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Ep. 11: Bonus episode: Bitesize Hacks to Support Teenage Mental Health, with Dr Lee David GP
129 Plays4 years ago
In this bonus episode I talk to Lee David, a GP with a specialist interest in young people's mental health, and in using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help with anxiety and depression.
I chatted to Lee about how distressing the Covid 19 pandemic is for teenagers and young adults; many have had the rug pulled out from under them, missing exams, proms, and important rituals of moving on from school. Lots more are missing education at an important stage of their lives, and worrying about what their next steps - university, 6th form, or job security - are going to look like.
There's so much that's unknown for our teens right now, and to add insult to injury they've lost their social freedom, and control over their own lives. That's incredibly unsettling at an already quite stressful point in their lives.
Lee talked me through her free online programme, and what parents and teens can do to conquer any difficult emotions they might be feeling due to the lockdown and coronavirus pandemic. Best of all, Lee's strategies can all be completed in 10 minutes or less - totally bitesize! I tried the programme myself and found it really easy to run through, and I've added some of Lee's tips in to my daily stress-management.
Lee is a director of 10 Minute CBT, an educational organisation that provides training to help GPs and other health professionals use bite-sized skills from evidence-based psychological therapies in their routine consultations.
Lee is also the author of a textbook for GPs and is co-writing a new book for teenagers on 10 Minute Steps to wellbeing, to be published later this year.
You can find Lee's website at www.10minuteCBT.co.uk and the introductory video programme: 10 Minute Steps to Survive Lockdown for young people and parents to understand emotional wellbeing and ways to encourage positive mental health.
What's coming next?
Thank you so much for listening! Subscribe now to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear about the new series when it begins. I'll be talking to some fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, dealing with dyslexia, and battling an eating disorder - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.
I'd love it if you'd rate and review the podcast on iTunes too - it would really help other people to find it. You can also find more from me on parenting teenagers on my blog Actually Mummy, and on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
For information on your data privacy please visit Podcast.co. Please note that I am not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast and to this bonus episode with Lee David. Lee is a GP with an interest in teenage mental health and CBT, that's cognitive behavioral therapy for those that haven't
Supporting Families during Quarantine with CBT
00:00:20
Speaker
tried it. She's developed a program to help families support their children during quarantine. So I'm really focused on what works quickly and effectively in little bite-sized pieces.
00:00:34
Speaker
10-minute steps to survive lockdown is a simple, straightforward and bite-size, most importantly, look at using CBT to manage emotional health problems. Is that right? Have I got that right, Lee? Absolutely right. Yes, Helen, you got it completely right. Yes! I have been through the course. I've done all of it, actually.
00:00:59
Speaker
Fantastic. So what did you take away? You know, what were your, what points do you think stood out for you? Gosh.
The Host's Experience with CBT
00:01:08
Speaker
No, you're putting me on the spot. Do you know what? Cause I've done some CBT in the past for myself. I used to struggle with very severe insomnia and it went on for a decade and it was nightly.
00:01:22
Speaker
and CBT changed my life so I'm a massive believer in it and I have no sleep problems now but for me what your course
00:01:35
Speaker
says is that this doesn't need to be meaty, it doesn't need to be daunting or overwhelming in any way and you can just literally spend five minutes, I think some of them are seven or ten minutes but maximum ten and some of them are five minutes, just reframing how you think about the things that are bothering you, is that how you describe it?
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think for me, it's all about giving tools for young people and their parents, for all of us really, to just understand what am I going through right now? And what do I need to do about it? You know, how can I make sense of what's happening to me?
00:02:20
Speaker
What is happening to me? How can I name? Can I give it some name? Can I label it? And a big part of what we do is just framing it by just giving it a name. So maybe naming an emotion, naming some thoughts, just labeling, I'm thinking this and having the urge to do something which may or may not be helpful. And so just the more aware we are of those patterns, the more control we have over our own wellbeing.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah do you know what I'm struck by you using the word control there because I feel like especially for teenagers they've gone from some of them kind of middle and older teenagers just starting to have independence and control over their own lives decisions that they're allowed to make now for themselves to influence their lives
00:03:12
Speaker
and that's
Teenagers' Emotional Impact during Pandemic
00:03:13
Speaker
just suddenly been taken away from them. They now have no choice in what they decide to do in terms of what they normally would want to be doing. There's no going out, there's no, I mean for the GCSE year 13, the GCSE and AE level
00:03:34
Speaker
cohort they've had the rug pulled out from under them nothing is as they expected it to be. Absolutely and so really one of the emotions that I think we really need to acknowledge is that for many people there's a sense of grief and it's a which means loss you know it's a loss of something that you're not going to get back and they are that a lot of these losses are things that can't be recovered
00:03:56
Speaker
and that's you know it's a really tough experience now it doesn't mean that you know wallowing in that is helpful but it's still really important to acknowledge i'm having these feelings of loss and just being aware of that you know when we lose somebody important
00:04:12
Speaker
It's so important that we're able to recognise that and allow ourselves to feel it and then choose what behaviour we're going to do that's going to be most healthy and most helpful. Because the other thing that we can't control is we can't control our feelings.
00:04:27
Speaker
and we can't control our thoughts. You can't stop yourself feeling anxious, worried, low, fed up, all of those things. And you can't stop maybe worried thoughts or frustrated thoughts popping into the mind every now and again.
Controlling Responses vs. Controlling Emotions
00:04:40
Speaker
And so really what you can control is what you do, how you respond and how you behave. And for me, that's really the central part of our programme which makes it much more achievable is it's picking really small things to do
00:04:55
Speaker
that give you back a sense of control over life? That's a really good point actually. I know that you can't control your emotions and I know as a parent
00:05:07
Speaker
Quite often you want to control your children's emotions, you want to stop them from having the outburst or from being moody and sulky. But saying that you can't control your thoughts as well, that's a kind of light bulb for me. We do a daily dog walk, I insist.
00:05:26
Speaker
force my kids to get out in the fresh air. So just one session a day. And we do, at that point, after all the grumpiness about going out, rejoin
A Mother's Perspective on Pandemic Challenges
00:05:38
Speaker
and talk. But what I hear from my daughter on almost every walk, and she's nearly 16, is how her life has been ruined by this pandemic, how everything that she was looking forward to is canceled,
00:05:53
Speaker
And it's just not fair. And she's, and she's being really good. She's not fighting any of the, any of the decisions, but she's, she's stuck in a kind of negativity over it all. What would you say is the right thing to do for her or for these kids who've lost all their expectations of their summer?
00:06:17
Speaker
Well, I think it's going back to just recognising what is the feeling, you know, and if she's having feelings of sadness, frustration, anger, hurt, you know, maybe a bit of worry. So lots of feelings there and just naming those is really important. And then acknowledging, you know,
00:06:38
Speaker
they're valid and they're important and so as a parent often we're really tempted to do stuff to try to stop these difficult feelings in our children because we don't want them to feel bad of course you know it's completely understandable but actually it may be okay to allow the difficult feeling and in some ways that might be more healthy than trying to shut it down too quickly and then with those thoughts I mean something that you know
00:07:06
Speaker
the thoughts come and they go. And people often think about cognitive therapy, about CVT, about changing the thoughts, about having a more positive spin on the thoughts. And that is one part of it. But what I found more helpful for quick CVT, because my background is as a GP, is that I also teach other GPs to use very brief bits of CVT in their usual 10-minute consultations. So I'm really focused on what works
00:07:35
Speaker
quickly and effectively a little bite-sized pieces rather than having a whole hour for everybody, although I do do sort of formal CVT as well with young people. But an
CBT Exercise for Reframing Negative Thoughts
00:07:47
Speaker
exercise I sometimes do when thoughts are getting just a bit out of control and they're a bit kind of negative and a bit stuck, you're stuck in these kind of worry patterns, is that you can actually write them out, you can put them, stick them on sticky labels and just stick them all over the place and it
00:08:03
Speaker
does something called distance, it's cognitive diffusion, it diffuses, it helps you to reduce the power of the thought so it becomes less overwhelming. And I've actually, quite a fun thing to do is to play it. So my son was just getting really frustrated and annoyed about learning something, he plays a violin and he was just getting really annoyed about it. And he's quite a lot younger, but he was like, this is so annoying, this is stupid. So I got,
00:08:30
Speaker
a voice changer, a voice changer app on my phone, downloaded it. And then we just, and I got him to say those thoughts into it. So this is stupid. This is point. I can't do it. I'm never going to get there. And then we, we played it back as Darth Vader. We changed all the, and so it was like, you know, saying, this is stupid, you know, and all sorts of funny voices. And he started to laugh, number one.
00:08:54
Speaker
And it breaks the kind of cycle where the thought is absolute fact. It's the only way to look at the world. Humours is brilliant because the minute you get some humour, you're looking at two sides and that is starting to break down the power of the thought.
00:09:11
Speaker
and so he was like oh and and then after a while we did a bit of mini mindfulness so we did a kind of five senses exercise where i just got him to what can you hear what can you see what can you feel in your you know your feet or hands okay can we have another go um remember you can control your behavior even if your thoughts are out you know spiraling even if your emotions are high but you can still choose what to do right now um and so those two things i thought
00:09:40
Speaker
you can certainly do that as a way of kind of helping to break some of the cycles
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, oh, humour for sure. Actually, somebody once, when I was talking on Facebook about being very stressed about something, he sent me something called a Dalek relaxation tape, but it's Daleks telling you to breathe deeply. And it's so hilarious. It never fails to just diffuse that tension. And then you can take a step to move back into the situation in a different headspace.
00:10:10
Speaker
exactly and so sometimes it's just breaking the state when you get stuck and you're on the record and it's that same old same old um you know sometimes i call it the disaster movie playing you know if you're a bit anxious and it's and i'll say it's like carrying around
00:10:28
Speaker
a huge great big screen that you're watching and getting too caught up in and you've got this massive screen and it's playing in full Technicolor and it's really loud and surrounds and you've got your headphones on and that's all you're looking at and so what we're trying to do you can't turn it off you can't just say oh think positively don't take because that just doesn't work but what you can do is to
00:10:55
Speaker
helps start to shrink it down you can start to step away from it you can see it from a different angle and eventually you can kind of shrink down the size of the screen to phone sized and then so it's still playing you know still saying oh this bad stuff's gonna happen
00:11:10
Speaker
you know whatever it's saying and but you can tuck it in your pocket then and you can still go and do whatever is most important for you to do so it's back to behaviour you can still control that even when it's even when you're still worried even when you've still got difficult feelings or whatever you can you can still go in the direction of what's important
00:11:30
Speaker
yeah and minimize it literally so that it's still you can't ever get away from what's going on at the moment but you can minimize it so that you can continue with some normal things or things that you enjoy. I like the idea of writing it down and sticking it on post-it notes. Is that kind of similar to
00:11:52
Speaker
journaling at night. I have a notepad by my bed because when my brain is supposed to be empty, which is the trigger that lying down in my bed is, it suddenly gets really full of things that I need to remember to do the next day. And if I write them down, or things that are bothering me, if I write them down, it's almost like a physical way to leave them alone for a few hours while I sleep. Would you say it's a similar thing?
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And it's about kind of separating it out, getting it out of your head somehow, giving it a little bit of its own space. And so it's not you. And I think what it's worth remembering is that these thoughts that can crowd our heads and people often come
00:12:37
Speaker
to me for therapy and say, you know, my brain is so full of these, I just need to get rid of them. I've got to get rid of all the worry thoughts. And it's like, actually, they are what make you amazing. You know, all that thinking, all that brain work is what makes us human. And actually, it's one of your skills, you know, all that amazing stuff you're thinking. So it's not a bad thing to have a busy brain, but it's how do we use that? How do we channel it?
00:13:07
Speaker
People sometimes think mindfulness is about emptying the mind and kind of somehow getting rid of all of that stuff and being, you know, clear. But the reality is, certainly for me, I just have to take it all with me, you know, and there's loads of junk going on in my head all the time and lots of emotions as well. But I think it's about being aware what that is.
00:13:29
Speaker
and then being able to choose how to respond to it effectively so that you function in the world in a way that works for you. Yeah. Okay. I really like that way of looking at it, that it makes you an interesting, fascinating, smart person. I like that. That's a good way of reframing something, because actually you can get really worried about the amount of worries that are going on in your head, can't you, and think you're not right somehow, and that's just not the case.
00:13:58
Speaker
You just need to accept that that is who you are. So my kids tell me that they're not worried about getting coronavirus or dying of it and so far we don't personally, luckily, know anyone who has died.
00:14:19
Speaker
But I know there are a lot of people and probably lots of young people out there who are nervous about especially now coming out of lockdown a little bit and coming back into contact with other people.
Predicted Rise in Mental Health Issues Post-Lockdown
00:14:34
Speaker
Do you see anxieties increasing over the next few months, few weeks as we come out of it?
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's predicted that actually mental health problems are likely to increase as we come out of lockdown. And that I suspect people haven't been necessarily they've been dealing with it at home alone. And it's going to become more as especially as it's starting to come back out. And the risk is kind of creeping up. It's, you know, one of the things when people get anxious, they tend to behave by trying to avoid what they're anxious about.
00:15:09
Speaker
And so lockdown kind of keeps that going, doesn't it? Because it shuts you away from all the risk and for a while that works. But obviously in the long term, it's not helpful for your life to be shut away at home. There will be a period of time that we have to do it and certain people will have to do it for longer than others because they're more vulnerable, for example. So the pathway out of it will vary for different people. And so that can be difficult because it's not clear
00:15:38
Speaker
exactly what we should or shouldn't do and so some of this is about managing uncertain times as opposed to knowing exactly what the answers are yes that's a really good point actually because albeit we don't enjoy being stuck in our homes with everybody and not having space and not having normal things in our lives it feels safe
00:16:01
Speaker
And the next step feels more dangerous, even though it feels more fun. So what would you say to a teenager or even a parent who might be really fearful of this now and are beginning to ramp up their anxiety? How would they use CBT to, or what practical tips can you give them for keeping that manageable?
00:16:25
Speaker
Well, I would go back. So we've developed a sort of four stage simplified model for how you can cope with all different feelings and anxiety is definitely one of those. And it's called face COVID. And there's four steps of a face, F-A-C-E. And those four steps I think are really helpful. And they're kind of like a guide that kind of take you through
00:16:50
Speaker
dealing with uncertain times, so they don't tell you exactly what to do. What they do is help you to choose what might be right for you today, which might be different tomorrow or next week. So F stands for focus on what you can control. So that's coming back to choosing behavior rather than thoughts and feelings. And it's choosing things that you can't control the politicians, you can't control your neighbors, you can't control your friends, but you can control your own behavior.
00:17:18
Speaker
so it's picking small things that are inside your area that you can do something about and making sure that you do some of those things because that gives you back feeling less anxious isn't just about everything being safe it's about feeling that you can cope with what's being thrown at you
00:17:35
Speaker
Okay, so maybe give me an example just to picture it. As somebody going back into school, I know that's not happening yet, but let's say when schools do start to allow teenagers back in, if somebody's quite anxious about maybe picking up germs, maybe other people who aren't social distancing the way they feel they should,
00:18:01
Speaker
what kind of things would a person do in that situation? So they can focus on what they can do. So that's things like managing their own hygiene.
Managing School Return Anxiety for Teens
00:18:13
Speaker
It's about being clear about what the rules are. It's about learning what's been put in place in the school to kind of encourage it to be a safe place and ensuring that you're kind of part of that.
00:18:25
Speaker
So it's throwing yourself into the process that's being set out and actually being an active participant in it rather than kind of feeling you're being washed along and you've got no say and then choosing those bits of it that you can do actively yourself to make sure that you are actually keeping yourself as safe as possible without overdoing it and avoiding stuff that really actually is important for you to do.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it's a difficult one, isn't it? But I suppose washing your hands whenever you've got the opportunity and carrying hand gel and just making sure that if you can you're as far away as possible from people who may not.
00:19:07
Speaker
be social distancing the way you want them to be it's difficult isn't it because you don't want to turn into that person who's monitoring everybody else's behavior i mean i'm a bit that way inclined actually i when i go for a run i'm i'm the only thing on my mind when i'm running is keeping two meters away from other people
00:19:28
Speaker
and I talked to a friend who said she actually because I get quite cross when people come too close to me and she said she wants to keep social distance and do the correct thing but she's thinking about what a lovely day it is and what that blossom tree looks like and what she's going to cook for lunch when she gets home and I'm thinking can't her life sound so much nicer than mine I could really do with de-stressing and chilling out a little bit
00:19:56
Speaker
well I think if you can make exercise a little bit more mindful and not the whole thing and you know but actually taking a moment to just look at the sky to notice the color to focus on your feet on the ground the feeling of actually doing the exercise it might actually
00:20:15
Speaker
have a little bit more where it gives you that kind of mental nourishing side as well as giving you the physical benefits because I think just being a little bit more aware of what you're doing can be really powerful so you know I work with people who get anxious about certain sports like horse riding and it's really about really focusing on actually riding the horse not thinking about
00:20:41
Speaker
you know, am I riding well enough? Am I going to fall off? Which is all stuff that makes you more likely. It disconnects you from doing it. And so it's being about mindful. It's noticing your seat on the saddle, hands on the reins, the sky. So back to the five senses and using that to kind of engage you in whatever you're doing.
00:20:59
Speaker
that's actually kind of um inherent mindfulness isn't it it's not and i i kind of want to point this out to teenagers because i know that my kids if i said let's do mindfulness be like god i'm not lying on your yoga mat and and deep breathing um but you can be mindful and benefit from mindfulness in any moment that you choose just by
00:21:22
Speaker
noticing all the physical things that are part of that activity? Absolutely. I'm a great believer in 10 second mindfulness. You know, it doesn't have to be this really long sitting on a mat and meditating with your eyes closed. And actually it could just be, and I really think going into the body is very helpful.
00:21:44
Speaker
because we get caught up in our minds and we forget about all the other bits of our experience like our feet are just on the ground you know and you can just wriggle your toes you can rub your hands together just press them together you can stroke and arm and just physically bring yourself back to that moment it doesn't have to take more than a few seconds and that can just break you back out a little bit out of that state of whatever you've got caught up into
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, do you know what? You've just mentioned the stroking of the arm. I absolutely loved that in your program. And I'm thinking, gosh, this feels silly, but actually it felt like somebody was saying to me, you know, it's okay. Everything's all right. I loved it. I know it feels, and lots of teenagers are gonna go, God, that's so...
00:22:29
Speaker
so weird but it felt really nice absolutely and you know if you don't want to stroke your own arm if if you've got a pet you can stroke your pet um you know i find it's amazing when we're getting worked up in our household if i just look at our cat and just give her a stroke and she kind of doesn't care about what we're worried about she couldn't care less about homeschooling and just you know i give her a stroke and a purr and it just
00:22:55
Speaker
takes me into a different space where I'm a little bit, you know, it's a little bit soothing, it stimulates one of the soothing parts of the brain, one of our soothing systems, which is really important. And so it doesn't have to be, it can be very practical, just about things that you do every day, it doesn't have to be separate mindfulness.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, so I want to just ask, what would you say to the teenager who really is eye-rolly about the whole process and just wants to spend the entirety of lockdown lying in bed and chatting to their mates or scrolling through TikTok, which is all valid behaviour right now. How would you tell them, how would you engage them in this 10-minute mindfulness programme?
00:23:40
Speaker
So I'm going to come back to the face covid model so we've done F which is focus on what we can control and then A is acknowledge so just notice how you're feeling and if the reason you want to lie on your bed is because you really like it and actually it's really positive for you and there's you know
00:23:55
Speaker
But if
Recognizing Emotions Behind Teen Behaviors
00:23:56
Speaker
it's because you're fed up and feeling like it's actually because you just can't be bothered and you're feeling a bit down, then actually that's really important to recognize. So just notice what's behind behaviour rather than just doing it on autopilot. Just ask yourself a couple of questions. What's going on for me?
00:24:16
Speaker
what's making me want to just lie down and then C is commit to a plan and that's just a little plan so I'm a real believer in micro steps and that's just tiny behaviors that are so small that you think is this going to make any difference
00:24:34
Speaker
and in fact probably not is the answer but added together they start to break us out of kind of our habits that might be unhelpful habits so pick something really small and do that and then you say well pick what and so that's the E and the E stands for engage with your values and what that means is
00:24:54
Speaker
think about what you actually care about as a person so it's not what I say that somebody should do or your parent says or a teacher but what do you actually care about you know what do you understand for if you looked back on yourself over you know in a year's time what actually matters to you and try and pick one or two things that you genuinely care about
00:25:19
Speaker
and then do a microstep towards that. So that's a behaviour that you can control. So if it's physical activity and you've got out of the habit, the microstep might be just literally finding your trainers that have got stuffed in the back of the cupboard, just finding them.
00:25:38
Speaker
putting them by the front door and letting that sit for a while or maybe it's going for going going out in the garden and just literally spending a couple of hours get two minutes of sunshine and coming back in again so it's really it's not about doing things that's impossible to do that's overload it's just picking a couple of little things that you actually genuinely care about and doing those
00:26:03
Speaker
The problem is with computers and they're amazing. Technology is absolutely amazing. It's safe. It's got the internet. It really has. Thank goodness. If we didn't have the internet in our house, if the internet goes down, we are in big trouble. I know. I do keep saying to my kids, God, I can't imagine how this would be. Honestly, you have got no idea what this would have been like for me 40 years ago. They're like,
00:26:33
Speaker
Exactly and so we can't underestimate that being a good thing. We also have to remember that we're still humans and there's part of our brain that still needs physical eye contact with a human, with an actual physical human being who's in the same room who's not on a screen
00:26:54
Speaker
um to get some of our well-being so it's not enough to purely do it all through screens because you're losing out on some of that benefit now it doesn't have to be massive and it might even be literally um well forcing yourself to make eye contact with your parents for example
00:27:13
Speaker
which achievement can be you know for some people that it's not something that they would actually do you know hardly at all and so it may just be acknowledging somebody around you it might even be the delivery man who you know brings your Amazon parcel and actually saying oh hi thanks and actually looking at them so little ways of making connection with the world again it doesn't it's not about overload it's not about having you know it's about
00:27:42
Speaker
just tiny steps yeah oh that is so true i have to say since we've been allowed to meet another person in person we've all done that um and it's made we come back buzzing and actually i hadn't realized but that is so true that if you see someone face to face you have a totally different conversation with them to the one you might have on snapchat or zoom or wherever else you're chatting house party
00:28:10
Speaker
get me, I know all the later steps. It's a totally different feeling and you come back with such a boost. The kids have said it as well. Both the kids have noticed their behaviour. It's totally different when they've been and seen a friend.
00:28:27
Speaker
Absolutely. And so back to mindfulness, just being aware, just, you know, taking part in the conversation with somebody and not being half distracted, half on your phone, half in your head, actually taking that moment to take yourself out of all those things. And it's so, they're so easy to pull you in. You know, I'm very conscious that I can so easily be like, you know, just looking, you know, what's that? Yeah.
00:28:57
Speaker
and actually just to not do that even just for five minutes can be such an important thing to do yeah totally i was listening to somebody else saying the other day that they make it a habit
00:29:11
Speaker
I think he called it the tea ritual. Oh, it was Rong and Chatterjee. He called it the tea ritual and it's basically deliberately taking five minutes at the end of every day to sit down and talk with his wife and neither of them looked at their phones and he said it really improved their relationship. And you wouldn't think that five minutes would make that difference, but I think, you know, if you're wholeheartedly engaged in something, even just a few minutes can make you feel better.
00:29:40
Speaker
Yeah I totally agree and you know I would always aim for five minutes or less on whatever it is you're planning to do because generally that's more doable and it's better to do something and get it done and then overachieve than to overload yourself and then feel like oh that was too much and then you feel a bit sort of
00:29:59
Speaker
deflated because it didn't go very well. And the same goes for connecting with people. It's just as important. Physical activity is the same, you know, getting out there, getting moving. I think your thing about, you know, exercise with somebody, so with family members, if you can do it, is brilliant and making a ritual. So back to that plan.
00:30:19
Speaker
it's just a bit easier to do if you're doing something regularly, it just helps to get it done. We definitely all reconnect on that walk and sometimes we go out angry with each other but we always come back on good terms and even though the kids would never admit it, it is a ritual that works and boosts everybody's mood and then we're set for the evening, we can eat and we all get on so much better. I have to say
00:30:46
Speaker
it did take three weeks and we fell out at the beginning of every walk over the fact that I was dragging them away from the Xbox or making them leave their phones at home or we don't go for a dog walk every day normally so why should we do it now and eventually it got to the point where no one complains they all just show up
00:31:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, this for the parents for a minute, I think there's an opportunity here for our relationship with our teams where actually
00:31:20
Speaker
where what they've got because everyone else has gone and actually it's a little bit of an opportunity to reconnect and rebuild something that could be quite important going forwards because we want that we want their independence we want them to go into the world we want them to feel but actually having a strong relationship with with somebody who really cares about them at home
00:31:42
Speaker
is a really powerful place to be able to do that and so in some ways one positive out of this that I'm seeing is that it's an opportunity to rebuild some of the relationships at home and that can be a big challenge because they're not necessarily easy relationships you know relationships do not come packaged neatly with a beautiful bow as I'm sure you'll be
00:32:04
Speaker
they are really painful and they bring all of the pain and they bring our own pain as parents they bring our own histories you know there's generations of stress that comes back out in our relationships with our kids but nevertheless that's still that's what matters it's being there together through all of this
00:32:25
Speaker
you know we had a really difficult few days last week and then but we kind of have come to the thing where we're like well if we can turn it around and get through it then that's all that matters as opposed to it shouldn't have happened in the first place yes yes that you cannot change what's already happened you've just got to work on what you've got right now
00:32:46
Speaker
That's such a good point. It's a bit about being kind of kinder to yourself, being kind, a little bit more accepting of your own imperfections and the other person's, whether you're the child, whether you're the adult, actually accepting that we're all just doing our best and human and messing up a lot. It's all just really messy for sure.
00:33:06
Speaker
Absolutely. And there isn't a tidy clean world where everyone does it all right. That one is not a real one. No, I think it's important to remember actually that everybody else is getting it wrong as well. You're not striving for perfection because everyone's getting it wrong all the time.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, they just don't post it. No, it's not on Instagram. Absolutely. You know, they post that carefully manicured moment. And it's the same old thing that people always say. But the truth is, mostly people's lives are messy and difficult. And it's
Accepting Imperfections for Healthy Relationships
00:33:41
Speaker
back to that.
00:33:42
Speaker
putting it in your pocket and carrying on in the direction of something that you care about, you know, irrespective and maybe forgiving yourself and the other person for not being exactly what you know we maybe wanted or needed at that moment. Yeah and those are the moments that make your day and make your life a happier place to be.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, lovely. So is there anything else that we've not talked about that you'd give us quick tips for fixing moods and worries?
00:34:16
Speaker
So I think really quick tip is for boredom and low mood is that there's a vicious cycle where people start to feel low fed up and boredom kind of fits in with that really because it can drag you down a bit and you start thinking quite negatively and it's a little bit like being stuck in a swamp
00:34:38
Speaker
where your feet are sinking down and every step is really hard work and you feel like you cannot be bothered to do anything and that is sometimes the reason why you do then get your teen lying on their beds not doing anything it's the lack of motivation and just feeling powerless and fed up and low
00:34:57
Speaker
and maybe physically tired and you get a vicious cycle going on where you're thinking negatively, you're feeling really tired and fed up and you feel low and that cycle if you let it go on and on could spiral downwards.
00:35:13
Speaker
So the really quick tip for that is something called behavioural activation, which is a form of CBT, which just involves doing more stuff. So it's really, really easy to do. It just involves doing a little bit more, even though you're feeling like there's no point, even though you're feeling like your mind is telling you this is a waste of time.
00:35:37
Speaker
oh there's no point i'm not going to and your mind will be like blah blah blah blah you know giving you all of that negative doom and gloom story on the big screen yeah about how pointless it all is um but we can ignore it shrink it down put it in our pocket
00:35:54
Speaker
and take a few steps and if you're in that swamp the first few steps are really really hard and so you have to make them small micro steps preferably something you care about you know back to the values
00:36:08
Speaker
And actually, as you start to do a bit more, it lifts your motivation, it lifts your mood. And eventually, as you start to walk, it gets easier and easier. And you suddenly realize, oh, I feel all right now. As you're saying this, I'm thinking about my running again because of the first 10 minutes of every run I do.
00:36:29
Speaker
I've got this voice in the back of my head going oh my god my legs ate today or you can you're not going to get through this today you're not going to manage everything that you plan to do and this is too hard and you should stop I'm going to stop at the next court stop soon stop now and I have to spend the whole of that time going no I'm not stopping I can do this I did this yesterday I can do this I'm not stopping shut up and it does eventually get to the point where
00:36:54
Speaker
I am, apart from the fact that I'm trying to stay away two metres from the person coming towards me, I can think, God, what a lovely day it is. And I'm actually getting something out. I'm not ready to say I'm enjoying my runs, but I'm getting something out of this and it's not as hard as I thought it was at the beginning. It gets easier.
00:37:14
Speaker
Well I for running had to dial down my competitive element and just accept I'm a really rubbish runner and be okay with that and go really slowly and maybe even walk if I'm really feel like I but actually doing that and give myself permission to say you know what I don't have to you know for me the goal for running is not to be an Olympic athlete
00:37:42
Speaker
beyond that so I just need to get out there and move a little bit and actually it's more about my mental well-being as much as anything and obviously physical health as well but really so for me doing quite slow just ploddy should maybe and I'll say I don't have to go very far
00:37:58
Speaker
I'm just gonna go, I won't go too far and I'll go really slowly today and I'm just gonna make it really easy on myself and that gets me out and then maybe I do a bit of mindfulness and I'll just look around and I'll notice my feet on the ground and then I'll find that five or ten minutes have gone past and I think, oh, it's not so bad now. Yeah, it's alright.
00:38:17
Speaker
And so for me, it's turning down the dial, it's making it micro and giving myself permission not to have to kind of push through in it to be, you know, amazing or really fast, but actually just getting out is an achievement for me. Yeah, I like that. And again, about the micro things, just doing tiny things that are really easy to do, but that build steps towards making you feel better and more energised and happier. Love that.
00:38:44
Speaker
So Lee, where can people find the, you'll have to say it to me, 10 minutes steps to mine. Where can people find this?
Accessing Free Online CBT Program
00:38:56
Speaker
That's it. Where can people find that? And where can people connect with you if they need to?
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, so my website is www.tenminutecbt.co.uk and that's a 1-0, so 10 minute CBT. And there's an online program tab there.
00:39:17
Speaker
or you can contact us if you're interested in looking for any one-to-one therapy as well and then we do offer that currently via zoom but the program and the videos are short as you say they're sort of five to ten minutes and you can watch them in little steps as a couple of little exercises to do and sometimes it's helpful to watch it not to just
00:39:40
Speaker
to watch it with somebody so you might have a team and apparently watch it together and then talk about it so a lot of it is about thinking about how does this apply to me what can I take away from it and is there one tiny thing out of each video that makes sense to me that I can so it's not trying to do everything yes again this is not you know a competition to do it all it's about picking one thing that you
00:40:05
Speaker
makes sense to you and doing that. Yeah maybe over and over again rather than trying to be a perfectionist and everything like I was.
00:40:13
Speaker
And we should say that this is a free course, right? Yes, it is. It is free. And we developed it specifically. So myself and a colleague are writing. We were halfway through writing a book for aimed at teens about managing wellbeing and then lockdown hit. And so we decided to try and just do something to support in the interim and put something online so that people can access something straight away. So we just made a few videos to do that.
00:40:43
Speaker
Brilliant, I love that and yeah so anybody can go and work through it at their leisure, take bite-sized pieces from it, no cost and we'll look forward to your book when that's finished.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, great. I'll be happy to come back and talk about that. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for today. That's been really useful. I think lots of people will get something just from the chat and hopefully if they feel like they want to dive a little bit deeper into it and go and have a look at the course.
00:41:17
Speaker
I think Lee speaks so much sense and she speaks to teenagers. She acknowledges that how they're feeling is completely valid right now. And I love her point that whilst you can't change things that are outside of your control, you can minimise the emotions you have around them and that that gives them less power over you.
00:41:41
Speaker
And I'll leave you with a quick reminder that Lisa's mindfulness can be done in 10 seconds. You don't have to lie on a yoga mat and meditate with your mum, so there you go. No excuses.
00:41:55
Speaker
If you've loved this episode, I would love it if you would rate and subscribe. For one, it helps people who are in the same shoes as you to find it. And for another, it means that when the new series, which is shaping up to be amazing, by the way, is ready, you'll be the first ones to know about it. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Bye for now.