Carl Hanson dives into mental health, distinguishing between mental health and mental illness, and discussing what overall wellness means. He also identifies perfectionism as a hindrance to emotional well-being. He acknowledges that we are not meant to be perfect in this life and suggests how we can use hardships as growth opportunities.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Carl Hanson is a professor of public health and former chair of the Department of Public Health at BYU. Prior to the chair appointment, he served as director of BYU’s master of public health program for six years. Prior to joining the faculty at BYU, he spent 11 years as a professor at Montana State University – Billings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in health science from BYU. His doctorate in community health education is from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Hanson has authored and co-authored numerous publications and presentations in the areas of computational health science, mental health, and substance abuse. He is the recipient of the BYU College of Life Sciences Faculty Distinguished Service Award and the Catherine Summerhays Distinguished Service Award. He and his wife Loraine reside in Spanish Fork and have four children and six grandchildren.
Listen to Hanson's recent speech at BYU titled "Something About Mental Health" for further insights on this topic.
Recorded, Edited & Produced by Paige Sherwood, Isabella Loosle, and Tanya Gale
Carl Hanson dives into mental health, distinguishing between mental health and mental illness, and discussing what overall wellness means. He also identifies perfectionism as a hindrance to emotional well-being. He acknowledges that we are not meant to be perfect in this life and suggests how we can use hardships as growth opportunities.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Carl Hanson is a professor of public health and former chair of the Department of Public Health at BYU. Prior to the chair appointment, he served as director of BYU’s master of public health program for six years. Prior to joining the faculty at BYU, he spent 11 years as a professor at Montana State University – Billings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in health science from BYU. His doctorate in community health education is from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Hanson has authored and co-authored numerous publications and presentations in the areas of computational health science, mental health, and substance abuse. He is the recipient of the BYU College of Life Sciences Faculty Distinguished Service Award and the Catherine Summerhays Distinguished Service Award. He and his wife Loraine reside in Spanish Fork and have four children and six grandchildren.
Listen to Hanson's recent speech at BYU titled "Something About Mental Health" for further insights on this topic.
Recorded, Edited & Produced by Paige Sherwood, Isabella Loosle, and Tanya Gale
Welcome to Why Health, a podcast brought to I'm Doctor Cougar Hall, a professor here at Brigham Young University. Whether you are a student, a parent, or a BYU fan, this podcast will help you navigate the world of public health. Our podcast strives to create an informative environment helping individuals receive accurate information regarding public health. So whether it's global or local, we will discuss how it pertains to you. Just kick back and relax as we talk about why Health. Dr. Carl Hansen, Welcome to Why Health.
Carl :It's good to be here. Can I have your
Cougar:No need for my autograph, my friend. But speaking of fame, you did a terrific job at a BYU forum, end of July. It's really why you're here. I would love for you to kind of rehash that and hit some of those main points about mental health, mental illness. First, though, do you mind just taking a minute and introducing yourself to our audience?
Carl :Yeah. Carl Hansen. I've been here at BYU for almost 18 years now and and came here from Montana State University where I where I taught health promotion and did a little administrative work up there as well. So I've been here a while. But prior to that, I'm a native of of Southern Oregon. And so Utah is a wonderful environment to do all the fun things that we used to do in Oregon. Love mountain biking. I'm a runner and and try try to practice what I preach, which is live a balanced lifestyle.
Cougar:Well, you've been a terrific colleague, and You really are an example of all the things you talked about in that forum address. And that's what I want to talk about this morning a little bit. Do you mind giving us a bit of the the overview for those that weren't able to hear that?
Carl :Yeah, we I talked mostly about that right out mental health. And that's something that we fear to do. Oftentimes there's a lot of stigma associated with it. And so I came out and I just threw out some stats with regards to mental illness. And there's a lot of people that struggle that even students on our own campus. And so there really is a need to be compassionate to to bring up this conversation and to talk about it more because there's things that we can do about that, right? I don't think that we need to be stuck in a hole if we have been diagnosed with a mental illness. And that really was the primary message I wanted to get across, was that we can do something about it. There's things that we can do in our lives. We can own our happiness. Really. That's the bottom line. You know, everyone wants to be happy. We want to enjoy our time here. And we can do that. But we may have to change our attitudes a little bit and ultimately our behaviors in order to make that happen. Right? Yeah. And so I talked about suicide really at the outset and just the extent to which that's a problem. And other mental illnesses, depression and anxiety is running rampant. And with our college populations we've seen over the past ten years or so, those rates significantly increase. And so it really is time the time is now for us to talk about it more and to do something about it because we can. Right. We can do something about it. And I think that's a message that we need to get across, is that we have the ability to do that as individuals. It's a whole person opportunity. The other message I was trying to convey is that, look, our context or our environments in which we live in can play a role too. And it's really important that we pay attention to that context. And so it's a whole campus for us here at BYU. It's a whole campus responsibility to think about that context and how it might be impacting all of us, all of our mental health. And so in a nutshell, that's that's where I went with that whole presentation. I wanted to get that message across that, Hey, look, we can be empowered, we should be empowered, we should have confidence that we can own our own mental health despite what we've been diagnosed with. And we can move forward with confidence that we can do something about it. We can be happy in our lives. Right. And also, secondly, that look, as an institution here, there's things that we probably can do as an institution to help support that whole person opportunity.
Cougar:Yeah, it was so timely and it's interesting, I don't think there's a population that's immune to the challenges to mental health right now. You know, we are so blessed to be here to work with BYU students, but colleges are pressure cooker. Yeah, it really is. And it hurts to see our students. It hurts us. They our loved ones deal with mental health challenges and mental illness. You distinguish between those two things mental health and mental illness in your in your address and I had. I don't think I had heard that distinction before. Do you mind just covering that real quick for me?
Carl :No, that's that's really good. And this isn't a distinction that I came up with, Right. The literature is is full of some of this kind of conversation when it comes to mental illness and mental health. But oftentimes, we we pit those two things against each other on the same continuum. And what I tried to do in the presentation was say, no, that's that. We shouldn't be looking at it that way. Right? We should have mental illness on its own continuum and mental health on its own continuum so that we can think about it differently. We can think about achieving optimal mental health despite the fact that we may have been diagnosed with a mental illness or not. Right. And so I love that thinking, because I think that can empower everybody, despite the fact that they may have been diagnosed with a mental illness or not. And so this idea of optimal mental health, I think that's really powerful. A researcher out there by the name of Corey Keyes talked about the differences between optimal mental health and languishing. And he coined that the opposite of optic mental health languishing. Right. And so it's this idea that, man, we we oftentimes struggle In his research, he noticed that there was a lot of people that were struggling out there to maintain optimal mental health that weren't diagnosed as mentally ill. And so that's a really interesting concept. I think we have many of us have experienced languishing, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic, where we just came out of that with a massive feeling of BLAH, as all of many of our freedoms were taken away from us and we lost time at work, maybe we were experiencing death and family or amongst friends, you know, that kind of thing that led to this, this feeling of just blahness. Right. And so but on the other side of that continuum, Keyes pointed out that people that aren't experiencing those feelings of blah. Are flourishing. There are individuals that are achieving optimal mental health. They're individuals that have meaning and purpose in their life. They have positive emotions They're able to give back to their community. And so I think that's just a really powerful idea. If we can separate this idea of mental illness from optimal mental health, put it on its own continuum, and then think about it in terms of, well, optimal mental health or flourishing versus not optimal optimal mental health and languishing and where am I on that continuum and what might I need to do to move closer towards flourishing?
Cougar:Yeah, I love that. I love that we can start to look at mental illness and a diagnosis with a particular mental illness and recognize, okay, I may have that diagnosis, but I can still flourish.
Carl :That's right.
Cougar:There may be some unique challenges and And this idea, this is a concept that I sometimes talk to my students about, which is not putting life on hold pending the resolution of some particular problem or health challenge.
Carl :Well, Cougar, let me let me let me jump in want to forget the fact that people with mental illness really do need you know, they need treatment services. Right? They really need that treatment. And so despite the fact that we're talking about this idea of optimal mental health being on a whole different continuum, we don't want to lose sight of those individuals that are really struggling with mental illness and need treatment services. And so and we recognize in public health, you know, as public health guys, we know that a significant portion of our population does not have access or won't go because of the stigma associated with mental health, with mental illness. Right. And so I don't want to lose sight of that. If there are individuals that are listening to us here today that may be really, really struggling with their their mental their mental health in general, they may need some treatment services. They may need help that comes from our health care system. And so highly encourage those folks to go and talk with a professional. But all of us can jump on board with this idea of strengthening ourselves mentally and moving towards optimal mental health.
Cougar:Love it. Yeah. As a side note, years ago, one of our colleagues, Ray Merrill, did a study on mental health looking at a population of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And some of that was really positive. It was like, Hey, these are some very resilient people. They have high expectations for life satisfaction and joy.
Carl :Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Cougar:But one of the take homes, one of the things like prayer, talking to an ecclesiastical leader when sometimes they need professional help.
Carl :Yeah.
Cougar:And so you and I have had a few You've served as as a bishop or as leader of a congregation to a family ward and presently bishop of a university ward. You've probably had experiences along those lines. Yeah. Anything you can say about this mentality of I have the restored gospel in my life, so I should be happy. And if I'm not happy, it must be. I'm not living worthy or there's sin or there's transgression or I just need to pray harder. I'm throwing you a curve ball because this is not part of what we're going to talk about this morning.
Carl :Yeah, yeah. No, that's really good.
Cougar:Any insights there that you've gained?
Carl :Well, you know, in my presentation, I talked right out of the chute. I wanted to be careful that that we don't link sin with mental illness. Right. And so I acknowledge that. And I think we all need to be thinking about that, because if we're connecting those two, I think we might be misguided. There individuals who are really struggling emotionally, mentally, go to a professional. Let's get that checked out right. If we automatically jump to, Hey, it's because I've sinned in some way, I think we might be missing the mark there on that one. So we want to be careful of that one. One of the things that I think is I see and I've seen in in many of my congregations is individual individuals that come in and they're they're really struggling with this idea of perfectionism. I think the gospel of Jesus Christ, sometimes it leads us to think that we've got to be perfect in the here and now. But one of the messages that I was trying to get across is that, hey, you know, that's an eternal thing, right? That's something that is really, really long term for us to be perfect. And it ain't going to happen right now. So when we when it comes to wellness and when it comes to optimal mental health, the best thinking is that we are focusing on the quest, we're focusing on the journey. We're focusing on moving down the road in a positive direction where ultimately, someday, not even in this life will achieve perfection. I think that's a really powerful message that we've got to talk about more, that it's. Not going to happen in the here and now, and that we've got to be okay with not being perfect and even the little details of our lives. You know, I was at an event last night and I pulled into this vent and we came out and I got a parking ticket. I'm like, wait a minute, what the heck? And what's going on with that? I was I was so bummed out, you know, it wasn't perfect, even how I could park the car. And we can spend our lives beating ourselves up over the little things or the big things in in that, you know, the things in which we are not perfect at. You know, that's not that's not wellness. Wellness is the idea that we're focusing on that quest and the journey and that sometimes we're going to fail. And I think that's a message that's powerful for not just students here, but for people anywhere. And I think that can help us be mentally well towards optimal mental health.
Cougar:Oh, I totally agree.
Carl :Oh, and by the way, yeah, you know, we've And and the correlation is really strong between students that have a higher perfectionism score and those that are clinical depression or clinical anxiety. Those scores are higher. So there's a very positive correlation between those two. So we've got to get a grip on it, right. If we want to be optimally, optimally mental, mentally, well, that perfection is an idea is really important to think about. And it's something that I see all the time in my congregations and it's a conversation that I have.
Cougar:No, I totally understand too. I think I've been there and I think there's a real challenge, which is to to want to always be improving, to have a growth mindset. And yet also and you mention this in your devotional address, also extend compassion to ourselves. It's interesting as disciples of Christ, this is our charge is to mourn with those who mourn and comfort, those who stand in need of comfort. We have been taught by an example, by the savior to be compassionate, to be understanding, to be forgiving, to extend GRACE. Yeah. And I think our campus is remarkably does remarkably well at that. Except we don't except we don't we don't extend it to ourselves. And faculty are in that same boat, too, by the way. It's not just a thing when you're a student. It's so difficult to extend that to yourself when you have high expectations for your own behavior, Right, When you have an achievement and a growth mindset. So how important it was, I thought that you mentioned that and and that was right as you started to talk about some of the things that we could do. And and you talked about different faculty members across campus, different experts, and you called them a wellness wise expert.
Carl :Wellness wise pros.
Cougar:Pros. Thank you. I thought that was terrific because so often we talk about mental health. It's just it's just the data, It's the numbers. It's the one in three, it's the one in four. And it it can be a little bit of the sky is falling. Yeah. What you did that I saw appreciated was you focused on some things that we can do to find a balance. And even if we are struggling in a few areas, here's how we work through that and we navigate that. Yeah, let's, let's shift gears, if that's okay. Let's talk about some of those wellness wise Pro tips. Is that okay? Do you have one you want to start with?
Carl :No, that's really good. No, I appreciate that because I think that's exactly right. We've got to hang our hat on something. You know, what is going to get us towards optimal mental health? You know what's going to move us in that direction. And by the way, the model that I throw out there is nothing new. Right? But I think we forgot about it or we've got a whole new generation that's coming up that, you know, isn't quite familiar with this stuff. Right. I think back in the old days, you and I going through school, I mean, we heard this stuff at nauseam, but some of our wellness classes that are not a part of our curriculum anymore, you know, we're not asked to our students aren't asked to take those all of our students as a part of compulsory education, even in our public schools. And so I think we've lost some of that thinking. But these ideas are not new. But when we think about wellness like we've already talked about, first part of it is the quest you focus on the quest, right? So important, not on the perfection right out of the chute. That's something that I think is really important, but also balance. It's a balanced lifestyle. So those two things, those two principles, so important when it comes to moving towards optimal mental health. And then I throw out, well, what are those domains? Right? And I think those are really powerful, whether it's physical, it's spiritual, it's intellectual, it's social, it's emotional. And for BYU students, it's financial and intellectual, right? Those those areas are, I think, really important for our students to consider, but probably for everyone to consider, not just here. Right. And so I when you this model of wellness, like I say, nothing new, but it has more of an emphasis on the physical domain, dimension domain. And I don't think anybody listening today is going to argue that paying attention to our physical health or physical wellness isn't important. It is. But some things have come up over the past ten years that have emphasized the areas that we may want to focus more on. You know, you probably need to be active, but eating well is really important to and then the literature is starting to grow. On the importance of sleep and what that does for brain health, right? And so those three things as far as physical wellness, I think are critically important. And our wellness pro jumped out there and that's what he was chewing on, right? He was talking about Nathan Orange. You've got to think about those three things. And if you're not, you potentially may not be as mentally well as you could be.
Cougar:Yeah. Oh man. So years ago when I first started in health education and I recognized that my students, their goal was not to show up to class that day, to learn, you know, to reach their long term goals. It was to survive until 215 when they could go home and sleep. We literally had it. We've had generations of young people. And today they do this and they go home and they you know, I didn't listen to my math teacher. I got on YouTube. And that's that's where I learned how to do algebra or trigonometry. So I think sleep might be the most important thing we talk about in the realm of physical health. Like I'm I'm down with nutrition, I'm down with physical activity. I appreciate public health talking about vaccinations and child safety. And all of those things are very important. I think sleep might be the one that we have neglected that impacts every aspect of our health. So I so appreciate it when you mentioned that. That's terrific.
Carl :Well, you know, one thing we haven't talked you know, there's a lot of stress that that we experience in our lives, right? Distress and chronic stress that may come into our lives. And one who is optimally mentally well is one who has learned how to cope with that, somebody who's more resilient. Right. And so these principles, these domain areas, I think, are really powerful in helping us cope with the well, let's just say it, the crap that comes at us in our lives. Right. And it well, you know, for our students, that may be the stress of final exams time and just all of that stuff that's coming at us. And we're trying to balance that in our life at the time. But one way to really help cope with some of those stressors is to think about all these domains and what we can do in each of those areas that will help us just deal with the crap that's coming at us in our lives. Right. You know, I can't tell you how powerful it is for me during times of stress to just go out and run. You know, physical activity is really powerful for me personally. It may not be for everybody, but for me, that's one way that I can really cope. And it's an important part of my balanced lifestyle that may look different for somebody else. But during an exam time or something like that, taking time to think about that balance and what I can do, if I can take a little bit of time off the side of my studying to get out there and exercise that can help me cope with the demands of finals.
Cougar:It's so true. Speaking of finals, I think stress of finals. You don't have enough time to do the things you normally do, whether that's meal prep and nutrition or physical activity or a little R&R. I really appreciated that. You talked about that in your in your devotional too. And yeah, and in fact, you mentioned Dr. Sapolsky at Stanford and he's like, that's my number one man crush, right? This guy is amazing.
Carl :Why zebras don't get ulcers.
Cougar:Yeah. He talked so much about the importance are going to be there and we can lean in. We need to lean into those, but we also need that that outlet and to do something for ourselves every day, even if just for a few minutes. So I have seen students during finals week, all that routine, all those things that they normally do for wellness go out the door. And then what happens four or five days into this, right? It's been nothing but the sympathetic nervous system or just pumping adrenaline and go, go, go and cortisol. And then the immune system says, you can't do this to me anymore. And we shut down and we go home. Ironically, you go home after finals for Christmas or for the summer and you're sick as a dog. And so all of this is connected. It's interesting as you're talking, I'm just realizing, yeah, it's all connected. And we've known that, like you said, we we knew that 20 or 30 years ago and we talked about that. But I think something and maybe health care is to blame because we are now super specialized and we're and we're siloed in each of these disciplines and domains of health care. But when it comes back to wellness, to reconnect those things and recognize, hey, your physical health is that's impacted by your mental and emotional health and your spiritual and your social.
Carl :These things are not mutually exclusive. They are all connected. And maybe one quick example. I mentioned that I'm a runner. You know, I, I receive strength not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually and otherwise, even intellectually, when when I'm out on a run doing that one activity, if I'm doing it with others, I that's my that's part of my social network. Right. So one simple example, but these are not mutually exclusive domain areas and and they all blend together, but I think we separate them out. Yeah. Just for simplicity sake and for an opportunity to say, Hey, look, how am I doing in each one of these areas? And do I need to focus a little more on the other one? And I like what you said also that, you know, we need we need to pay attention to these. But truth be known, I mean, there's times during our week and maybe it is during final time when we need to set one of these on the burner for a little bit just so we can get through finals. Right. But if there's a way to reach out on that emotional domain or that physical domain to help us get through the finals during that time, that's good to. But if we neglect them all the time, if we never have a spiritual peace to our life, that's a problem. That's a problem, Right. Or a physical peace to our life. And we see that in public health. And what that does to people when they're not active or whatever.
Cougar:Yeah, so true. I mean, truthfully, our body systems, weather nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system are really well prepared to handle, you know, short term or what we might call transient stress. We are designed for the three minute to 30 minute stress response. Right. But finals week is.
Carl :The chronic stuff.
Cougar:Yeah. And we've been talking about finals we are, we do not handle chronic stress well.
Carl :And allostatic load stuff. Right.
Cougar:And that and that connection to chronic because I didn't sleep well but the chronic stress and that link So so we really do need to balance and find that balance and find our outlets and recover. I love that. And we found that again, I'm I'm talking too much. I'm supposed to be asking you questions, Carl, but I loved how you talked about the pandemic and that and that disconnect socially. And it wasn't just that we were quarantining or trying to be isolated. It was more it was it was we felt at odds with some of our neighbors because we had different perspectives of the things going on at the time.
Carl :George Floyd Oh, no kidding.
Cougar:A really contentious election, whether we
Carl :I think the majority of us felt that that Yeah, because of the pandemic and everything else that was going on.
Cougar:And I wonder if there's not a positive there, importance of all of that social support and those connections prior to that. And certainly I didn't in the midst of that. But now coming out, hopefully we can all like community, global wise, recognize we we need each other.
Carl :How important that was. Yeah. When we lose it, we don't appreciate it until it's gone. Right. And I think that was certainly the case with our social relationships. And I saw that in my congregation where we couldn't go and a lot of times we were having church through Zoom, you know? Sure. You know, that's just not quite the same when it comes to building and establishing social relationships. And so we need to be together.
Cougar:Yeah, I love it. I love it. Let me I don't want to take all your time this morning. There's a there's a couple of nuggets that I want you to share along those lines of the wellness wise, the wellness wise pros. You've hit the physical, the sleep, the nutrition, the physical activity. And I think you would add that as far as that perfectionism, like, you do what you can. So for Carl, that may look like a ten mile run in the morning, but for others that might look like, oh, I'm going to go for a brisk walk, I'm going to park I'm going to park the car a little bit further away from the store. When I go shopping today, like start where you are. But we need to do something there.
Carl :I do something. Yeah. And you need to do something in all these areas. And even when you think about emotional health, there's so much in the literature on what we can do in this space. And there's, there's, there's wonderful resources in how we can strengthen our emotional health. But what are we doing? Are we doing anything at all? I think that's probably one of the most neglected areas of all of these domains. You know, it's it's a little easier for us to think about that. You've got to go out and be active in some way. But being active emotionally and doing things to strengthen our own mind and mentally and emotionally so that we can cope. We don't pay nearly as much attention to that one. And there are some wonderful resources out there that I think we could you can pursue to do that kind of stuff.
Cougar:I love that. Just that that approach of. Always, Always wanting to learn. Always wanting to develop. Looking at at our challenges and our stresses in life as growth opportunities, even the crises in life. And that's what we're talking about. We talk about mental illness and we're talking about some of the you keep saying crap, some of the stuff that just really comes our way, you know? But but looking at those opportunities as opportunities for growth. So crisis is growth and and maybe as disciples of Christ. Opportunities to really dig deep, to pray with greater intent, to study the scriptures with greater intent and draw closer to our savior during those times. That's the spiritual growth that can happen simultaneously there.
Carl :Love that.
Cougar:This has been awesome, Carl, and I'm talking I apologize that I'm really passionate about. Well, you're.
Carl :An expert in this area, too, right? I mean, this is your space. And I know you've done a lot of work in this area of mind body health. You teach a class in that area. So it totally makes sense. Cougar.
Cougar:It just makes sense on a lot of levels to influential and it all matters. All these experiences and all the things that we can do to regain balance. Yeah, So. What are you doing right now, whether for balance or for growth? What are you reading right now? That's that's typically the question I end with Karl, to be honest. You want to know what what you're reading or what you're listening to or what you're doing to to be a lifelong learner, so to speak.
Carl :Yeah, Well, as a college professor, it's kind domain because you're always in that space where you're striving to learn, write, and so thankful for that, thankful for that opportunity that we can do that as a part of our jobs. But one of the areas that well, this this is one of the areas right over the past couple of years I've been really diving more into the literature, especially in positive psychology. You know, that's been around a while, but it's relatively a new part of positive psychology. And so I've been reviewing a lot of the literature in that in that space for the for the past couple of years now. And of course, the father of positive psychology is Martin Seligman. And, you know, and some other researchers associated with with him and the work that he's been doing. So a couple of the books that I've dove into are his write. Those are the classics, Authentic Happiness, that came out in 2002 as well as Flourish, which came out in 2011. And so, you know, obviously that influenced my thinking a little bit with regards to what I talked about. But again, Corey Keyes and some of his work with regards to flourishing has influenced my thinking there as well. But one of the really powerful things that Seligman has come out with is this idea, well, it's another wellness model, right? We can think about these balance domain areas and the quest for balancing our life and striving for being our best self. That's the wellness idea. Or we can think about what Seligman talks about in terms of PERMA, that acronym, which I think is also really powerful. So whereas wellness has this more of a physical emphasis on the physical side of things, we see that we see that even in our own campus where our wellness program tends to be down in the gym, you know, but it's bigger than that. We acknowledge that there's these more domain areas. But Seligman in his work, talks about PERMA, which is a little bit more of an emphasis on the emotional domain. And so PERMA is simply an acronym that represents positive emotions in our life engagement, relationships, having positive relationships, establishing meaning and purpose, and then striving for a sense of accomplishment in our life. And so in each of those, I guess you could call those domain areas too. We can think about what might we need to do in each of those areas to move towards optimal mental health for, for example, positive emotions. What can we do to build positive emotions in our life? And I love the thought and I've done this myself and I, you know, it works. It really works. And that is focus on the positive right focuses. Focus on what you're grateful for, Take time at the end of every day and just count your blessings, so to speak. And if you pull up that little app, the notes app and your cell phone and just list three things that went well today, close it and then do the same every night at the end of the day, man, what a powerful way to bring positive emotions in your life. You do that for the course of three days to a week and you'll start seeing changes in how you're thinking. And so Seligman and some of his work really has changed my thinking and what we might need to do on the emotional side in this emotional domain to move forward in a positive way and be optimally mentally. Well, but all of these other domain, we could talk about them, but I love that stuff. And yeah, it's come out a few years ago, you know, 2011. But we need it right now, right? The stuff that we're dealing with in our lives as students, as individuals in our community, we need that stuff.
Cougar:I love.
Carl :It. Can I tell you about one other one? Yeah.
Cougar:These are a tried and true principles.
Carl :This I mean.
Cougar:The principle of gratitude. We all know this, how that changes the whole lens in which we see our world and how we explain what's happened to ourselves or what we've experienced that day.
Carl :Yeah.
Cougar:Remarkable. Yeah. You keep talking. I'm here all day.
Carl :No, no, no, no. Well, I'd encourage people to Right. Or to look at other literature on perma. Interestingly, more recently, Perma has some of, some of the researchers out there have added a plus sign behind that because it has lacked a little bit more of the physical domain. And so the plus includes that sleep, nutrition and physical activity kind of stuff. So perma plus is really a strong, well wellbeing wellness model that we can think about. Another read that I've gotten pretty excited about Cougar is a book by Buettner on on the Blue Zones and this has been out a little while too, right? So this isn't stuff that's just hitting the market, I think that came out in 2017. But, you know, he. He was focusing on these areas of the country. And you're probably aware of all this where where people live to be 100, right. These blue zones. And and what is it about those people that contribute to their living to 100 and why are they so happy? And I love some of the things that are rolled out in in in that in that textbook. And so I commend that as well. But it's stuff a lot of the stuff we've already talked about, people that have meaning and purpose in their life, right? People that eat well, you know, those kinds of things. People that have really strong connections with others, people that have some kind of spiritual connection that go to church, you know, those kinds of things really powerful and are contributing to people living longer lives. So love that. The other thing about Buettner, his work is, is he talks about, you know what, this stuff is really easy to do in blue zone communities. So our context is so incredibly important into the areas in which we live and grow and and work and all those kind of things influence how we individually behave. Because it is it's, it's a it's a, it is an individual responsibility, but. Our context and where we live is so important to influencing our behaviors, Right? So I love what he talks about there. And in the literature and positive psychology, there's more discussion about positive institutions and what can institutions do to help support, you know, positive behaviors in individuals. And so I love that thinking. And that's that comes out of some of his work, too. Those are just a couple of areas. I know those are a little in the past, but those are those are books I've read or recently and pondered over.
Cougar:Those are great. Carl. I've got to get each of those books now and and start cracking. So thank you so much for sharing your experience, your wisdom. Really appreciate all the work that went into your forum address. I mean, that's a months long project. That's a fair amount of chronic stress for you. And but but your.
Carl :Experience.
Cougar:It was a.
Carl :Growth.
Cougar:Experience, right? Yes. And it really has benefited a lot of people, including myself. So much gratitude, my friend. And thanks for joining us here on here.
Carl :Thank you.
Cougar:Have a great day. You too. Thank you for joining us today. Catch us on our next episode. And don't forget to subscribe to future Why Health Episodes.