely feel more comfortable saying, I'm burnt out, right?

Yeah.

Burnout is so much more accepted.

If someone says they're burnt out, it's almost like a cool thing because it means that you're busting your ass and building your business.

And we get that.

Test it out at at home.

When you go in a room and you say, I'm burnt out, you'll get a very different response than if you walked in a room and you said, I'm depressed.

People are going to be like,

well, about that.

I'll talk to you later.

Yeah, exactly.

But when you're like, I'm burned out, they're like, yeah, me too.

Right?

Yeah.

Misery loves company.

Everybody's burned out.

You say you're depressed.

They're like, wow.

Okay.

Well,

but the reason is because burnout is so accepted.

And when you think about burnout, it is a relatively new term.

It wasn't in our Bible of psychiatry, the dsm5 the diagnostic statistical manual until very recently but no one would say that before it was put into that bible of psychiatry that it didn't exist we all knew it existed the difference is that burnout is an occupational hazard so the job is causing the symptoms the job is causing you to be uninspired have irritability low energy because it doesn't bring you any joy and it's also like causing a lot of stress right it's hard to be joyful when you're stressed yeah but when you remove people from the job they technically should get better because the pressure system is gone.

Right.

The difference is that when people have high function depression, you can remove them from their job.

On the weekends, they're still going to be busy.

On the weekends, they're still taking on other people's problems.

They're doing a gazillion things.

They cannot sit still.

When they sit still, they feel empty.

Wow.

When they're not busy, they feel restless.

They have to keep moving.

And what I found in the research study that I published, the first ever peer-reviewed study in high-function depression,

I found that there was a correlation between HFD and unresolved trauma.

So when you think of trauma, trauma causes this fight or flight, right?

This, you can't sit still.

Usually, when you see trauma, let's say in combat veterans or people in the military,

it looks like they're lashing out, they have nightmares, they have hypervigilance, they have avoiding people or situations that trigger them.

People with HFD, their form of avoiding their problems and processing their trauma is staying busy.

So they don't want to face what's actually bothering them.

So what do they do?

They distract themselves with someone else's problems.

They can't sit still on the weekends.

They're constantly taking on more.

And deep down, they know they need to slow down, but they just can't because they're in fight or flight and they don't even realize it.

Right.

You know, I think.

There's, first of all, there's a whole class of people like that.

And I like the way that you're describing trauma because I think so often, you know, somebody that's listening to this is like, well, I know that I wasn't abused.

You know, my parents weren't alcoholics.

I didn't go through a nasty divorce.

So I don't actually have any trauma.

But you're talking, like when you refer to yours, it wasn't anything particularly horrible that happened to you.

It's the vantage point that you came in, you know, as a Trinidadian, you know, to come to this country with relatively nothing and have this scarcity.

you know, fear is what's manifesting itself in your adulthood.

So I I think very often when we talk about trauma, people are thinking about those very identifiable abuses,

you know, sexual abuse or drug or alcohol abuse, violence, you know, things like that.

And it may not be that

poignant, right?

It might be something as simple as your upbringing created a

vantage point for you to perceive the rest of the world.

And how do you go back and find that?

I mean,

how do you identify it like you identified yours well many times because trauma the nature of a trauma response is to push down the memory so you don't remember it so a lot of my clients will say well i don't remember what it was and i tell them that you know this is a natural way for your body to protect you if you don't remember it can't hurt you right right but if you think about trauma as if you keep pushing it down you don't acknowledge it it'll pop up just like a balloon if you try to push it onto water right it pops up eventually it'll pop up in other areas of your life it may pop up as a physical breakdown.

That's why we have a lot of patients with HFD go into the ER and they think they're having a heart attack.

They may actually be having a heart attack.

Or, you know, it may cause you to have an unhealthy relationship with substances.

So a lot of drinking, maybe excessive drug use, or habits that are unhealthy, like being online too much, doom scrolling, having.

Doom scrolling.

Doom scrolling is actually being talked about as a trauma response.

Like you, you are being,

you're you're exposing your brain to the terrible news, but you can't stop because your mind is saying, well, this is going to be the one time I can control the outcome.

And it's totally logical.

You're trying to like control this negative outcome by exposing yourself to it.

So it's counterintuitive.

Excessive shopping, you know, all of these busying behaviors to do anything but sit still and process.

that trauma.

And you're right, it doesn't have to be a big T trauma.

It could be a little T, like going through a painful divorce, you know, facing bankruptcy as an entrepreneur,

being excluded because of who you are,

all of those things impact us and they emotionally shape the way that we see ourselves and the way that we interact in the world.

So when you think about it that way, then many of us have unprocessed trauma.

We're not even recognizing it.

That's why I put these very concrete tools in the book and expanded my trauma inventory so people can go through.

You talk about what the five Vs.

No, I actually include quizzes and questionnaires in there because I have a research lab.

And, you know, psychiatry is not like other fields of medicine.

You can't like take a blood test and say, you have this and you have that.

Yeah.

But what we do is we use these questionnaires and we measure points to see if you're getting better or worse.

So one of the questionnaires in my book is about trauma.

And we will sit with patients and we'll fill out the questionnaire and they're like, that's a trauma?

Well, that happened.

I never realized.

And I said, well, that was a trauma response.

Yeah.

You never acknowledged it because you were trying to push it down.

And then they open up and they're realizing, oh, that's why I do this, you you know?

Right.

Again, we are all unique.

We all have a unique biopsychosocial.

And the trauma goes into the psychology part of that biopsychosocial, but many of us don't even realize it's there.

We haven't unearthed it.

Well, so once you find it, right?

Now the question is, what do you do?

It's interesting.

I did a podcast yesterday with Dean Graziosi, and he was talking about

this mentor of his that sat him down and he was building a business and he asked his mentor to come on and assist him in growing his business.

And instead of just giving him the tools like, you need to do this, buy this ad, you know, spend money here, hire this person, fire that person,

he put him through a series of seven questions trying to get his why.

Like, what is the why that's driving you?

And he said, for some reason, it has to be seven questions.

Like you don't find out until the seventh one.

But, you know, like, why did you want to start the business?

Well, because of, you know, X, Y, and Z.

And, you know,

what, what, what drove you to choose this field?

And he got down to the seventh question and he realized that

he was starting the business because he wanted to be in control.

And the control had come from having a lack of control as a child.

And he grew up not, you know, very poor in trailer park.

And he saw how his mother was controlled.

by money and her job and not

she wasn't a slave to money, but she had to work to keep the family afloat.

so she had to miss soccer games and she had to miss you know

his events because she had to work and so the money was really controlling her and he made this conscious uh decision that he was never going to let money control him or dictate the choices for him and that became a way of recognizing I guess that's his trauma and turning it into something that he used as a springboard instead of as an excuse.

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Yeah.

And he probably learned from his mother that you have to focus on these things

and delay happiness, right?

Always delaying happiness.

Yeah, you learn these patterns from your caregivers, but if you don't sit still enough to recognize it and to process it, you will continue down that rabbit hole.

And it's interesting that you said seven questions.

Yeah.

I've traveled to over 30 countries studying mental health and healthcare.

And the thing about numbers is that there are certain numbers that you see come up again no matter where in a country over and over yeah seven is one of those really all right five

big shout out

seven five three i see a lot ten and i chose the five v's which is my methodology because we all have five fingers most of us have five fingers right

and i always ask my my clients to look at their hands if they're feeling stuck and just tell yourself you are built with the dna for joy

Access one of the five Vs and you're literally getting up there.

And what are the V's?

What is the VCM?

The first V is validation.

And it sounds super basic, but if you don't acknowledge what you're feeling, you are going to be stressed.

You're going to be confused.

You may do things that you don't even realize you're doing.

And there's a term in psychology called affect labeling.

And the theory is that if you can identify your feeling, that in itself is a therapeutic intervention.

The uncertainty of not knowing how you feel causes so much stress.

And I use this analogy of if you were in a dark room and you heard a loud crash, you couldn't see what it was, many of us would just start freaking out.

But you turn the light on and you see, oh, it was like a bookshelf that fell.

Then you're like, oh, well, I know what it is.

That's how it is about our feelings.

If we don't acknowledge how we feel, we are very uncertain and we're very stressed.

So start to acknowledge and accept your emotions.

And that's the first V.

Very difficult for people who are used to pushing down.

And what does accepting your emotion be like?

So when I'm feeling stressed or anxious or tired or, or hurt, guilty, or what have you, meaning just to be present and say, okay, I'm feeling this way.

And then try to identify what's causing that.

That's one way.

Another way, and I'll use myself as an example is.

I'll sit in sessions with patients back to back, sometimes in a Zoom, sometimes in person.

And then I'm going to be like, wait a second, I don't think I've even peed all day.

Exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

We teach kids how to validate their basic bodily feelings all the time.

Why?

Because you don't want a kid peeing all over your rug, right?

Right, right.

Like, Johnny, you got to go.

You got to get out of here.

Recognize that pain and the discomfort.

And guess what?

It's really hard to be joyful when your pelvis is in pain, right?

Yeah.

Pain takes away joy.

So just start with the basics.

You know, give yourself those basic needs.

Say, I got to get up and use the bathroom.

Or if you want to do the psychological validation, I'm feeling extremely exhausted today you know like saying that to yourself self-validating but you get validation in other ways like through the blood tests sometimes i'll do a blood test and i'll show a patient that like you are extremely vitamin deficient and they'll be like i thought it was just me right i thought it was my fault i was depressed you know

or i'll do a caps five which is the trauma score the gold standard that's used in combat veterans I'll use that on a patient who had, let's say, something terrible that happened.

And I'll say, look at this CAPS five score.

Look how high your trauma is.

And they're like, no wonder I'm stuck in life.

You know, there are different ways to get that validation.

It sort of lets them off the hook too, that,

okay, maybe there's nothing wrong with me.

I just have to solve this.

Or it wasn't my fault, right?

Something happened to me.

I didn't cause it to happen.

In some cases,

you were the blame.

Yeah, yeah, you're the blame.

But in many cases, you know, you're not.

And so having that type of validation allows you to feel worthy enough to start to change.

Many of of us on a deeper surface level, we don't even feel worthy enough for change.

Right.

So, um, so let's move on to the next V.

The next V is venting, right?

Venting.

Oh boy.

My wife's good at that one.

So you know that balloon, if you keep pushing it under the water and you don't express that emotion, it'll pop up.

So

you seem like the crazy person like, whoa, Sally really lost her shit, you know, like,

but it's usually because she didn't for so long, right?

And then it just popped like a cork.

I think that that's true with a lot of us.

So are you saying venting is a good thing, letting your emotions out?

It is.

And you have to do it with intention.

You know, venting is not this.

Healthy venting is not the same as trauma dumping.

Some of us will just tell our emotions to everyone.

We're not even thinking about who we're talking to.

So you want to ask for emotional consent.

You want to say, is this a good time?

Can you listen to me right now?

And you want to think about who you're talking to.

You know, if you're an entrepreneur and you're constantly trauma dumping onto your employees, they're not going to say anything because you're paying them.

The power dynamic is there.

So you want to think about that.

Are you trauma dumping on your kids?

Because they're not going to say anything.

They want to attach to you.

They don't want to be rejected.

Right.

So you want to be very careful and intentional about who you're talking to.

And venting doesn't have to be verbal.

I have a lot of neurodivergent clients.

Many of them don't want to talk.

So we do a lot of journaling.

Or if they're artists, you know, they'll sing or dance or express an art or even praying.

And what does venting mean?

I mean, I know what the term means, venting, but to me, venting means like popping your cork.

It's literally in the physics, in physics, it literally means letting off steam, letting air escape.

In the psychological terms, it's how to express these negative emotions.

But I say you can vent even positive things.

Yeah.

I was telling you that I have a safe in my lab because we're in the diamond districts.

We have a walk-in diamond district.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's so cool that

your door is like a giant vault.

You know, that's super cool.

And sometimes I have people come by the vault and I say, I'd like for you to go into this vault and I want you to say something to yourself that you've never said out loud to anyone.

You may have not even acknowledged it.

I tell you, sometimes people come out in tears and they're like, and I said, don't tell me what you told, what you said.

That's for you.

But do you see how powerful it is just to say it out loud to yourself that this happened?

This happened to you.

You've never said it before.

It is so powerful, but many of us don't.

We can go on a lifetime without saying something to ourselves.

Wow.

So venting is important.

And when you say venting, is this when someone makes you feel a certain way?

Is venting to let them know how they just made you feel?

That's one form of vent, and that's verbal venting.

It could be to express an emotion.

And let's say someone wronged you.

You may want to self-vent first, write it out.

Because if you go in there with that full balloon,

yeah and then you're gonna feel guilty then you're gonna feel ashamed and then you're gonna feel low self-worth so you're right back into that pattern so I give tools for how to self-vent before you go and confront that person

and then um

so you validate um you vent you become comfortable with with venting um

and then what is our third V

third V is values and you know when we think of values for me when I was very young my way out of, you know, scarcity was education.

But I actually loved learning.

I could sit and read for days.

But as life, you know, got busy and stressful, I forgot about that curiosity.

I forgot that I actually loved knowledge.

And it was more about, okay, I have to get the good A's, the straight A's, get into the right school.

Learning became very.

boring and actually a task.

And I had a lot of anhedonia when I was in my graduate training.

So I think we have to tap back into what it is that gives us purpose and meaning.

So think priceless versus price tags.

Oh, wow.

And that's like a really easy way to think about what your values are.

You know, some of us value faith, family, but others, we value superiority and being in positions of power, like the client you mentioned.

And at the end of the day, we're not going to be on our deathbed saying, I wish I had one more person to tell what to do.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

We're going to be like, I wish I had like five minutes to maybe revisit that beautiful country that I took for granted or be with that person that was the love of my life.

You know, like these are the things that give us meaning and purpose.

Yeah.

You know,

I identify, you know, a lot with that because I think very often we aren't even, we're moving so fast.

And I think that we've lost connection with other human beings.

We've lost connection with nature.

We feel connected or we're trying to create connection, you know, with our, with our phones.

And we knew in the mortality space, I used to be a part of a mortality research team.

We knew that if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half at any age,

you put them in isolation.

And

that's a very obvious thing when you completely isolate somebody.

But I feel like a lot of people are isolated in plain sight.

Right.

Because they've lost that connection.

Yes.

You know, and you look at Blue Zone research and

one of the things that was contiguous with all the people living the longest in the world was they had a sense of community, a sense of purpose, sense of connection.

You know, maybe a 98-year-old grandmother only had the role of picking vegetables, you know, that afternoon for that evening's dinner for her family, but that was her role.

And she made a contribution.

She felt like that was a purpose.

And most of these areas around the world had

strong social, familial connections, social connections.

And so they felt like they had a community and they had a purpose.

And I think now science is actually starting to validate the fact that, you know, our emotions and our moods and the way that we view ourselves has a real impact on our physiology.

And there's demonstrative impacts on our cellular function.

Our cells respond to frequency.

So, you know, in this third V,

How do people go about maybe

identifying their purpose or creating this sense of connection?

Well, the values, you know, they get lost in history.

You forget who you are.

And there are ways to find yourself back to that place.

And with my patients, one of the tools in the book that I use is this narrative therapy, where we go back to a time in life where

they felt what I say is full and fed.

And it sounds very guttural.

It sounds very primitive.

But think about feeling like spiritually full and fed.

And I'll use the patient as an example.

You know, they

remembered that when they were younger, they used to feel full and fed when they were with their family camping.

And after the parents got a divorce, they stopped camping.

And this was someone we had worked with, you know, for a long time.

They couldn't find what their values were.

Very successful.

Right.

Big city, big deal, big, you know, big shot.

But when we realized that they used to spend a lot of time in nature because they had that cohesive family unit, then we started to gradually introduce them back to nature.

It wasn't like they went straight into, oh, I love it again.

They were feeling so much anhedonia.

We did it in little steps.

So we started by surrounding this person with plants.

You know, that's an easy way to access nature.

We're looking at beautiful scenes.

And then we challenge them to go to the park, maybe just for like 10 minutes a week.

And they built up to that.

And slowly they started taking the hikes again.

And then they realized, wow, when I was younger, I had this like sense of awe in nature.

I just felt as if I was here for a reason, seeing these beautiful, this, the trees and the water and the sky, it just made me so grateful to be here.

And they started to spark up again, you know, but for others, it's different.

For myself, you know, as a busy mom and someone who used to chase the accolades, you know, you should see my office.

I have so many degrees, I can't even hang them all.

That's how many?

Like, I used to chase that.

And I just remember in 2020, I got awarded to be on this prestigious board of these Ivy League doctors.

And I just remember just not even enjoying the accolade.

I was just like, okay, great.

On to the next.

And I'm a totally different person now.

But back then, I was leaving so many points of joy on the table.

I was not seeing my daughter as much as I should have.

No one knew that I was going through a divorce because on the outside, it looked so great.

Yeah.

And now I'm like a different person.

You know, I know now why I was always on the go.

I was afraid of scarcity.

I was afraid of running.

And I was missing out on the basic joys in life.

Now try to book me up for something and I'm like, well, am I going to miss my time with my daughter?

Right.

It's not happening.

You know, it's like now I know that like that human connection, you know, when I snuggle against her cheeks because she's eight and she still has full cheeks.

Oh, it's the best.

It's so, I mean, why would I miss out on that oxytocin?

Yeah.

For a conference.

There's real benefits to that, too.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, really.

I heard Mark Hyman talking about the other day, just snuggling, you know,

with a spouse, you know, or a doctor

or a dog or a kid.

Yeah.

And like dogs have like 100 times the oxytocin that human beings have, which is why they're so loyal.

I mean, I grew up with Black Labs my whole life.

I still have two of them.

My son has them.

But you get the same reception from this dog if you walk to the mailbox or if you leave for five days.

Right.

It's like you could leave for five minutes or five days and you get back and they're like, oh my God, I'm so glad you're back.

You know, I almost took my own life.

I I thought I would never see you again.

Like, I just went through the mailbox, you know.

Well, look at how your dog.

Look at how your dog responds when you have anedonia.

Just do a little test.

If you're lacking joy in life, look at how your dog reacts.

Your dog will also reflect that.

They're very intuitive.

They're very attached to us.

But start working on your joy and you'll see it spread.

Your dog will start eating the food happier, wagging that tail, you know?

And some of my clients, I'll ask them this and they're like, you were so right.

My dog is happier when I'm happier.

So it is contagious.

I had an

argument with a buddy of mine the other day who was trying to tell me that dogs don't feel any emotion.

And this is a whole left turn, but I was like, dude, you're, first of all, you don't have a dog.

So that's, that's, that's part of the problem, but they definitely feel emotion.

And you can,

like, when I would come home, I remember one time I came home, my lab had eaten a bag of uh um Halloween candy and Hershey kisses.

And, um, and there were the ones wrapped in aluminum.

And

I walked in and I looked at Jack, and he wouldn't even look at me.

And I was like, What did you do?

And then I went around the corner, and there was the bag of Hershey kisses all kind of strung out all over the floor.

Well, they definitely feel emotional.

They feel shame all the time, you know, when they know what they're doing.

Yeah.

So, how do we go about, um, and we're on the third V, but how do we go about recreating these connections?

Um, I mean, one, obviously,

I would encourage people to take these

quizzes, but how do we go about

creating more of a social connection and community with the people that are around us?

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

Well, you know, a lot of times we're so busy, we're on the go because we are in fight or flight.

So I put a tool in my book called the 5-4-3-2-1, and it's a grounding method.

We were talking about grounding earlier.

Yeah.

To essentially remind you to just sit still and slow down.

And I know it sounds so basic, but many of us are always on the go and we just don't even know what our values are.

So with my clients, what I'll do is we'll practice these grounding methods for, let's say, five minutes.

I start small, not long.

Five minutes sounds short, but it can be long for someone to be able to do it.

Oh, dude, if you don't like to be alone with your own thoughts, five minutes is a long time

without picking up your phone.

And I do distracting yourself.

It's very difficult.

You really need a lot of support.

I do this on the road a lot with large audiences and we'll ground ourselves.

And then I use this very

visible learning tool with rocks and I'll hand out rocks to everyone.

and or stones and I'll ask them to write down values on there and I give them a list because sometimes you have have to be really concrete on the stone.

And so when you're doing your grounding technique and you're holding on to this stone, I tell them, take this stone with you because when you're feeling lost and empty, you're going to ground yourself and you're going to remember what is important.

For many people, their stone, their rock is their family.

But again, we take them for granted.

We know that they're going to be there.

Right.

But we're missing out on these moments that we'll never have with them again.

So that is a really important symbol to stay there.

The narrative therapy, I think, is super important.

And if you don't know what your values are and you're doing these skills, there are other tools in my book.

I talk about if you could have dinner with one person on the planet,

alive or dead, who would it be?

Many times people will list like a famous athlete, like

Muhammad Ali.

And then I'll be like, oh, okay.

So tell me about why this person.

And they'll start to talk and you realize it wasn't about the athleticism at all.

It was about the confidence and the charisma and the inspiration.

So I'm like, oh, so you're someone who values that.

You value like inspiration.

So what's something that you did in life that inspired you?

And we work, work our way back.

And it turns out this person was actually very creative and they left it on the table because they got so busy.

So there are different tools to tap back into the things that give you meaning and purpose, right?

Some of us are tinkerers.

We were little kids who would tinker and break things apart, but we stopped doing that.

Yeah.

We got so important.

So for some of my clients, we go back to tinkering and we start small and we work our way back up.

That's so cool.

You know, I actually saw this thing on social media.

It was

an experiment where they actually took all these parents and they asked them that same question.

They put them in front of camera and they were like, hey, if you could have lunch or dinner with anyone in the world, live or dead, you know, who would it be?

And they were naming different people, Elon Musk, you know, Barack Obama.

You know, they had all the Dalai Lama.

They had all of these.

different choices, probably based on some of their values.

And then they put the parents in a room and then they brought the kids in and they asked the kids the same question.

And every single one of the kids said, My mom or my dad.

And all the parents started crying.

And they were like, you know, you see the mom sitting there and the little, this little nine-year-old sits down and they're like, if you could have dinner with anyone in the world, you know, alive or dead, what would it be?

And they were like,

does it have to be a famous person?

And they're like, no,

my mom, you know, and mom's like, I said, Elon Musk.

That's so perfect because it does symbolize how we lose sight of the things that really matter, right?

Yeah, yeah, so true.

So then moving on to the next V.

What's the next V in the sequence?

Vitals, that's all you.

That's your whale house.

Yeah, yeah, that's me.

We only get one body and brain.

We have to take care of it.

I tell my daughter that every day.

How many bodies did God give you?

Since she was two, she goes, one, mommy.

And I said, what do you got to do?

I got to take care of it.

You know, you really have to treat your body as if it is the most precious thing.

It literally is the most precious thing you will ever have.

But we don't approach it that way.

We're so busy with like, how much money can I stack in my bank?

You know, how many things can I acquire?

Our physical and mental health, that is our true wealth.

Yeah.

You know, so I'll talk about the things that your audience is familiar with, sleep,

nutrition.

That's our human superpower.

Yes.

There is not one mental health condition that doesn't impact sleep.

Think about that.

Yeah, that is so incredible.

You know, I had a Harvard MD PhD that came on the podcast and he talked about treating some of the most drug-resistant mental illnesses with diet and the success he's had with keto diets and other diets and really pretty severe, you know,

mental health issues.

And I think, again, you know, going back to...

the gut-brain connection and the connection between our gut microbiome and our emotional state and our in our mood and our energy.

I think, you know, we seek these comfort foods and then the payoff is that we're under nutrition.

And, you know, we make GLP1 in our in our bodies, you know, and it responds to satiation.

And so when we're not eating nutrient-dense foods, we have a tendency to overeat.

And now your body morphic image changes in a way that you don't like.

So now you feel guilty and you feel terrible and you eat more.

And I think a lot of people have a very

corrupt relationship with food.

They do.

And when you're stressed, you eat, you make poor choices.

And one of those poor choices is what you put into your body, right?

Right.

That whole field of nutritional psychiatry, it is going to, it is game-changing.

Yeah.

The reason people don't access it is because it takes effort.

Yeah.

And it takes a lot of support, you know, to change the way that you eat to modify your eyes.

So there is a term nutritional nutritional psychiatry.

Oh, wow.

I'm glad to even hear that because, you know, I, I, I rarely hear other than

people like yourself talk about the impact of

nutrition and nutrients on our mood and our emotional state.

And, you know, and I think a lot of people think of it as abuse.

Like, well, I don't, I'm not drinking heavily or I don't smoke or I don't have any recreational drug habits.

But the truth is you can be micro-poisoning your body, you know, slowly and have very similar consequences.

Yeah.

And leaving all these points on the table when you could be eating these brain foods that are, these are well studied.

They are written written up in peer-reviewed journals where you could put people in a placebo group and in the treatment group.

And the people who have a history of anxiety and depression who are on the treatment group, they're eating the foods that are brain foods, they start to get better.

I mean, it's, you would think everyone would want to eat those foods.

But again, it takes a lot of effort.

Some of the foods aren't that tasty, like not everyone likes mussels, you know?

Watercress, it's not everyone's, you know, a cup of tea.

Yeah, I eat a lot of fermented vegetables.

And, you know, it's, it's amazing when I, I try to eat eat really good when I travel too, but whenever my, my gut gets disrupted, it's usually when I'm traveling and can't control what I eat as, as well as I can at home.

But it's so true.

Um, you know, when I come home, the first thing I do, you know, I'm, I eat, you know, the food in

my house.

I make sure that like last night I got 100% sleep score, but the previous day, I, you know, I flew 15 and a half hours from Dubai.

Um,

and it was a very rough flight, um, probably the roughest commercial flight I've ever been on.

They kept the flight attendants in the jump seats most of the flight.

And so I had planned this six or eight hours of sleep on 15 hour flight.

I didn't sleep at all.

But one great night of sleep and a morning of really clean food and some sunlight, some breath work, just some basic stuff.

And I feel amazing.

Like I have no recollection of that stress from the travel.

Well, sleep deprivation is actually one of the treatments for some severe mental health issues, right?

Because sleep is one of the hallmarks of poor mental health.

And in some studies, when you actually deprive people of sleep and then you give them a good night's sleep, they wake up and they're actually feeling happier.

Yeah.

So there's a real science to it.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, and sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

I mean, we've been using sleep deprivation for centuries to torture people.

you know, there's obviously a lot of evidence on that.

I actually heard Barbara Neal talking about how, I forget what the requisite number of nights of sleep missed were, but a 50% reduction in your sleep score for five or six nights, the levels of serotonin and dopamine and a lot of the pleasure neurotransmitters in our body are super depleted.

You're actually not capable of being in a good mood.

And you get sick because your immune system breaks down.

And then you get sick.

And so what's the final one?

The final V is vision.

But

when you think about vitals, those are the, you know, the most, when we go back to vitals, the fourth is the.

This is the blood, where the blood work comes in.

Yeah, the possible data on your body.

I actually added three non-traditional vitals in there that I want people to think about.

Your relationship with technology, because I think, I truly believe there's going to be a whole section in the DSM, the Bible psychiatry, dedicated to mental health and digital technology.

I couldn't agree with you more.

We talked about relationship with people because that's the number one predictor of longevity.

Toxic relationships.

And then our work life for people with high functioning depression.

We can't leave work.

But the fifth is vision.

Yeah.

You know, like, how do we plan joy in the future and celebrate our wins so that we keep moving forward instead of getting stuck in the past?

Plan joy in the future.

I like that.

So how do you plan joy?

We have to.

I like to do that.

We have to plan it because we're so busy.

Yeah.

When, with my busy execs in my practice, when I open their cal, I ask them to open it up.

And I look at these very colorful calendars full of to-dos for themselves, their kids, you know, their elderly parents.

And I ask them, can you point where the joy is?

And they laugh.

Yeah.

I don't have time for joy.

Time for that nonsense.

It's not going to happen.

If you don't plan it, it's not going to happen.

That's actually really, that's really unique.

So when you completed all five of these Vs and you've

identified your trauma,

what's the process to getting on the road to healing?

I mean, do you think that you need

a mental health professional or can anyone take this exercise and start to walk themselves out of this mood mediocrity?

I love what you just said, how you lost sleep because you were on this horrendous flight and then you made it up.

You got it like a full 100% score the next day.

That's literally what I'm talking about.

It's like, okay, if I didn't get any points today of joy, then there's an opportunity to get a point or two tomorrow.

Right.

Right.

Because a point of joy is rest.

You know, a point of joy, when we measure happiness, is not feeling stressed.

It's not feeling lonely.

So there's always a chance to get a point.

And you don't have to tap into the five, all five V's.

I would say don't, you know, because science shows us that we need to do one or two things at a time.

So figure out which one you're going to tap into today.

Is it going to be connection?

Is it going to be sleep?

You know, is it going to be validating yourself?

Because when you know how you feel and you accept it, you're less stressed.

Yeah.

You know, are you going to vent?

Pick one or two a day and you're becoming slowly happier.

You're getting a point.

And that's really how we measure it.

You know, we're to be honest, we measure things based on points.

Whereas everyone else in the world outside of research, they're thinking about this idea, this ideal that may never actually happen.

Yeah, I think that that's very dangerous too.

And social media does that to us too.

You know, women's bodies are perfect, men's bodies are perfect, everybody's rich, everybody has a Lambo.

And it's almost an unattainable level.

Even though the most of the time they rented Lambo and

the pictures were photoshopped.

Yeah, but we were never meant to look at ourselves this much.

You know, we were talking earlier about the autoscopic phenomenon.

Like when we do selfies, we're looking at ourselves.

When we're talking on FaceTime or we're talking on Zoom, we're looking at ourselves.

We were never meant to look at ourselves.

We were never meant for that.

I'm supposed to be looking at you and...

like talking to you and getting feedback from you, not seeing my face next to you.

Right.

Like on a Zoom call.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, so let's shift over to women for a minute, because I think a lot of what you're saying, you know, we, we, we both agree that, you know, the statistics of women and,

you know, autoimmune disease, which is a function of being just exhausted, emotionally, spiritually, physically exhausted.

How do people start to shift the mindset of,

I feel guilty about engaging in self-care and I want to to begin to slowly put myself first.

Um, and I think a lot of people are in relationships where they, when they start to do that, they're like, Whoa, whoa, babe, what's wrong with you?

You know, what do you hey guys?

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Before you freak out and read that it has 21 grams of sugar, which it does, the sugar is coming from natural cane sugar and honey, my preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise.

It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation.

They actually come from real citrus fruits and the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes.

So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely, a game is your choice.

Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

Unfortunately, that happens a lot.

You know, one of the risk factors for high-functioning depression is being a giver.

And there's a dirty word in psychiatry that we don't use anymore called masochism, not in the way that the sexual masochism, but masochistic personality disorder.

It used to be in the Bible psychiatry.

It got yanked out because there were certain problems with it.

Parts of masochistic traits were inciting harm on yourself from like agitating others to treat you poorly.

So it sounds victim blaming, but there were elements of it, such as delaying your own joy, sacrificing your own happiness for others, bending over backwards, you know, not being comfortable with praise.

It's what we call people pleasing these days, right?

And many of us as women are, we're people pleasers.

Yeah.

We're the caregivers.

In my study, I found a high correlation between caregiving and anhedonia.

Wow.

And so when you think about being a woman and having, making up 80 to 82% of autoimmune conditions and being twice as likely to have depression and anxiety.

Women are twice as likely to have depression and anxiety compared to men.

When you think about that, think about your biopsychosocial.

Biologically, what's happening?

It could be your hormones.

Psychologically, what's happening?

You know, women are at high risk for trauma and attachment styles that are not healthy.

And socially, the pressure's on us to be there for everyone but ourselves.

Right.

So when you're thinking about being a woman and being this caretaker, really you want to think about you are a human being with the birthright for joy.

You deserve this.

That's a great way to reframe it.

Yeah.

It is important.

How important is reframing the way that we speak about things in our life?

Like, you know, I notice a lot of people,

it's not the medical term, but they wallow in misery, right?

So when you see them, they're like, oh, dude, you know, I just, man, I'm so tired.

I'm just exhausted.

I mean, I have so many patients I got to see today.

And it's like, you know, they're, they, they almost enjoy the talk about the misery that they're experiencing.

And I think this has a self-fulfilling prophecy to it a lot of times.

Um, you know, um, the way that they see themselves is being in a helpless situation where this is just their life.

And it is.

And, and are there things like this neuro-linguistic feedback where you can

reframe the way that you speak about things?

Certainly the way that you speak to yourself.

Absolutely.

That self-validation is so important.

And it's interesting.

It is.

It is.

It's interesting because when you have people practice laughing.

I've seen that too.

It's so crazy.

They actually become happier.

It's like we were born to mirror.

We were born to be expressive.

When you look at these videos, because in medical school, we have to see so many births.

And you see the father with the newborn baby and he's making funny faces.

The baby's actually mimicking the father.

And this baby is like only a couple of seconds old.

Right, right.

It was fresh.

We were born with these capacities to

have expressions, to have emotions for a reason.

So there's a lot of work now looking at just the act of smiling.

Yeah.

One of the studies that I got approached with a couple of years ago was about how to change facial features using chemicals so that people are actually looking more pleasant.

Because when you're smiling more and you look less angry, you're getting feedback from the environment and then you're getting that energy from others.

So you actually feel better about yourselves.

Yeah.

This is real.

So practicing positive self-talk, not saying that, you know, not to be positive for everything, because there is something called toxic positivity.

But being in a practice where you are acknowledging the points of joy in your life and laughing more and smiling more,

that can actually help you to feel happier.

So

now that we know all the five Vs, one of of the things that you talk about is planning joy, which I want to go back to that for a second because I think that's

so important.

And is this an exercise where people could just take out their calendar and say,

where have I planned joy in my day?

Or they can say, what are the things that bring me joy?

and then start to put them on your calendar.

Like for me, it's, you know, my favorite thing in the world is just family dinners.

I mean, it sounds so simple, but like my, all my kids are very close to me.

They, they, they all work in or around the business with me.

They've all caught the bug of, you know, optimal health.

It's, it's amazing.

Um, my daughter's moved into the building next to me.

My son and his fiancé live two blocks down the road.

And the first thing I did when I got back from the Middle East was I called him like, can you guys just come over?

Like,

just come hang out.

So we're having dinner tonight.

And I'm so excited about it because our family is like, like, a traveling comedy show um

but uh you know a lot of us are separated by distance too and so it makes it not as convenient but how does somebody go about planning this joy they first have to identify it and then um stick it on their calendar well what you did you planned your own joy because you identified the signs of your happiness yeah no i didn't realize i did that but that's exactly what i did yeah what makes you happy is connection with your family yeah so you planned joy

you know for me every day i plan joy and it's, it doesn't have to be a big win.

When I get my daughter to school on time, I'll sit in my living room and I have this delicious coffee that I got from St.

Martin and it's rum flavored.

It's not rum.

I'm not drinking any alcohol in the morning, but it's so yummy and I don't drink too much coffee.

It makes me jittery.

But I sit and I savor that cup and I'm sitting there and I'm like smelling it and it's taking me back to that island.

Yeah.

And it's just so rich.

And it's my time.

That's my little planned joy celebrating a small win that day.

And it's, it grounds me.

It tells me I'm worthy that I did something great today because her school is so strict.

You get there even one minute late, they stand on the school.

Oh, really?

I'd be so bad with that.

I'm so terrible.

When I

actually one of the few people that had a peaceful divorce,

my ex-wife is actually a very close friend of mine.

And

my current wife gets along with her.

We have a really amazing modern family.

But I do remember when

we were going through the divorce and we moved to separate houses.

And it was like, so the kids would be with me and the kids would be with her.

And she always took the kids to school, made them lunch, did everything.

So then all of a sudden I was having to do it.

And

my youngest, Dylan,

you know, he, I, I would, I made his lunch one day and I didn't notice, but before he took his lunch bag, lunchbox off the countertop, he went in the refrigerator and got a Red Bull and he stuck it in his lunchbox and he goes to school.

So they call me and they were like, hey, we don't allow high energy, you know, high sugar energy drinks,

you know, in this, in the school.

And I was like, well, good, because neither do I.

Like, well, no, your son has one.

We just wanted to tell you.

I'm like, oh, I don't know who put that in there.

And then we come home from school on a Friday and I hung his lunchbox on the wall in the garage and it's Florida.

So it's like 90 degrees outside and it sat and baked all weekend.

Wow.

And then the next Monday, I make him lunch again, pack everything up.

We're going to get in the car.

And he grabs that lunchbox off the

garage door, garage wall, and he takes that into school instead of it.

So I get another call from the school.

And they're like, hey, you know, your son had like a half eaten apple and a, and a mushy rotten sandwich.

And like, did you?

And I was like, what?

So he brings home the, you know, it had been bacon all day in the garage, all weekend in the garage.

And then I kid you not, the third day, as if like it couldn't go any worse, I was getting him ready for school.

And I'm looking at him like, okay, cut matching shoes, cut shirt.

Don't touch anything.

I'm going to follow you to, you know, follow you to the car.

And I'm like, finish your breakfast.

He didn't finish his breakfast.

So then he gets in the car.

and he's eating his eggs and of course he spills them all down the front of himself and then he looks down on the floor and there was like a pair of crocs and so takes his shoes off and puts the crocs on

so now he gets out of school in the in the car line and he's got two non-matching crocs and his crap all over his shirt and literally the lady in the line goes oh is it daddy's uh week with the kids and i was like you guys must think that i am the worst parent in the world but i swear i love my kids and I made them, it was like three things in a row.

And it was so funny because even Amy called me and she's like, what's going on over there?

The school called me.

But,

but I love that idea of, you know, planning joy.

And I think that in just about everything, you can, you can find the joy, especially, you know,

reframing things.

And,

you know, I think it's, you do a lot with.

women's mental health.

And I think it's really important for women to go through this, this exercise, too, to

be okay

being a caregiver, but also caring for themselves.

Well, I love that story that you shared about being a parent because we all think, oh, well, we're all parents.

You're supposed to do this.

But I don't think we give ourselves the praise and celebrate those wins.

Like it's hard being a parent and having a career.

Yes.

You know, it's really hard.

So when you get your kid to school and they're fully dressed and they have their full-time drinks.

Oh, dude, that was a win for me.

Like same shoes.

Yes.

No eggs on a shirt.

No high energy drinks.

You know, like that's a, that was a win.

Self-validate and say, I did that.

You know, I'm a great parent.

I did that and it was hard.

And just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's not hard.

And I guess the last thing, because we haven't talked about it, how important do you find mobility and exercise is to mental health?

Because I've, I've, um, I'm actually spoken to Joe Rogan about this a lot.

I mean, I've, I've even seen some, some meta-analyses of exercise versus SSRIs.

And,

you know, being static and taking a pill versus being active and moving your body, you know, endorphins, oxygen, you know,

not, and not the least

is if your body morphic image changes and you like what you see in the mirror.

It's so powerful.

It's also one of the things that are underutilized.

When you think about it, a lot of people who are who have severe depression, it's hard to get them out of bed.

So even that motion of making making your bed every day, again, that's a small win.

You did something, you moved.

The thinking used to be, okay, cognitive behavioral therapy, thought leads to feeling, leads to behavior.

Now a lot of the work is, let's do the behavior first.

Let's get up and move first.

Wow.

Yeah.

And that'll change how you feel and that'll change how you think.

So it's highly underutilized.

And When you think about movement, it doesn't have to be, you know, jacking yourself up at the gym or doing these intense hit things.

Yeah.

Even walking.

Oh, I think walking is the most underrated exercise in the world.

Dancing.

Where I'm from in the Caribbean, when we dance side to side, we do Hawaiian.

Trinidadians dance a lot, do they?

It feels good.

And I always used to wonder, why does it feel so good when we like gyrating?

Because

our right and left veins are communicating.

We're healing ourselves.

So however it is, move.

Whatever feels authentic to you, move your body.

It is healing.

I think every form of religion in the world has dance and song and, you know,

in addition to prayer, but like they, they,

they, they sing, they dance, they play drums.

You know, there's, there's something to be said for mobility and just it, it extends life.

I mean, we know that in the, again, back to the blue zones, that mobility was one of the, in the later in life, was one of those non

negotiables.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, the more active people were, the longer they lived, the more connected and the more communal sense they had and the more purpose-filled they were, the longer that they lived.

And it's amazing that people like you are bringing joy to this world by teaching people how to find the joy in their life.

I really appreciate that.

So for my audience that doesn't know how to find you, where do they find you?

Well, thank you for having me.

Yeah, I learned so much from you today.

So thank you.

You learned a lot from me.

I learned a lot from you.

And I love to learn.

So thank you.

Yeah, you learned about the hydrogen water.

Yeah, we did a hydrogen water

demonstration.

And the magnesium rock?

I mean, that was so cool.

I'm getting one.

Yeah.

I tried to mark it up like 10 times and sell it to her, but she caught me.

So how does my audience find you?

Well, you can find me at drjudithjoseph.com and follow me on all the socials, drjudithjoseph.

Okay.

And, you know, I wind down all of my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question.

There's no right or wrong answer to this question.

And that is, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

To be connected.

That is really, I spent so much of my life busying myself away from the things that really brought me joy.

And now I will not sacrifice that.

I have to be connected to the ones that I love.

I love how you

referred to, you know, your time with your daughter and your travel schedule.

You know, the priority of it's the priority of the connection that you have with your daughter and the joy that she brings you versus, you know, traveling.

You know, I, I schedule all of my meetings now around sleep and exercise instead of, so I, I scavel, schedule travel and meetings around sleep and exercise instead of sleep and exercise around my travel and meetings.

That little switch has made the most incredible difference

in my life.

So, wow, Dr.

Joseph, I really appreciate you coming on the Ultimate Human podcast.

I'm sure my audience is going to get a tremendous amount out of this.

We will link the book in the show notes below.

Please check her out on social media as well.

And until next time, that's just science.