The Wellness Scoop - A Practical Approach To Mental Health

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

We talk a lot about the importance of sharing our worries and anxieties, but what can we do on a practical level to change negative cycles and to create consistent patterns that support our mental health. Physiatrist, Dr Sarah Vohra, talks irrational thoughts and beliefs, why we catastrophise, what causes negative thought patterns and sabotaging cycles, the role of our senses, why quick fixes don’t work and what’s the role of those around us.   Dr Sarah Vohra, The Mind Medic See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi, and welcome to the Deliciously Ella podcast with me, Ella Mills. So good, exciting news today. We're back from our holiday. We had the most gorgeous time thank you so much for all the birthday wishes for our little one Skye as well um I still can't quite get my head around the fact that she's one I feel like yeah she's growing so fast at the moment it's a cliche everyone says it but it's so true and um a little

bit of good news for the day which is that we have just launched an amazing new part of our app if anyone's a subscriber to our app and you'll find that there's now over 150 different types of exercise videos on there so we had yoga before but we've now also got pilates strength cardio and core we've got seven awesome new instructors and it's everything from like an easy 15 minute stretch up to a 45 minute class. We've now got 60 minute yoga classes as well. And then there's also over 500 recipes, guided meditations and so much more. And it's only 99 per month. So if anyone else is finding exercise and exercising at home is helping their mental health, which it does wonders for me for, then hopefully that will help. And as of next week, so the week of the 10th of August, we're going to have a live schedule on our Instagram page with all the amazing new instructors as well

so have a look on our Instagram if you want to join in some free live workouts next week and I don't know about anyone else but exercise is such a savior for me with my mental health and I've been doing the app yoga videos I love yoga I'm not that good at a burpee or anything else and being pregnant gives me a great excuse to ignore it and I've been doing them pretty much doing the app yoga videos. I love yoga. I'm not that good at a burpee or anything else. And being pregnant gives me a great excuse to ignore it. And I've been doing them pretty much every single day. I do them at home when Sky's napping and things like that. And it really, really helps my mental health, which is exactly what we're talking about today. And we're talking about those practical tools and how finding practical tools for our mental health can just make all the difference.

You know, I think if we're being honest, our lives are more demanding than ever. There's obviously so much turmoil and change at the moment. And we are also constantly connected and it can feel like we barely have a minute to breathe and unwind from the stress of one day before we find our alarm going off first thing in the morning and we're on the hamster wheel ready to do it all over again. And, you know, haven't even had a second to catch our breath. And totally, honestly, you know, I've definitely found that a lot over the last few months, there's been so much going on, you know, third trimester pregnancy alongside with a book launch, navigating the company through what has been a complicated couple of months, sky waking up at 5am, so on and so forth. And we got sent this absolutely amazing book by Sarah, who is our amazing guest today. And she starts by saying that the advice available to us under the concept of wellness, well-being, self-care, however you describe it, is vast. And I'm sure we can all relate to that. And, you know, you've got that question, which really is why the podcast exists of how do we decipher what's actually going to impact us, you know, what's really going to

help our mental health, and what actually might just cause even more stress by kind of basically just lengthening our to do list. And we are often told when it comes to our mental health to talk more to share our emotional challenges and concerns. And, you know, I totally agree with Sarah that, you know, it does get it into the open. And it can, of course, be incredibly encouraging to know that we're not alone in that and that other people have been there and they share those worries, those fears. But, you know, the question is, and that's what we're going to get into today, is are we missing the simple tools and strategies that help us actually unpick, you know, those concerns, those worries, those anxieties, and actually really optimise how we feel. And I absolutely loved the way that Sarah wrote about this, which is why I really wanted her on the podcast. And I just wanted Sarah, if it was okay to start today's episode with the question of why you felt from all your years as a psychiatrist working with thousands and thousands of patients, why you felt this really practical approach to our mental health was so important.

Thank you, firstly, for having me on the show. I am a huge fan of the podcast. And I think, really, the importance of the book really arose from the fact that people would feel down, would feel anxious, but would not necessarily know what it was down to, what triggering factors there were. And the temptation can be when we feel like that, that we kind of surrender to it and we feel powerless. But what I wanted people to really understand is actually, they can empower themselves with the tips and tools to be able to feel calmer, feel happier. And it was really born from my experience of being a psychiatrist. I've been a psychiatrist for over 10 years now. And I just found that this really simple method would allow people to pinpoint their life stresses.

So if they came into the clinic room and said, I'm really not sure why I'm feeling so down today, or I'm not really sure why I'm feeling so anxious. I'd simply ask them, is there anything that you've seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted, that could explain why you feel the way you do. And by walking them through that simple structure, they'd quite easily find out that maybe they'd spent too much time in front of their screen, so the sense of sight. Maybe they'd had a really awful conversation with an overly critical boss, so sense of hearing. Maybe if they're anything like me, they've downed five or six expressos and it's still only lunchtime. So sense of taste. So very, very quickly, we were able to piece together the jigsaws of the day. And more than that, empower them to make simple changes to start to feel a little bit better.

Yeah, that's what I absolutely love about your approach and about your work is I think, for me, at least certainly with my mental health and looking after it and my experience when I've had kind of difficult periods with it I have found anything practical really helpful because I think okay I can do that like I can action that and it's quite empowering and so I love that you're keen to kind of move it away from solely sharing and opening up which is of course important into like real action and I you know, with the five senses that you've talked about, just again, to kind of root us in the conversation, could you just explain to all of us a little bit more about how our senses are connected to our brains and our nervous system? You know, kind of what's the science of, of really tuning into our

senses and how they work? I think, you know, really simply, we experience the world through our senses. So your sense of sight, hearing, smell, your sense of touch and taste, and so those organs, so your eyes, ears, nose, skin and mouth help you to perceive, interact with and explore your environment. So any situation that you find yourself in, actually how you feel in that particular situation is largely determined by the things that you see, the things that you find yourself in, actually how you feel in that particular situation is largely determined by the things that you see, the things that you hear, perhaps the things that you taste. And so I think, actually, if you think of all your interactions in that respect, it can be quite easy to determine how a given situation or maybe a given interaction may make you feel.

Yeah, absolutely. And you run people through a kind of five senses exercise of, you know, if you are feeling overwhelmed, of kind of stopping and tuning in to what you can smell and hear and taste. And I wondered if you could tell us a bit more about that as well. I think the five sense countdown has been a really, really useful exercise for anyone when they're feeling very overwhelmed, perhaps maybe when they're feeling angry, and they're wanting to act quite impulsively, just to allow them to slow down and just to take stock of how they're feeling. Because I think sometimes when we're in a situation when we're feeling stressed,

or when we're feeling anxious, the temptation is either to run away from that situation, or perhaps to act out of character or to act impulsively. And then to, in hindsight, think, well, I wish I'd done that differently. So the five sense countdown is simply a mindfulness exercise, where you stop, and you focus on five things that you can see, four things that you can hear, three things that you can smell, two things that you can feel, and one thing that you can taste. And by the time that you've worked your way down all of those senses, you might start to feel a little calmer, a little less on edge and better able to rationalise how you're feeling and better able to determine how you want to act in that situation.

So I love that. I think I definitely, I'm quite an impulsive person and quite an emotional person. It's quite easy to react to things. And you think something's so terrible, you know, you get a bit of bad news or something and actually like trying to, as you said, take a second to kind of anchor yourself rather than just immediately react to it is, it's really amazing. And you just touched on mindfulness there. It was actually the misunderstanding amazing. And you just touched on mindfulness there. It was actually the misunderstanding of mindfulness that you picked up on. And I think it's quite interesting.

Obviously, I work in the kind of wellness or however you want to describe it space. And I find it very interesting to see what it is that puts people off from this space and what it is that makes people feel it's not approachable for them or relevant for them. And I think sometimes the word even wellness and mindfulness and things, they can feel quite nuanced. And I think they can feel sometimes alien to people. And I think, you know, you put it really succinctly, which is that people sometimes think mindfulness is an ability to sort of stop any bad thoughts or any worrying thoughts. And you can kind of clear your mind and the actual fact that isn't what it is and you actually put what the dictionary defines it as as the practice of being

aware of your body and mind and feelings in the present moment thought to create a feeling of calm and I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit more about that and about therefore the practice of mindfulness and how actually it is something that probably is relevant and applicable and most importantly, approachable actually for all of us. And you don't need to kind of have this phenomenal control over your mind and like a, you know, decade long meditation practice in order to get the benefit of this. Absolutely. I think a common misconception is that for mindfulness to be effective or for you to be able to get mindfulness that you need to rid your mind of any negative thoughts so often when I hear patients saying oh it's not working for me

I just can't switch off then actually that's proof that the mindfulness that they believe that they're practicing is not mindfulness in the true sense of the word so mindfulness is even allowing those negative thoughts to enter your mind, observing them without any judgment, but just simply returning to whether it's a meditative practice or whether it's the five sense countdown, and to acknowledge those negative thoughts and not to feel that just because you're experiencing them, that the mindfulness will not work for you. There's lots of evidence starting to emerge on the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based activities. And I think that really, it's about trying to

simplify mindfulness and meditation. It's not going to be sort of the stereotypical image that we think of, of someone sitting cross-legged on the floor chanting alms, mindfulness can be whatever you make it. So for me, I know that my drive, my commute to work is for me a period of mindfulness where I'm able to focus on the here and now, where I'm able to observe any negative thoughts that come into my mind, free from any judgment judgment and to really just focus on myself and focus on the present my husband's mindfulness practice is a lot more structured so he typically every evening will fire up his headspace app and do some guided meditation and mindfulness practice so what I want people to take away from this is there's no cookie cutter way of doing mindfulness

or practicing mindfulness but it's just about observing the here and now a period of stillness and it's something that you can practice over and over again it's not something that you can be bad at and I think that's often the misconception is that if you allow negative thoughts to enter your mind then it's not working for you. And people are so quick to rule this out as something that's quite effective. And one thing there, which I think is quite interesting, and I know it sounds silly in a way, but it's actually just to kind of, I guess, acknowledge that we all have negative thoughts. And I think sometimes we look at other people, maybe someone could look at you as obviously a psychiatrist someone who therefore has a really incredible understanding of the mind and of this entire space of mindfulness and tuning into the way you're thinking and so on but I assume you still have concerns and worries and insecurities

and anxieties and negative thought patterns sometimes too. A hundred percent and I think that's another misconception that psychiatrists or psychologists do not struggle with emotions. But what I really want to highlight is that everyone struggles with emotions, everyone experiences a whole spectrum of emotions. So just because you feel down, or just because you feel anxious doesn't mean you're depressed, or that you have an anxiety disorder. Actually, those are all valid and normal emotions to be experiencing. I suppose the time that I would see someone in clinic would be when those emotions are impacting their everyday or their ability to function day to day. So I think what's really, really important for people to understand is that you can feel negative emotions. And that does not

necessarily have to dictate how you then go about your day, or indeed how you behave in a given situation. And I think often when we experience, say, negative thoughts, it's our interpretation of those thoughts and how we then behave that can determine how much they impact us moving forward. Yeah, I really love that. And I think it's such an important thing to acknowledge that, you know, everyone has those thoughts. And there was a chapter which really, really resonated with me, where you talk about kind of faulty thought patterns and cognitive disorders, and how I think these are quite common. I certainly have felt these many times, and you can have kind of fortune telling where you start predicting

how things will turn out way before they've happened like I'm going to be rubbish at it anyways I'm not going to do it or over generalizing so you know I failed once so I'll keep failing you know mind reading assuming that everyone's thinking something about you which you've actually got no idea what they're thinking about they're probably thinking about their breakfast or personalizing something so kind of claiming responsibility when something doesn't go to plan and thinking it's all you, you know, it must be me that's caused this when, when again, it could be completely, completely disconnected to you and a few other things like catastrophizing. So, you know, my partner's broken up with me, so I'll be single forever or labeling things. I

failed the exam. So I am a failure black or white kind of all or nothing type of thinking emotional reasoning I feel fat therefore I must be fat and all these kind of ways of thinking and and I think that we we do often have them I definitely found myself the other night worrying about anything and everything and suddenly everything was a drama and I kind of came back to the way you talked about this and I was like okay let's just rationalize this thought pattern you're completely making these scenarios up effectively and I wanted to talk a bit about that and and the power of reframing these beliefs I think in terms of the faulty thoughts I referred I mean I could have written an entire book on faulty thoughts alone but I think it's really important to recognize

that we all experience these irrational thinking patterns, and we can all get ourselves caught up in them, and they can make us feel quite negatively and maybe act in less than desirable ways. I think the first thing to be aware of is to recognise them and recognise when you're sending yourself down a faulty thought spiral because actually then you can get into the really powerful position of challenging those thoughts so I think often when we are in a situation so for instance you know it's publication day for me today well congratulations thank you and I'm wracked with lots and lots of faulty thoughts. So for me, it's the catastrophizing, thinking that it's going to be an absolute disaster, that the book's going to flop. You know, you can see how very, very quickly that negative thought pattern can spiral and may impact my ability to actually enjoy the present. You know, I've

published a book and actually enjoy that. So when I experience that negative thought, rather than allow it to run away with me, I simply just stop and think, actually, this is a faulty thought, and I recognise it as catastrophizing. There's probably a bit of mind reading in there. So mind reading is when you assume you think what someone's thinking about you. So in this sense, I'm assuming that I know what thousands of readers hopefully think of the book, but I have no evidence to suggest that that's what they think of the book or that that's the path that the book's going to take. So once you're able to challenge that and to present kind of evidence that you may be wrong that's a really empowering feeling and

that's an exercise that I run through with the book is getting people used to recognizing the faulty thoughts trying to get them to think about what actual evidence and I mean actual evidence not evidence that they've sort of dreamed up but concrete evidence that what they think is actually fact and actually get them to also challenge you know what evidence do they have that what they think is actually fact and actually get them to also challenge you know what evidence do they have that actually they may be wrong and is the way they think about a particular situation going to impact that outcome so does it mean that I'm not going to enjoy the success of the book and the fact that I'm published because I'm running away with these faulty thought patterns. Why do we self-sabotage

like that? I mean, I literally had the exact same experience last Thursday and I'm just kind of like all the Amazon reviews will be no stars. I went to Waterstones and they didn't have the book because they hadn't had their delivery and I burst into tears and I was like, well then no one's going to get the book. I feel like we do this all the time where we start to think one thing's gone wrong, so everything's gone wrong, or that person hasn't replied to my message. And so they obviously hate me. They don't want to be my friend anymore because they didn't answer my call or reply to that text. And actually they're just really, really busy. I think acknowledging that we all do this is so important, but why on earth do we do it?

Why do we have this ability to get in our own way and like cause such disruption to our own lives by making ourselves really unhappy, by letting our thoughts run away with us? I honestly believe just through the experience that I have with seeing patients over the years, that our inner critic is actually louder than gratitude and that pat on the back.

So it's easier to be able to listen to something negative than it is to listen to potentially positive praise. And I think often, there's always that fear that if you are listening to positive praise, or even if you do congratulate yourself on a job well done, you know, it's fantastic, you've published a book, or to consider there may be an alternative outcome, that there's almost a sense of arrogance in that. And I think what we need to get better at is being able to level the playing field so that the negative inner critic in us is slightly silenced, because it can be all consuming, it can run away with us. And I think, you know, if we return back to that five cents countdown, this is a perfect example, you know,

if we go back to that situation where you're in Waterstones, actually, rather than the impulsive, oh, my God, this is what's happened, just allow yourself to run through that five cents countdown and think, okay, rationally, what could have happened here, and think a bit more rationally and practically, that can feel so much more empowering than the gut instinct of actually, this is a disaster, this is what's happened, it's all going to go horribly wrong. And I suppose that's why I dedicated an entire section within the book on faulty thoughts. Because I think half the battle is in recognising that it is a faulty thought. Often we experience a thought and for us a thought is fact.

We don't kind of decipher the fact from the fiction. And I hope by the end of that chapter and practising it consistently, because that's the key here, it's not going to be something that you get better at overnight, practising it consistently every day, continuing to challenge, that will mean that you silence better at overnight, practicing it consistently, every day continuing to challenge, that will mean that you silence that inner critic. Yeah, I think it's so true. And I think it's so well said. And I think we see this in everything across this space as everyone wants and totally understandably like a quick fix and an easy answer. But I think with our mental physical health,

actually, it's just like a long term dedication to feeling good in ourselves. And so much, as you said, it's not that doesn't happen overnight. That's just constantly just checking in with the way we're thinking and the way we're acting and trying to practice reframing our thoughts rather than assuming, you know, we'll do it once and then we won't have negative thoughts again. Well, you'll probably have negative thoughts forever, you'll probably just be able to handle them better but as you said I think it's very interesting the idea that I think sometimes we're so slow to give ourselves any credit or any praise because we think it's arrogant or we think that we're kind of like trying to put ourselves above

anyone else and and I don't think that is at all what people are doing but it seems like a bit of a shame that I actually have to say I know we've got listeners all around the world but it does feel particularly English to be kind of very self-deprecating, very down on ourselves and not really allow ourselves to give ourselves a pat on the back, even if it's totally internal and we're not sharing it with anyone else. to kind of reframe our rational beliefs and how powerful changing that outlook could be. And another tool you talked about was RET, Rational Motive Therapy. And I wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about what that is, where it came from, and how that can also possibly help. I really wanted to focus on this particular mode of therapy. It's something that I come across routinely in my clinical practice. And it's this idea that how we interpret a new experience often stems from deep rooted beliefs that we hold about ourselves, other people in the world. And it may be something that's not immediately obvious to us. And normally, it can come to the surface

through an emotional response that we experience. So as an example, if I'm feeling down after an argument with my husband and we end the relationship, rather than directly blaming this argument for how I'm feeling, feeling down may actually stem from this sort of deep-rooted belief that I hold that in order to be in a happy, loving relationship that lasts, I must never argue. So whenever I experience an argument with my husband, it triggers this irrational belief that might lead me to conclude that the relationship mustn't be a happy one, which means that there's no point in being in this relationship. And I think continuing to hold this irrational belief will undoubtedly impact how you think,

feel and act in future relationships. So the activating event in this situation is a disagreement or an argument, which we all know is part and parcel of even the most loving of relationships. And then that stirs up an emotional response of feeling low, and then the behavioral response of ending the relationship. And if you continue to enter relationships, and you are triggered by the activating event in the argument, it may lead you to repeat this cycle. So repeat this cycle of argument, feeling down, I'm not in a happy relationship, therefore I must end it. And it just strengthens that belief even more so. It may reinforce an idea that you're no good at relationships, that you'll be alone forever,

which in the long haul can be hugely detrimental to your mental health. So what Ellis proposed was a form of therapy called rational emotive therapy, which challenges those irrational beliefs and looks to reframe them. So it allows us to act in healthier ways. So rather than me determining that the relationship is not a happy one based on a single argument, it allows me to think about what may be at the root of that. So, in this situation, it may be a deep-rooted belief is again it can be hugely empowering because actually you stop then just simply seeing an argument and a consequence which is the end of the relationship but you start to identify the missing link that's really interesting I think we could probably all gain a lot from from that because I'm sure we all have those kind of negative

patterns in our lives which sometimes hold us back a bit and I wondered I guess on that it's actually quite interesting you talk a bit about the impact of the people that we spend time with as well for people who are trying to make an active effort to create a healthier happier state with their mental health and I know it sounds kind of quite basic but it feels like an important thing to acknowledge as well. Absolutely. I think often this can be a really taboo area, is talking about the impact of friendships and family members on our mental well-being. And all too often, when I see patients in clinic, they give excuses for the negative people in their life. And I'm not talking about, you know, the odd negative remark. I'm talking about consistent patterns where someone is belittling them, putting them down. But yet they hold on to that friendship. For nostalgic reasons, you know, I've been friends

with them since I was little, I can't possibly end the relationship. But I think it's really important to think about how different relationships, different friendships serve us. Because if you're routinely spending time with someone who's negative and is very draining of your resources, that is going to impact you in the long run. And within the book, I basically walk people through an exercise, which I call the friend litmus test, which is thinking about every single person that you come into contact with. And it can be something as trivial as the barista that makes your coffee in the morning, right through to your husband or your partner. And what I ask people to do is to think about that friendship in its entirety. You know, how does that friendship

make you feel? And how does that friendship serve you feel and how does that friendship serve you so that when you do come across bumps in the road you kind of use that as your baseline is this what you've come to expect from a relationship or is this just a little wobble because you know if say a friend's lost a job or maybe a friend's going through a breakup chances are that actually they won't be sort of the greatest of company and they may call on you for support and encouragement that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about consistent patterns where someone is negatively impacting your mental well-being and I think what's really important for people to consider is that friendships can have an expiry date and there's no shame in that because Because actually, would you rather hold on

to a friendship for nostalgic reasons, knowing that actually, it's just draining you, it's making you feel very negative. And it's not making you feel sort of positive or calm or happy? Or would you rather actually sever ties? And it means that that actually it lifts your mood you're no longer being criticized left right and center and I think that's something that's really worth considering and again one of the challenges that I get people to think about is almost to go Marie Kondo on their friendships and families so to think about those friendships as pieces of item within a wardrobe and to feel more comfortable about which ones you're going to put back into the wardrobe and which ones are actually you're ready to send in a bag to a charity shop.

We actually did an episode on female relationships about a year or so ago. And in that really touched on actually the importance sometimes of breaking up with a relationship. And it's such a like as you said a taboo subject sometimes but I mean I know I've definitely experienced that in my life where you can have incredibly toxic relationships and it's sort of okay to break up with a boyfriend girlfriend partner but it's sometimes seen as not really okay to move away from a friendship but I think as you said it's really important because it has such a huge impact on us and especially if we are trying to make a change in our lives having people who support that is so important because ultimately if you're not happy

then then what's the point to be honest to some extent with so many things I guess carrying on from that theme there's there's a few other things I mean we could talk all day about this it's the most interesting topic but there's a few other things you touch on which I think are just interesting and they're the sorts of questions I find people have time and time again which are things like the impact of stress for example and I know you showed that there were several studies showing an increased level of screen time can then be associated with risks of depression and studies show an association between high screen time sleep disturbance and stress seems to come into all of that as well so I wondered again going you know into that practical bit if we could touch on those sorts

of things you know the impact of yeah screen time and sleep disturbance and caffeine and alcohol and all those kind of triggers that people often bring into these conversations. Absolutely. I think, you know, firstly, screens, the sort of the underlying message is that they're here to stay. And I know I'm a mum of a five-year-old and I'm kind of trying to strike the balance between allowing her on her screens because I don't want her to fall behind because that's the future, unfortunately, but also being mindful of the negative impact that screen use can have. I think screen use for a lot of us can start the very moment that we wake up in the morning, you know, we may set our alarm on our phones rather than having a conventional alarm clock. So rather than just switch off the alarm, we're then pulled into the world that the

screens have to offer us, whether it's checking emails or messages that have come through overnight. And that can often set up a sense of urgency first thing on a morning. So you've not even got out of bed, you're still in your pajamas, and you are pulled into this online world. And that can impact what you go on to do that morning. So maybe you would have fancied a leisurely get up time, having a nice breakfast, getting showered and dressed, but suddenly, a pace is set by what you see on the screens. So I think what's really, really important to think about is how much your morning routine in particular is dictated by what you see on a screen. And if you're finding that your pace is set by a screen, it's maybe thinking about investing in a

good old fashioned alarm clock. And honestly, the confused looks that I get from people when I suggest an alarm clock, that they still exist. I think people are just overwhelmed that actually there's a world beyond the phone alarm clock. But I think it's about trying to reclaim your morning. So being very clear about when your screen use starts. So I always say first hour of the day, just allow that for yourself away from the screen. So whether that means charging your phone out of the bedroom, investing in a regular alarm clock, or maybe just popping your phone on flight mode so that you're immune to any sort of notifications that may be coming through. And then just allow your morning routine to carry on at your pace rather than dictated by someone else's pace or someone else's sense of urgency.

The other thing I like to think about is how we look at screen use. So a lot of people will say, oh, I always have to be on my phone. My job relies on it. But actually, if you break down every single moment you reach for your phone or you push back the lid of your laptop, chances are not all your screen use is absolutely essential. So I get people to think about screen use in three different ways. There's the non-neg absolutely essential. So I get people to think about screen use in three different ways. There's the non-negotiables. So it's whether or not you have to send an email for work or to send a text message to a friend who you're meeting on later that day or to pay a tax bill. There are things that you absolutely have to do, but you do require

a screen to do so. Then there's the things that you like to do. So whether or not it's listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video, or watching a Netflix box set, those are the things that you actually enjoy doing and do require a screen. And then there's the not entirely necessary. So we've all been there the times where we just reach for our phone out of sheer habit. We don't really know why we're there. But you know, we commit to it. And before long, we squandered 20, 30 minutes of just mindless scrolling. Every time you pick up your phone, every time you push back the lid of your laptop, ask yourself, is this a non-negotiable? Do I absolutely have to do it? Is this something that I like to do? Or is this not entirely necessary?

If it's not entirely necessary, you can almost nip in the bud the 20 to 30 minutes that you could squander and think, is my time better spent elsewhere? And I think once you get into that position, it can be incredibly empowering, because you suddenly start to be able to compartmentalize your screen use and to discern when screen use will or won't serve you. The other thing that's really, really important to think about is how screen use makes you feel. Because all too often when people come to see me in clinic, the difficulty with sleep, more often than not, I can put down to screen use. And it's often because they are getting engrossed in a box set. So that like to

do activity, but that suddenly seeps into more negative, where actually they're watching a box set till 10, 10.30 at night. And then their brain's not getting the cue that it's ready to go to sleep. Because in order to go to sleep, our brain is required to produce melatonin. And the melatonin then triggers the pathways necessary for sleep. Problem with screen devices is that it blocks melatonin release. So the longer you spend on a screen, the longer the melatonin is suppressed, which means that when you do eventually decide it's time to go to sleep, that actually those pathways haven't been triggered. So the other thing that I like to get people to consider is the bookend of the day. So the other thing that I like to get people to consider

is the bookend of the day. So when they are thinking about going to bed, making sure they're really strict in setting themselves a 30 minute to an hour screen curfew time, where they say, okay, for the last half an hour to an hour of a day, I'm just going to spend time reading a book or doing some mindfulness coloring, something that doesn't require a screen, and really ensuring that they have the optimum environment to getting a good night's sleep. And not just trying that one day a week and thinking, oh, it's not working, and then falling back into old habits. But actually practising that consistently is what's really important. I'm so part of this, but it's part of

me when you hear it thinks how mad is it how like, father world has developed that we have to say, okay, we need to open a book, we need to do an activity that doesn't happen on a screen, and drill that into ourselves, because we're such a screen society now. And how about the impact of stress, caffeine and alcohol and things like that on our brains on our mental health? So again, I mean, caffeine for me is a real common culprit when it comes to struggling with sleep, because for a lot of us, we may be drinking caffeinated drinks right through up until evening. And it can take seven hours for caffeine to leave our system. So if you think that you have your last caffeinated beverage at say 3pm, chances are when you go to bed, it's still

trying to work its way out of your system. So if we think about why we use caffeine, it's to keep us alert, and to boost our energy, the things that we don't really need it to be doing when we're trying to wind down and to get to bed so what I would say to people is if you're noticing that you are struggling with your sleep think about your caffeine consumption think about your screen use think about whether or not you can move your last caffeinated beverage to earlier in the afternoon even better sort of lunchtime being the absolute cut off. And then also thinking about that last hour before bed in terms of your screen use.

I absolutely love a coffee. It's one of my favourite morning rituals. And we always debate who's going to go down and get the coffee so we can have it in bed with Sky, our little one. But one thing I mean, I certainly find and I wonder what the link is, is too much caffeine definitely makes me a bit anxious and a bit more. I overthink things, I notice that more. And I can definitely see that pattern in myself. Is that something that you see quite a lot? Absolutely. And I think, again, it's very individual. So I know that, say,

for my sister, she can have a after dinner espresso, and it doesn't even touch the side. So it's all very individual. We all metabolize caffeine very differently. But I'm very much like you, that I noticed that if I have too much caffeine, that I start to feel quite anxious, maybe experience palpitations. So it's kind of a fine balance between enjoying my cuppa to having too much that I start to feel quite anxious so again it's just thinking about individual responses and you know for a lot of listeners it may be that they actually enjoyed the last caffeine at night and they sleep very well in which case I'm not you know suggesting that they need to change that but I think if you're noticing

difficulty with getting to sleep and you are drinking caffeine in the evening it may be worth trying to just bring that forward yeah absolutely well thank you so much for all your time today Sarah it has been absolutely brilliant I definitely have been feeling a bit kind of burnt out and a bit lackluster the last like week or so and so I'm definitely feeling very perked up by it and I think as you said there's just so much power in these relatively small practices but just of kind of being much more conscious about the way that we're spending our time who we're spending our time with just catching ourselves when we start thinking in a certain way and that actually all of that collectively can have such a profound impact on our mental health,

which obviously in turn has such a huge impact on our lives. And just really wanted to thank you so much for sharing all your incredible wisdom with us today. The book is called The Mind Medic, but I'll put it all in the show notes below to find more details of Dr. Sarah and her work. And huge congratulations on it being book launch day. Thank you for taking some time out to talk with us. Thank you so much for having

me. We will be back again next Tuesday. Really appreciate everyone tuning in. Thank you so much. Bye. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.