Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Andy Earle
Hey, it's Andy from talking to teens, it would mean the world to us. If you could leave us a five star review. reviews on Apple and Spotify help other parents find the show. And that helps us keep the lights on. Thanks for being a listener.

And here's the show. You're listening to talking to teens where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle.

We're here today with Gregory Scott Brown talking about mental health. No funny thing happens when you ask people about mental health. The things that generally come to our mind are often really mental illness, we think about things like anxiety or depression or suicidal thoughts. Mental health is about being mentally healthy. And the way that we support our mental health is through self care. self care is one of those buzzwords that a lot of people are talking about. And we may have some preconceived notions about but Dr. Brown breaks it down into five key pillars and walks readers through how those can support our mental health. His new book, The self healing mind, is a great guide to those pillars. And he's on the show today to talk to us about those five pillars of self care and how parents can incorporate those into our families and support our teenagers Mental Health. Dr. Brown is a board certified psychiatrist and affiliate faculty member at the University of Texas Dell Medical School, his commentary has been featured in The New York Times, Huffington Post, and today he is our guest on the talking to teens podcast. Dr. Brown, thank

you so much for being here. I loved your book, the self healing mind, and essential five step practice for overcoming anxiety and depression and revitalizing your life. Yeah, you got me thinking about a lot of stuff in here. I'm super excited to dive into.

Gregory Scott Brown
I'll tell you, we're all thinking about mental health. But we're not talking about it enough. So I'm just so happy we're having this conversation. Well, so

Andy Earle
what led you to write this book? Or what kind of what's the impetus that that got you on this path? Well, I

Gregory Scott Brown
actually started writing this book during the COVID pandemic. And I'll tell you, that's a time that really changed. I think the way most of us think about mental health. I think before the pandemic, some people might have thought, okay, and other people were depressed or people were anxious. But then during the pandemic, it's like, social distancing. We're all staying at home, we're scrolling through social media, and we're definitely feeling the impact more, I thought that that was my life changed personally, too. Again, prior to the pandemic, I was going to the office, I was meeting with my patients there. And during the pandemic, I found myself using a lot more video calls and telemedicine, I had some more time on my hands. And I thought what better way to really communicate to more people about mental illness and mental health and to write a book about?

Andy Earle
That's one thing actually, just that I found really interesting in your book is sort of defining mental health. What does that mean? And it was really interesting to me kind of thinking through this that? Well, a lot of the things we think of when we think of mental health are actually really not healthy at all.

Gregory Scott Brown
And there's a difference there. Because the thing is, when you think about physical health, if you just mentioned those two words, most people think about, okay, I need to eat healthy. I need to write working now taking care of my body. But then when you mentioned these words, mental health, I find at least most people start thinking about depression, anxiety, suicide, right, which are all really important topics. But there's not really that same type of motivation to take care of that the way we wouldn't necessarily take care of our physical health. I challenge readers here in the book to really distinguish between mental illness which are these diagnoseable things like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and mental health, which is really the driving force that motivates us that determines the quality of our relationships, how we interact with each other how we love that's really what mental health is all about. I

Andy Earle
love that. Yeah, it just, it seems like feel they feel synonymous mental health and mental illness which they shouldn't be here. It's a totally different concept, right?

Gregory Scott Brown
I mean, the thing the thing to keep to keep in mind here is that if we're focusing on our mental health, right, we are also reducing our risk for developing mental illnesses like depression, or generalized anxiety disorder, or what have you. But again, even if you're not diagnosed, or you've never been diagnosed with a mental illness, a mental health is still something that is valuable that we should all be paying attention to.

Andy Earle
Talk to me about this title, the self healing mind that's kind of counter to what you do as a psychiatrist, you help people heal their mind, right? If they are you, if the mind skin self healed, and you're putting yourself out of business here.

Gregory Scott Brown
I mean, in some ways, that'd be great. Imagine, imagine if suicide didn't exist in the world, and no one was depressed, and no one was, was anxious. I mean, I think that would be, that would be something that we would all welcome. But when you really diving into what the title is implying here, and what I intended by the title is that there are a lot of things that we ourselves can do to help the mind heal, right. And I talked about the five pillars of self care in the book, sleep, spirituality, nutrition, breathwork movement, I mean, these are things that we all potentially have access to, if we're alive, if we are listening to this podcast, and we have a brain right doesn't cost a penny to breathe, it doesn't cost anything to move our body, even if we're doing some stretches in our chair. And there's tons of evidence supporting that these simple strategies that may seem like common sense, if we utilize them the right way, they have powerful healing potential when it comes to improving our mental health.

Andy Earle
Something really profound to me is you talk about this, this idea that we can take a drug that's gonna like make us feel better. And sort of the problems with that I really love some of the stories that you have in the book, some examples from some clients that you've worked with, but kind of that seems to be like a theme, we want to feel better. We don't want to feel these feelings so that they don't feel good. And but you really kind of got me thinking about it in a deeper way that maybe there's a reason we're feeling those things, just erasing them isn't necessarily the answer, right? I

Gregory Scott Brown
mean, and the thing to keep in mind, too, this idea of broken brains, and chemical imbalance is also timely. And then we're coming on the 35th anniversary here of the FDA approving Prozac for depression, right. So the Prozac revolution, this idea that again, nothing wrong with Prozac, I prescribed Prozac almost every week, my patients, it's it saves a lot of lives, right? But this idea that, that if we take a pill, that's just going to automatically erase all of our problems, it's going to erase our experience with anxiety, it's going to erase any negative or unwanted moods, we may experience is a fallacy. It's not necessarily true. When I'm talking to my patients who are struggling, I often describe to them that being depressed or being anxious is kind of like being stuck in a ditch a medication, like an antidepressant is kind of like a ladder that can help you get out of that ditch. But then it's a matter of the self care strategies that I talked about, that's going to help you stay out of the ditch. And sometimes you need Self Care Plus medication, sometimes medication, or self care alone will do it. But we should not under undermine the importance of self care. It's very important to help sustain mental health. I

Andy Earle
love that metaphor. And so as a parent, looking at your teenager, and just seeing them being in pain, or seeing them struggle with something, I think it's just useful. I want them to feel better. You want to make them help, how do I just help them stop? Stop feeling bad? And I wonder what you think is how we could reframe that or, or what's a more productive kind of way to approach it or think about it?

Gregory Scott Brown
Yeah, I mean, it's an excellent time, I think to get people really not only thinking about mental health, but talking about it, I'd say those those teenage years, in particular are really important years as far as getting conversations going. I would say communication is probably the most important thing. I think when we especially when you when you think about something like suicide, right? Unfortunately, there are over 140 suicides on average everyday in the United States alone. And there is something called the suicide contagion effect, which essentially means if a teenager young person, although you can see this in adults as well, but young person learns about a suicide through the media or they have a classmate who dies by suicide, then certain certain populations might be a little bit more vulnerable to mimicking the act, right. The thing is, oftentimes parents are nervous and duly so I mean, during those periods, they're afraid to have conversations with their

Andy Earle
kids, so then we shouldn't talk about it.

Gregory Scott Brown
The thing is research actually shows that there's certain ways to have those conversations and that if we're having those conversations where we're talking to our kids about mental illness, or even something is unfortunate suicide, we're not glorifying the deceased, right, we want to make sure that we're not doing that, and that we're encouraging our kids to speak up, and to ask us for help if they need it, that it actually reduces their risk of mimicking that type of behaviors. Conversations are really, really, really important with our kids, especially when it comes to mental health and mental illness.

Andy Earle
tips that you think parents could keep in mind and having conversations around suicide, that that are more more productive, or more likely to lead to those positive outcomes.

Gregory Scott Brown
And, again, just just to reiterate this, so the most important things are, we don't want to glorify the deceased. So they're, if they're coming to us, and they're talking about, I have a friend that I've learned about in school, this is something that happened that, again, we're allowing our kids to process the event with us, but we're not again glorifying the person's life or the manner in which they died by suicide, we want to make sure that we're avoiding that we want to make sure also that we are encouraging our kids to get help to ask for help, if they need it, we're talking about a meeting with therapists meeting with the school counselor meeting with the psychiatrist and normalizing that and saying, This is something that a lot of people, a lot of people need, it doesn't mean that something's wrong with you, it doesn't mean that you're not strong, it's the right thing to do. And again, if we're teaching our kids that at an early age, then we're preparing them for some of these challenges they may face in their lives as they get older.

Andy Earle
Talk about self care. You've mentioned a few times now in the five pillars, also you talk in the book about just how his self care kind of has some connotations around sort of, out of this paragraph we have here it often evokes images of spending a weekend at a at a spa or high priced, holistic medicines. There's kind of some, I don't know, connotations that we have around self care, what do you really mean by that, or

Gregory Scott Brown
I'll be the first to acknowledge I love a good spot. I love a good massage. So, hey, there's there's nothing wrong with that, right? But we want to make sure that we think about self care that we're not characterizing it as this elitist sport in saying that you have to have money for self care, or self care is only a reward for hard work or burn myself out. And then if I work hard enough, or earn enough money, or whatever it is, or get the promotion, then I'll then I'll take some time for

Andy Earle
self now I deserve it. Yeah, right. Alright. So self

Gregory Scott Brown
care is actually and this is really important to me take anything away from from this episode. Self Care is evidence based medicine, even if each of us take we take between 20 and 30,000 breaths every single day, right and with each inhale and exhale, we are a potentially increasing GABA in our brain that is a neurotransmitter chemical that helps us relax, it helps us slow down and helps us feel a sense of calm and peace. We're enhancing alpha wave activity in the brain. These are physiologic markers of relaxation, and rest, but we have to learn how to manipulate our breath in a way that can actually do that. Right. So self care is something that we should definitely not take for granted.

Andy Earle
I love how in your chapter on breath, you talked about how breath affects the nervous system. I thought it was really interesting to see some of the research on the links there. Just how connected it is.

Gregory Scott Brown
Right again, with with breath, I'll tell you this. One of the stories I have from I was covering an inpatient unit when I was living in Austin, and I'll tell you that I got a call from one of the nurses that a patient come in she was having a panic attack. And the nurse was asking me for a medication to help help her relax right? And almost reflexively as doctors will okay the order and then go on about our day. But I remember on this particular day, I was just starting to learn about some of the science behind the different breathing exercises 478 breathing on the hour breath coherent breathing that I outlined in the book. And I remember I went down to this patient's bedside. And I sat with her. And we actually practiced some of these techniques together. And within a matter of five minutes of each she was she was calm, she was relaxed, and she didn't need the medication, right. And again, it's not to undermine or devalue medications, like I prescribed medications, they definitely have their place. But so to self care, it's important for people to realize that they can have a profound effect. Because I

Andy Earle
find just, it's like when you when you find yourself feeling anxious and stressed out, and all of a sudden, I notice my breathing is, is really, like I'm kind of almost panting a little bit are they taking more kind of shallow breaths. So it's obvious that there is a link between our nervous system and our breath, but I think we maybe do, we don't give it enough credit or realize that we can take control of it. And

Gregory Scott Brown
I think it's also important that we don't, we don't wait for ourselves to have a panic attack, or to hyperventilate, to practice some of this stuff. I mean, if you're going through the book, give me an anyone who's tried a yoga class before, will kind of understand what I'm talking about. I mean, if you just go into yoga class, and you're not, and you're flowing through this sequence, and you're not paying attention to your breath, I mean, it doesn't really matter how in shape you are, I mean, it's gonna be a lot more difficult. And then you'll find yourself gasping for air, right? That's one of the things that I like so much about yoga, it's that you brings you into this state of conscious awareness, where you're connecting breath with movement. So your yoga teacher will often instruct about how to breathe, your yoga teacher might talk about probably I'm a breath during the class. So as you flow, you're consciously aware of those breaths. And I find that being able to practice that type of breathing on the mat off the mat in between patients, for me in between meetings actually helped helps me in those moments where I do find myself anxious or hyperventilating or gasping for air, because I've been through this what seems like hundreds of times, so again, it's okay to practice it, before you get to that point where you actually need it.

Andy Earle
And I like how in the book, you really provide sort of a toolkit of different breathing techniques that people can try out and use, it's not about, hey, here's how you should breathe, or here's what you should do. It's really about kind of exploring what that connection is, and, and how different ways of breathing can actually change your mood, or change the way that you're feeling. And had been by kind of getting all these things in your arsenal, it's like you're getting equipped with more more strategies that you can use, just really powerful,

Gregory Scott Brown
right? I mean, the other thing that breathwork does, is in those moments where we feel like oh, where we're at the end of our fuse, we're gonna lose our cool, or maybe we're feeling tired, or whatever it is. So breath work, can kind of buy ourselves some time in those moments and give the perception that things are just things are slowing down. And you can often see just buying yourself for three, four or five minutes with breath work, can end up changing the entire tone of a conversation could change the entire tone of your day.

Andy Earle
What do you think is a good way for parents to introduce this to teenagers or to, to maybe model some of these self care things? But with breathing? Maybe it's something you could kind of do together? Almost or? Oh, I

Gregory Scott Brown
agree with you. Yeah, doing it doing it together? Yeah. I think the beautiful thing about this is this the book and the techniques in the book, they have no age limit, right? I've had, I've had folks that I've spoken to my patients who've told me they practice some of this stuff with their kids, my dad, who's in his 80s likes to use 478 breathing. I mean, that's one of his favorite techniques, all the techniques that are there in the book, but I think it's definitely something that that you can do together. 478 Breathing is a great thing to do before bedtime with our kids to help them just kind of right, maybe doing a couple rounds of that together. But yeah, I mean, start start where you can I like

Andy Earle
that. Yeah, there's a number of things in here actually, that could be incorporated into like a wind down routine at the end of the day that would, I think, yeah, the hub is really powerful. And yeah, great way to just start every day, kind of reinforcing these behaviors and modeling that as as a way to, to calm yourself or change your emotional state. It's all

Gregory Scott Brown
it's all about social and emotional learning to I mean, self care is really helping instill those those skills within our kids, as well as within us.

Andy Earle
We're here today with Dr. Gregory Scott Brown talking about the five pillars of self care and how those can support our teenagers mental health, and we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.

Gregory Scott Brown
As teenagers not unlike adults, they're curious. They're exploring, I mean, the most important thing is be there to answer their questions, again, to encourage conversation is so healing, there's resistance to explore where that resistance is coming from. Maybe it's coming from a conversation or something someone said to them at school or something they read in a book or saw on TV, I think it's important that we're talking to kids. Well, there's a study that found that patients who were depressed, who continued their treatment as usual, but changed the way they ate to include more of a Mediterranean diet, at better outcomes when it came to improving their progression, we can change our mood or start changing our mood by beginning to change what's on our plate. So sleep and mental illness, they have a bidirectional relationship, they affect each other, but for whatever reason, it's like we don't spend as much time being as intentional as we could about sleep, making sure the room is cool enough that it's not too hot. I mean, these are things that can improve sleep quality as well. Something that's also important we're talking about kids is screen time to things like it's cliche at this point, but there's there's science behind it. Green and blue wavelengths of light that are emitted from our televisions and smartphones actually make it more difficult for melatonin to be released in the brain back in inhibits the quality as well.

Andy Earle
Want to hear the full episode, head over to talking to teens.com/register for a free trial of our premium podcast, you get exclusive access to loads of great content with no obligation and your membership supports the work we do here at talking to teens get started today with a free trial over at talking to teens.com/registered Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.