Mens Mental Health | Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery Podcast

Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, Docsnipes.com has even more resources, videos and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to Docsnipes.com to learn more. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes Practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. This is Men's Health Month, so we're going to be talking about men's mental health today. When your body is not functioning optimally, your mental health is going to be impacted. And likewise, when your mental health is not optimal, it's probably going to impact a lot of the ways that you feel. You're going to feel more pain, you're gonna have more aches, more headaches, and reduced immunity and all kinds of stuff. So mental health and physical health go hand in hand. What we're going to be talking about today are anger, anxiety, and depression. Those are kind of the three big emotions that we talk about. We're not going to go into schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. We're just going to stick with the three big ones for right now. And let's understand the connection between these anger and anxiety. Anger represents your body's desire to fight. Anxiety represents your body's desire to flee. Both of these indicate that your body thinks that there's a threat out there. Now, it says it thinks there's a threat out there. It doesn't mean that there is. A lot of times we get false signals, just like your smoke alarm can go off. And it doesn't necessarily mean there's a fire. So you want to pay attention when you get that feeling of anger or anxiety and check it out and decide, is there a threat right now? Now, anger and anxiety, we experience them multiple times every day, and they come in different formats. Anger can come in the form of jealousy, envy, which is anger at somebody for having something that you want or anger at yourself for not having something that somebody else has. Regret is anger at yourself, as is guilt. Anger at yourself for something that you did that you shouldn't have done or something you should have done that you didn't. So you're angry at yourself. Resentment is anger at somebody else. Irritation, anger, and rage. You know, those are pretty common anger words that we use, and there are a lot of different things that can trigger them. But all of these come up when we are feeling threatened in some way. Now, our basic threats are rejection, failure, isolation, loss of control, and the unknown. A lot of us are total control freaks. And men are taught to be powerful. Men are taught that they're supposed to be more powerful and more in control. So these sorts of things may trigger more anxiety and anger in them than necessarily in women. But, you know, gender roles are getting a little closer. Now, anxiety comes in a few different faces, and some of them include fear, stress, worry, anxiety, and terror. Now, the ones that we experience the most are stress and worry. You're worried about a meeting that's coming up. You're worried about getting a contract. You're worried about your kids. You know, we use that word a lot, and that tells us that we're worried. Now, men don't necessarily use that word so much. And we're going to talk about why. Culture has taught men not to use feeling, focused words, but think about the words that you use. Think about when you're feeling worried about something. And, you know, you got to check your memory. What is your physiological reaction? Every feeling has a physiological reaction and a behavioral urge that goes with it. So if you can identify one of those, the urge, the feeling, emotion, or the physiological reaction, then you're going to be able to identify when you are experiencing anxiety or anger. Now, where does depression come in and all this? It doesn't represent threat or fight or flee? Nope. Unfortunately, depression represents hopelessness and helplessness. And it can happen when, you know, you lose something that's important to you and you know you can't get it back. You're powerless to get it back, so you can feel depressed. It can also happen if you are fighting or fleeing for a long time and you just run out of gas. Your body goes, you know what? We're not going to win this. There is no way to succeed at this. I give up. I surrender. That can be depression. So depression can be caused by anger and anxiety for too long as well as losing important things. So you may be saying, well, you know, quote, real men don't experience depression or anxiety or whatever. And, you know, they do. They do. They don't talk about it as much. But thankfully, people are starting to recognize how prevalent it is, how important it is to talk about because the earlier you intervene, the more likely you are to prevent lots of problems and to not experience another episode. So who are some men who have experienced mental health issues? Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, Larry Sanders, Brandon Marshall, Joey Voto, John Kirwan, Clark Carlisle Dan Carcio, Oscar De La Hoya, Shea Emery, David Freese, Andrew Jensen and many, many more. Obviously, these were all athletes, and so you may recognize some names and not others. You can go to headsupguys.org 22 maleathletes speaking depression and learn more about their stories and what they were experiencing and the treatment that they went through and what worked for them. So you can learn about the fact that they had it and they did something about it and they came out stronger on the other side. So what are some signs of possible mental health issues in men? Men have slightly different symptoms sometimes than women, and part of that is because our culture prescribes and causes men to inhibit certain behaviors, I believe. But anger, irritability or aggressiveness can indicate anxiety problems, but it can also indicate depression if you're feeling helpless and hopeless. Men are taught that they're supposed to be powerful and have control over things, so it can make them very angry when they feel helpless and hopeless. If there are noticeable changes in mood, energy level or appetite, these are really common signs for both genders of depression, so we want to pay attention to that. Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much. When you are experiencing anger or anxiety, for example, your body's going, there's a threat out there. There might be a threat out there. I need to stay awake. I need to stay alert. So it's not going to let you go completely to sleep. Think about a soldier in a foxhole. He may doze off, but he's not going to get good sleep. So when he wakes up, if he can get to sleep at all, when he wakes up, he's going to feel groggy and exhausted and want to go back to sleep. When you sleep too much, then your circadian rhythms get out of whack. Your body doesn't know when it's supposed to be awake and when it's supposed to be asleep. So your sleep quality deteriorates even further. And the more tired you get, the more hopeless and helpless and fatigued you're probably going to feel. So sleeping problems, difficulty concentrating, feeling restless or on edge. And sometimes, you know, think about when you get really tired. It's hard to put two words together sometimes. So if you're having difficulty concentrating, it can mean depression. It can mean sleep problems, increased worry or feeling stressed, a sense of sadness or hopelessness, or suicidal thoughts. If you're having suicidal thoughts, it's important to reach out and get support. Suicidal thoughts are not that uncommon, but they do need to be addressed with a professional. Feeling flat or having Trouble feeling positive emotions. And I make the analogy, it's kind of like Eeyore. Nothing really made him happy, nothing really made him sad. He was just there. Engaging in high risk activities. Sometimes when people are depressed, they want to feel a rush. The only way they can feel better is to get some kind of an adrenaline surge. So they start engaging in high risk activities or using alcohol or drugs, which stimulate the brain to release pleasure chemicals. When people have anxiety or depression, they may have ongoing headaches, digestive issues, or chronic pain. When you are feeling depressed or anxious, often it means your serotonin levels are out of kilter for some reason. And it could be nutrition, it could be lack of sleep, it could be a lot of things, but serotonin may be out of kilter. Serotonin is one of those brain chemicals that helps you with your pain tolerance. So when you don't have enough of that, then you're going to feel achier. On top of the fact that a lot of us just store stress in our neck and our back and other places and thoughts are behaviors that interfere with work, family or social life. So you can see a lot of these symptoms are common to both genders. But, you know, again, men tend to be more anger, angry, irritable and aggressive, as opposed to passive, withdrawn and tearful. One cause of depression, like symptoms, is low testosterone. So I'm going to say it a couple of times in this presentation. It is important to start out your recovery journey by going to the doctor and, you know, my best friend's a guy, my partner's a guy, my daddy was a guy. And none of them like going to the doctor. You know, you had to drag them kicking and screaming even after they were 30 years old to get a physical. So I know you don't enjoy it. You know, we women don't enjoy it too much either. But it's important because you know what, there are some physiological things like low testosterone, thyroid imbalances, diabetes that can cause symptoms of depression. So you can go to a counselor for three years and talk about thoughts and stuff, but if the problem is in your physiology, it's not going to get completely better until you address that issue. So go to the doctor. It's really easy. It's a simple blood test that they can measure your testosterone and your thyroid levels and your liver function and all that and make sure that there's nothing physiologically that's causing this problem. So symptoms of low testosterone, which are becoming more and more common in this society in this day and age, unfortunately Are decreased sex drive, tiredness, changes in sleep patterns, mood changes, weight gain, and occasional memory problems and difficulty concentrating. These are all the same symptoms that you see in depression. So some people may feel like they're depressed, maybe not super depressed, but that, er, level of moderate depression. Nothing really makes you happy and not realize that it's low testosterone or that it's low thyroid. So get that checked out. If you have low testosterone, you're also at increased risk of developing diabetes, hypertension, or a number of other chronic conditions. So again, get it checked out. Not only will you feel better, your libido will improve, but you're also going to potentially prevent the some other health problems that you just don't want to have to deal with. The next thing we're going to talk about is men and postpartum depression. And you're like, excuse me? Yeah, postpartum depression happens in men too. It's not just a hormone thing. 1 in 10 new dads. In a survey of 5,000 new parents, 1 in 10 new dads met standard criteria for moderate to severe postpartum depression. Wow, that's a lot. And we don't give enough credence or attention to the fact that bringing a baby into the house impacts men too. It's not just a hormonally driven women's condition. Depression impacts the quality and quantity of interaction that dad has with children. And when this happens, when dad's not involved and, you know, doesn't really want to be involved, it's just kind of like the kid's a bother. It can result in developmental delays and attachment issues that can cause problems later in life. And it also impacts the quality and quantity of personal health behaviors. So dads who are experiencing postpartum depression are probably going to not be getting the quality sleep, not be eating as well as they should. They may be drinking more than is healthy or helpful. There's a lot of things. They may have really high stress and not be engaging in any stress management behaviors. And all of these things can lead to additional mood issues and health issues in the dad. Unlike women, who are often sad and withdrawn, men may become irritable, aggressive, and even hostile. Sound familiar? We just talked about that with regular depression. So postpartum depression is depression that comes on generally a couple of weeks within a couple of weeks of a baby coming home. Now it can be a couple of weeks after birth, and I guess I'm jumping ahead of myself. Causes of postpartum depression in men. Stress of a new life to care for. You know, this is Another mouth you've got to feed and another body you've got to clothe. So there can be financial stresses and concerns. Seek out financial counseling. A lot of times there are free or low cost services that can help you with that. Some dads, especially first time dads, are concerned about their capabilities of being a dad. They've never been a dad before. There's no manual, how do I do this? And especially if they didn't have a great role model, that may be even more reason that they're freaked out about being a new dad. I remember our first child was a micro preemie. He was born at 29 weeks. So he was really itty bitty and he was in an incubator and had all these wires and cords and, and it. For the first week or so, my husband wouldn't hold the baby. And finally I confronted him on it. I'm like, what's going on? Why don't you want to hold the baby? He's like, I'm afraid I'm going to break him. And you know, he was tiny. He was, you know, three pounds. And so he worked with the nurse in the NICU to develop a confidence with handling such a tiny little fragile thing that literally fit in the palm of his hand. But if you're worried about your capabilities, seek out assistance. A lot of times, again, there are services that you can access that will provide information. There's a lot of information online. Dr. Sears website is really good. That's spelled just like the store. Men can also experience grief over losses of freedom. Especially again, if this is their first child. They're going from being footloose and fancy free to we got to be home to put the baby to sleep. So men may grieve this, especially if it wasn't a planned pregnancy. But even if it was, it is a whole new life. You know, they're closing the chapter, closing the chapter on one part of their life and opening a new chapter. They may have frustration due to how much the baby monopolizes the partner's time. Bathing, feeding, carrying, holding, crying, all that stuff that babies do. And you know, moms are thinking, I'm lucky if I can get a shower in every day. And dads are thinking, hello, did you even notice that I was here? So it's important for partners to communicate about baby care and try to share some of the activities of taking care of the baby and make it a team effort if at all possible. But it is perfectly natural to feel a little bit jealous and frustrated when this person who Used to be your partner exclusively. Now you have to share poor sleep even if you're not the one getting up, nursing the baby. You know, if mom is sleeping in the same bed and she has to get up every time the baby cries, you know you're going to have poorer quality sleep. And some dads willing to take that midnight feeding, which is really helpful for moms in order for them to get, you know, a solid six hours of sleep, which can help them recover after, after delivery. But it's important that both parents are able to get a solid block of sleep at least half of the days. You know, if you alternate, that can help. There's stress. If baby has any special needs or is in the nicu, which is the neonatal intensive care unit, you know, you don't know what's going to happen. Little peanuts can go south really fast. So there's always this anxiety when you leave the hospital. And generally there's a lot of other stress that goes along with babies in the nicu, but that's a different presentation stress. If other siblings don't respond well, sometimes you need to bring in a counselor for a brief period to help siblings figure out how to respond accept the new baby. There are also a lot of really good books that you can just check out at the library. Stress and exhaustion if mom also has postpartum depression. Because now you're both, you know, struggling to get through. If you have a personal history of depression, a poor relationship with one or both of your parents. If you have a history of abuse, having a new baby may bring back a lot of memories of your abusive or poor childhood. So this can trigger abuse, anger and anxiety issues. Relationship stress can also set you up for postpartum depression with your partner or with your in laws because you've got a lot of helicoptering that happens during this time often. And that can be really overwhelming when you're just like, okay, let me breathe and let me figure out what I'm doing here. And a lack of support from others and that neighbors, anybody to help you out during this period of time. Because bringing a new baby home, I mean it is a 24 7, 365 job and sometimes children just don't want to sleep. So it can be exhausting. And it's helpful to have support somebody that you can call going, this is what's going on, Is this normal? And you know, I had people like that that I could ask and I had a great pediatrician, so that was really helpful. But there are often support groups for dads that are out there. There are online support groups. If you don't want to go to a face to face support group, you can find some of those too. Impact of mood issues so if you're starting to get depressed or anxious or angry, you'll have reduced immunity. When cortisol is high in your body, then you are not using that energy to build up your immune system. It can lead to high blood pressure, increased weight and poor nutrition through stress, eating and drinking, reduced physical activity and fitness. If you're exhausted or stressed out and exhausted all the time, you may not want to go to the gym. Even though going to the gym can be a great way to get out some of that aggression and get some happy chemicals flowing. Constant fatigue, which makes you not want to do anything. Reduced libido or in the case of people with sexual compulsive behaviors, maybe a drastically increased one. Some men, when they get stressed, the only way they can get that dopamine going, the only way that they can feel happy, they feel a rush is through sex. So they may start compulsively seeking out some sort of sexual gratification in order to try to feel better. And this can easily develop into an addictive cycle. Mood issues also cause worsening relationships with partners and children. A sense of guilt. You know, you feel guilty that you didn't make your kids ball game, or you feel guilty that you resent the fact that the child is crying. Again, you feel guilty about the fact that you know yada yada yada, and it can lead to addiction issues. Some people, when they are feeling bad, want to numb the pain or want to take something to help them feel better. And initially some of these things, alcohol, you know, any of those used in moderation are not going to necessarily lead to addiction. But when you use substances or compulsive behaviors and you get those neurotransmitters just flooding those synapses, it causes an imbalance in the system. And if that imbalance in the system persists for long enough, then your body adjusts to it, which is when you start experiencing tolerance and withdrawal and addiction problems. Specific contributors to depression and anxiety in men's life Critical transitions including moving into adulthood, marriage, fatherhood, retirement and deaths. So these are all periods of time to be a little bit more self aware. Many boys learn that they should avoid stereotypical feminine behaviors and strive to be tough. Some do this by attempting to suppress their emotions, thoughts and behaviors associated with vulnerability. And things that you might hear that support this are men should be able to control their feelings or depression makes you a burden. You know what feelings are, what we have. Feelings are our body's natural reaction to help us survive. It's what we do with those feelings that can keep us stuck or help us move forward. So, you know, people have feelings and controlling them, suppressing them, doesn't do any good. That's like, if I hear a fire alarm, I'm gonna stick my fingers in my ear so I don't hear it and I'm going to ignore it. Not the best idea. So you want to make sure that you identify your feelings, you acknowledge your feelings or reactions, and you figure out what to do about them. And depression doesn't make people a burden. Depression is an illness. Depression happens to some people, and when it happens, it's a matter of figuring out what to do to fix it. You know, depression makes you no more of a burden than having the flu or having to have knee surgery or something else that makes you not functioning at your most optimal level. And the people who love you and care about you are generally going to be very encouraging and supportive of your recovery, regardless of whether it's a physical condition or a mental health condition. Men are often socialized to be aggressive and appear fearless and invulnerable. And depression is seen as weakness. And asking for help is seen as weakness. Think about your own children. You know, if you have them, would you want your child to hide his feelings of depression for fear of being seen weakness as weak? Admitting you've got depression, admitting that you need help shows a lot of courage. It says, you know what, I can't do this on my own. And I recognize it. We're not humans are not meant to live in social isolation bubble. We're meant to help each other out. Many men have problems both identifying and expressing feelings and may express them non verbally through metaphors. Instead of using what we call feeling words, they may say something like, oh, when that happened, I just wanted to punch something. Okay, remember I talked earlier about there's a physiological reaction, there's an behavioral urge, and then there's an emotion. Well, I wanted to punch something is the behavioral urge associated with anger. So, okay, you know, let's use that and you know, help you start identifying that. Yes. This means anger. You don't have to use the F word. Feeling. You don't have to talk about anger. You can still use your metaphors, but it's important to understand what that behavior represents. Or I felt like I was kicked in the gut. You know, that's another one that I've heard a lot. So what does that mean to you? As people talk about their feelings or their reactions or their experiences? Whatever you feel comfortable talking about, you can start identifying what the problems and the hiccups might be. It's like if you're planning a house, you're going to build a house. Well, you don't just sit down and go, all right, let's start building. You plan it out first, you talk it out first. You get halfway through the process and you meet with the general contractor and you start talking about any problems they're holding up. Progress. You start talking about, you know, I think I would really like to move this here because it'll make it easier to do something else. So you talk it through. Same thing with mental health issues. You're going to identify behaviors and thoughts that are keeping you stuck, and then you can address them, you know, just like you can address problems in building. Construction men are taught that they need to compete for power and success. And you know what? Sometimes power and success ain't all that if it makes you completely miserable. There are a lot of people that are really, really wealthy, have really, really big houses, and really, really hate their life. So you want to weigh this need for power and success with what is it that really makes you happy? And external factors can contribute to depression, anxiety, including workplace and family relationships. And it can undermine men's motivation to change substance related behaviors. Because a lot of our social activities involve substances. Going to a sports bar, watching a football game on Sundays, you know, you're drinking alcohol, having a celebration, parties, you know, think about how many different things in your life involve the use of substances. And that's just like alcohol. Now, if you add in nicotine, you know, a lot of men drink, smoke, or smoke and dip as just a way that they relieve stress. So counseling and the F word. And the F word we're talking about here is feelings. I want to dispel some myths about counseling because too often I hear people going, oh, we're just going to sit around and in a circle and gush about our feelings and boohoo, cry. No, not necessarily. You know, if that's what you feel like doing, then great, we can work on that. If that's not what you feel like doing, then that's fine too. Despite what television tells you, counseling is not always about gushing emotions. Some people just aren't comfortable with that. Additionally, about 85% of men respond better to a solution focused approach, which means we're going to talk about the issue. We're not going to talk about how you feel about it. We're going to talk about the issue. Because once you resolve the issue, then you're going to start to feel better. The approaches that will help you focus more on the issue and the solution are cognitive, behavioral, dialectical behavioral, and acceptance and commitment therapies. So a lot of what solution focused approaches do is help you really identify just what it sounds like, solutions to the problem. A lot of times, you know, about 60% of women want to or need to have their feelings validated before they move to the step of problem solving. We want somebody to say, you know, you have every right to feel angry or depressed or whatever. A lot of men don't need that and they actually prefer not to go there. You know, they just want to identify what's making them feel so bad and figure out how to fix it. As a little aside here, you know, it's important to remember that coaches, while they will encourage you to solve problems and move forward, are not able to diagnose or treat mental health issues. They can only coach you in moving forward towards goals that you identify. So if you're choosing a coach over a counselor, you know, just bear that in mind that they are not trained at all in mental health diagnosis identifying problems, and they may miss some things, such as, you know, identifying the fact that maybe you need to get a blood panel done because your testosterone or your thyroid might be low. A counselor will recognize you as the expert on you help you resolve your issues by providing information about tools, ways of looking at things or resources that can help you feel better faster than you could muddling through on your own. Now think back. For those of you who can remember before YouTube, you know, back in the day when something went wrong at the house, you know, if you didn't know how to fix it, you're just kind of looking at the pipes or the wires or something and going, er, not sure what to do with this. And you could probably muddle through and figure out how to fix it on your own. Go to Home Depot five or six dozen times and get it fixed. And you know, it took a long time. You got there, but it took a long time. Or, oh my gosh, you had to call in a professional. Now think about it this way. Now you can call in a professional and get it done really fast and not save the. And save a whole lot of the energy. But you also have something like YouTube that you can go to and you can learn. You can learn new tools and approaches and skills that helps you get through it, whatever project it is, faster. You know, I've learned a lot of things on YouTube, from how to crochet to how to build a shelf. I like YouTube. It's in small chunks. But I digress. Counselors are going to be the same way. Counselors are going to instead of being YouTube, where you just have to hope you pick the right video, counselors will listen and they'll help you identify the different tools and stuff that might help you get through this stuck point faster. And that's it. You know we're there to facilitate your recovery. You know what works for you, you know what doesn't work for you. And we're going to start there. So let's finish up by talking about some steps that you can take today to start feeling better and prevent any mental health issues. Easy ones. Drink enough water and have decent nutrition. Your body makes the chemicals that help you feel happy and calm and get adequate sleep and your testosterone and everything else. All of that stuff is made from the foods you eat. So if you eat crap, then you're going to feel like crap. And when I say decent nutrition, I'm meaning, you know, moderately decent. Try to have three colors on your plate at each meal. That sort of thing. I'm not saying don't have any gluten, don't have any pizza, never have another fried food. That's not realistic. Let's look at what's realistic and what can you do to have decent nutrition? Get quality sleep. And quality sleep is that good, restful sleep that you need. And if you need tips on sleep hygiene, we have other videos in Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery and podcasts that can help you learn about improving your sleep quality. Regulate your circadian rhythms. This is when your body thinks it's supposed to be awake versus asleep because your hormones are all set on that too. When you're supposed to eat, how you're supposed to feel, you know that midday lull. All of that centers around your circadian rhythms. So try to get up at roughly the same time each day. Try to expose yourself to daylight at roughly the same time each day, and stay in brightly lit areas most of the day. Darkness tells your brain it's time to go to sleep, so try to stay in brightly lit areas as much as possible during the day. And then when it comes time to go to bed, turn the lights down. Get a blue light filter on your mobile devices or anything electronic that you're looking at so your brain understands that it's nighttime. Do something fun each day. It can be 10 minutes, it doesn't have to be long. But do something that you enjoy. Start becoming mindful. And I encourage people to check in with themselves before each meal. So breakfast, lunch and dinner, all this means is for you to check in and go, you know, what? How am I feeling? What am I wanting? Do I need to do anything right now in order to feel better? That's all it is. It's not this super duper, intense meditation thing or it doesn't have to be. It's just checking in with yourself. Because a lot of times, you know, you may check in with yourself. And I do this a lot. At lunchtime, I'll check in with myself and I'll be like, you know, I'm feeling kind of sluggish today and my concentration is shot. So this thing I was going to do after lunch probably should wait till tomorrow morning. And it's a lot easier if I kept trying to push through and do that project. I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to get frustrated and it's going to take three times as long. So mindfulness helps me be aware of how am I doing and what am I needing right now. Identify what's truly important in life. Stephen Covey referred to this as beginning with the end in mind. So think about the things that are truly important in your life. And it could be your job, it could be your car, it could be your kids. Whatever it is to you, what is it that you need to have a rich and meaningful life? And then before you start doing anything, or as soon as you start feeling angry or anxious about something, ask yourself, is getting upset over this helping me move towards things that are important in my life, or is this just a waste of my energy? Getting upset over things on the news, or getting upset over things on social media, or the fact that the dog crapped in the living room. You know, in the big scheme of things, getting upset about those is probably not going to move you towards something that's important in your life. It's just going to drain your energy. See your doctor to rule out any physical causes of depression or anxiety, such as hormone imbalances, thyroid problems, etc. I know you don't want to hear that, but make that appointment. It's really important. And spend 15 minutes making a list of as many things you can think of in that 15 minutes that trigger your anger or anxiety. All right, then you've got this list. Now let's go through each one of them and identify the facts for and against the belief that this is a threat. So if your boss promoted somebody over you, that made you angry. Okay, well, let's look at the facts for and against why that happened. And what are you angry about? You know, do you feel like you're going to be stuck there forever and you're never going to get promoted? Well, what are the facts for and against that? You know, what about this situation is making you angry? And what are the facts that support that? Not the feelings. You know, you can have feelings, you can be angry, but then you can step back and you can look at the facts and go, well, you know, that guy had three more years seniority and, you know, another degree higher than I did, and, okay, it makes sense that he got promoted. Identify the probability that the issue is going to turn into a problem. Sometimes we start getting upset over something that we anticipate might happen. If your kids miss curfew, you may get really angry and start getting really worried that, oh, my gosh, they're dead in a ditch somewhere. Well, what is the probability that they are actually dead in a ditch somewhere? Pretty small. So look at the probability, and before you start getting yourself super worked up over it, figure out what the likely thing is to happen. And finally identify if it's an issue that's really worth your energy. Is getting angry or upset about this going to. Or even addressing it going to help me move towards things that are important? Or is it just something that's there and is it even something you can control? Some things you can't control. If you go to the doctor and you find out that you've got diabetes, you may feel really angry. All right, let's look at that. What are the facts that this is a threat? What are the facts that your life is over, for example? Well, you're probably not going to find a lot of facts supporting that. So when you start looking at the facts, it'll help you realize that, you know what, this is unfortunate. This is not what I wanted. But, you know, it's not the end of the world, so it helps you minimize that. What's the probability if you start getting worried about, you know, if I've got diabetes, then all these bad things are going to happen. What's the probability that all those bad things are going to happen if you adequately manage your diabetes? And is it something you can control? Well, yes and no. You can take care of it and follow the doctor's orders, so that can help control it, but you can't make it go away, you know, so getting angry and you know, fighting to try to make it go away is not going to probably work. So you want to identify the practical solutions. Now, some slightly harder steps you can start taking today. The first one is to get enough quality sleep. Now, I said the easy one was getting quality sleep. You know, anybody can find a three hour block, but enough quality sleep means seven to eight hours. Yep. You're like, I haven't had seven to eight hours sleep since I was in middle school. Well, think about it. If you can get seven to eight hours sleep and be fully rested and not being completely driven on caffeine and nicotine, how much easier would it be to concentrate? How much more energy would you have? How much faster would you get things done and more efficient would you be? So enough quality sleep can be a bonus. And when you're well rested, you tend to have a higher immune system, so you're not going to get sick as much, which will again make you more productive and happy. Develop self esteem so you're less afraid of rejection, isolation and failure. There are tons of books in the library on self esteem. It's really easy to find self esteem worksheets online. So you don't have to go to counseling necessarily for this. But a lot of times our threats, as I said earlier, center around rejection, isolation and failure. So those are things that trigger your anger if somebody says something nasty to you or rejects you in some way and it makes you angry. You know, maybe you need to look at that a little bit. Learn to view failure as a learning opportunity. I encourage you to Google famous quotes about overcoming failure, and you'll find some like, failure just teaches me one way not to do something. Everybody fails if they try. You can't succeed unless you failed at least once. Address unhelpful thoughts and the inner critic that are keeping you stuck. Now this is leaning more towards needing a coach or a counselor to probably help you identify some of those unhelpful thoughts and stuck points. Exercise at least four days a week. Now, this isn't hard to do, but it's hard to get the motivation to do it sometimes. So I put it under slightly harder Nurture your relationships. And that means schedule it in if you have to. And nurturing can come in many different forms. Not everybody expresses nurturance in the same way or receives it in the same way. The book the Five Love Languages and you can look at the wiki article and just get the highlights and that's plenty can give you really good information about ways to nurture your relationship. So for example, I'm not one that needs presence, you know, I'm not one that is stuff oriented. So I'm more people are better off expressing nurturance to me through acts of kindness and words of gratitude. Those mean a lot to me. Presence, you know, not so much. Now I have a friend who really likes presents and the present in his mind represents in many ways how much you care about him. So learn about the different love languages and try to identify how the people in your life communicate their love and need to be communicated to and start working on that. And finally, check your musts and have to's and prioritize. A lot of times, especially if you are really driven for success, you may often say I have to stay at work and get this done, I have to complete this project, I have to blah blah blah, step back, take that word out of your vocabulary whenever possible. A lot of times, you know, if it waits till tomorrow morning, that's fine. You know, it's not going to be that big of a deal. And if you find yourself overwhelmed with have dos in one area of your life and it's dominating your life, you may need to step back and look at time management and reprioritizing. I know I'm really guilty of taking on too many things at work, you know, and I would end up all of a sudden with four projects going on and then I felt like I had to do everything and it's important to pare it down and go what is the most important thing to help me keep moving towards the things that are important in my life? So depression, anxiety and addiction and even eating disorders impact millions of men each year. Prevention involves making sure to get quality sleep, good nutrition, adequate social support, develop an awareness and ability to communicate your needs and reactions. Counseling can help you identify and address some of the obstacles that might be keeping you safe. Stuck. And it's if you think about what are those trust building courses that you go out on? I can't think of the name of it right now. But even in tough Mudder and stuff, you work together as a team to overcome obstacles. That's all counseling is, you're overcoming obstacles. If you prefer a solution focused approach, look for a therapist who uses cognitive behavioral dialectical behavior therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy. Call them up and talk to them and make sure that, you know, men is a population that they're used to working with. Because the approach that many men prefer is different than the approach that many women prefer. Now. It's not true across the board, but it's important to communicate that to your therapist from the outset. What makes you comfortable, what makes you uncomfortable? What are you hoping counseling will look like and if it doesn't, if you don't connect, if it's not a good fit, your therapist won't take it personally or shouldn't you know, and can hopefully make a referral to someone who would be a better fit for you. There are a myriad of self help books and information out there. These, like this podcast, are not a substitute for professional help, but are excellent resources for education and early intervention so you can learn some of these tools that I've been talking about. Mental health issues can be caused by thoughts, situations and alterations in body chemistry, and this is the last time I'm going to say it, I promise. Getting a physical is one of the best places to start to rule out some of the easy fixes. If you like this podcast, connect with us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app. Join our facebook group@docsnipes.com Facebook or even join our community and access worksheets, books and weekly coaching with me, doc snipes. For $11 a week. Go to docsnipes.com services to learn more. Thanks for tuning in to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life affordable and accessible to everyone. We record the podcast during a Facebook Live broadcast each week. 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