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Let's Get MENTAL: World's 1st Men's Mental Health App (feat. Anson Whitmer, Ph.D.)
197 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of The Therapy4Dads Podcast, we welcome guest Anson Whitmer, Ph.D. The episode dives into the challenges of reaching male audiences in the mental health space, with many apps and services predominantly targeting women. Anson shares his organization's approach, including daily routines and short activities aimed at shifting mindset and providing levity. They discuss the impact of these tools on mental health and motivation. They explore the concept of intentionally stressing oneself with cold water to rewire the brain's response to stress. During the conversation, Travis and Anson also address the high rate of men taking their own lives and the need for better support and education in addressing mental health. They discuss the limitations of traditional therapy and the importance of exploring different approaches and tools. They touch on the cultural narrative around trauma and the need to broaden the conversation to include a wider range of mental health practices. The conversation also explores the importance of paying attention to one's nervous system and developing a toolkit of techniques to effectively respond to stress. Travis and Anson delve into the influence of upbringing on seeking help, the benefits of lifestyle changes such as exercise, and the need for practical application of research in mental health conversations. Overall, this informative and engaging episode offers insights and practical tools for improving mental resilience and taking proactive steps toward better mental health. Whether you're a dad or not, this conversation is valuable for anyone seeking to level up their mental well-being and lead a more meaningful life.
About Anson Whitmer, Ph.D.
Anson is a driven individual whose personal experiences have shaped his career in neuroscience. A tragedy struck when his uncle, who had been living with his family during a difficult period, took his own life. This event left a deep impact on Anson and propelled him to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. His goal was to comprehend why individuals like his uncle struggled to overcome their troubled childhoods, leading to depression and ultimately suicide. Anson's quest for knowledge brought him to Stanford University, where he undertook postdoctoral research alongside a renowned clinical psychologist specializing in mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, another devastating blow came when Anson's cousin from the other side of the family also took his own life. Anson realized later that his cousin had reached out to him for help, but he had been unable to respond in time. These personal experiences continue to fuel Anson's determination to understand and address the complex factors influencing mental health.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mental' and its Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
Why aren't we getting through to guys with these other apps and these other approaches? And how do we get through to more? And so we decided to launch Mental and kicked it off, did a lot of research. Fortunately, there's a massive amount of research in this space. And we just launched the first version of our app a few months ago.
Host and Guest Introductions
00:00:19
Speaker
This is a Therapy for Dads podcast. I am your host. My name is Travis. I'm a therapist, a dad, a husband. Here at Therapy for Dads, we provide content around the integration of holistic mental health, well-researched evidence-based education, and parenthood. Welcome.
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome everybody to this week's episode. I'm very excited to have this guest on Anson and hey, how you doing,
Importance of Men's Mental Health Tools
00:00:44
Speaker
man? How things doing? Great. Happy to be here. I'm stoked to have you on and we're going to jump into this conversation and it's, I think it's going to be very informative for both.
00:00:55
Speaker
both really all my listeners men and women one if you're if you're a spouse listening this with the partner with a husband and you're like hey you know how do we maybe you're struggling with how do i reach my husband or my partner or my dad or my brother or something like that and maybe why you think they might or should go to quote unquote therapy or get skilled or things like that and not sure how to have a conversation or what to do um or if you're a guy and you're still kind of
00:01:20
Speaker
figuring this out and kind of feeling this out, I think this conversation will be really rich for you, informative and might also lead you down a path of more questions. It might bring some clarity. It might also lead you to actually use a pretty cool app that we're talking about today or at least a part of the conversation today. And so for that reason, I'm excited to have Anson on to talk about this. And so what this conversation is really about is kind of the why and the story and kind of some of the research about
Anson's Inspiration and Journey
00:01:49
Speaker
really the world's first men's mental health app correct me if I'm wrong app called mental which Anson is well who are you Anson when it comes relation to mental like what's your role in this app? Yeah I am the founder and CEO of mental health.
00:02:05
Speaker
Founder and CEO. Co-founder. Co-founder. Co-founder and CEO. Oh yeah. Cause the other co-founder is someone else that we don't want to. Tyler. Yeah, I'll talk about him a little later. Can we hear a little bit about the story of like, what's the history of this app starting and a little bit about yourself? Yeah. In many ways, mental is the culmination of my work, my career to date. When I was 19, my uncle had been living with us to help us through some hard times and he killed himself.
00:02:35
Speaker
It motivated me to go on to get my PhD in neuroscience. I wanted to understand why people like my uncle couldn't let go of his childhood and how that ultimately led to depression and then suicide. I ended up out at Stanford doing research for my post-doc with one of the world's most famous clinical psychologists, focus on mood disorders like depression and anxiety. Around that point in time, my cousin, other side of the family, also killed himself.
00:03:01
Speaker
And he'd actually reach out to me a few days beforehand, which I only later realized was a call for help. And I unfortunately didn't get back to him in time. About a week or so later at his funeral, just kind of a cold gray Minnesota suburb, wasn't really even around the town. And we're standing outside the funeral home and a group of 30 to 40 people marched by. And what was just a wild and surreal coincidence, they were holding up signs
00:03:30
Speaker
marching and protesting against the suicide rate, the suicide crisis in this country. They didn't know my cousin, none of us knew them, but we all knew at that point that we're just not doing enough in this country to address suicide. And around that point in my academic career, I was lined up with onsite interviews to be a professor and I ended up deciding to leave academia. And one
Addressing Gaps in Men's Mental Health
00:03:55
Speaker
of the reasons, there's multiple, but one was that academia just moves very slow.
00:04:00
Speaker
We had discovered so many different reasons and causes for mental illness, but we were just doing so little to scale up its solutions. And that was a problem to me. It's part of the reason why I went on to become a founding team member of the app Calm. My co-founder Tyler, who I referred to earlier, he was a founding engineer. I was the founding data scientist. He was like their first hire and I was like employee number 10.
00:04:25
Speaker
And when we started Calm, most people thought that meditation was just very niche. In fact, we had a hard time getting investors because they said, Hey, this is only something that's done in college campuses and had like burning man.
00:04:41
Speaker
But over the next five or so years, we got millions of people into meditation. And maybe you don't meditate, but I think compared to 2017, 2016, you at least now know that it's a tool there that can help you. And it wasn't that way, not that long ago. And so I think we had a massive positive impact on the world through our work at Calm.
00:05:04
Speaker
The problem though was that we struggled to get through to guys. We did make changes, little tweaks to see if we could, but it's insufficient. And it's not surprising. You look at the app space, there's one report saying there's 10 to 20,000 mental health apps out there. And they're basically all either built explicitly for women or a kind of general audience. And even the general audience tools out there, they tend to have three acts more women than men using them.
00:05:32
Speaker
And the issue is that men are 80% of suicides. So if we don't figure out a way to get through to guys, we're never going to resolve the suicide crisis.
Development and Launch of 'Mental'
00:05:43
Speaker
It's absolutely critical that we find ways to connect with men. So my co-founder and I both left calm at similar times on sabbaticals after it was actually like an
00:05:51
Speaker
$2 billion plus business. So it was quite the ride. It took some time off. And with a little time to reflect, I was like, this is really what we need to do. No one is figuring out how to connect with guys. And we just need to start from the ground up, really rethink this. And why aren't we getting through to guys with these other apps and these other approaches? And how do we get through to more? And so we decided to launch mental and
00:06:17
Speaker
kicked it off, did a lot of research. Fortunately, there's a massive amount of research in this space. And we just launched the first version of our app a few months ago. And I've
Stigma and Barriers for Men
00:06:26
Speaker
been actually using it since the past month or so, I think. So, I mean, this story, first of all, going back to what you said, I mean, I'm, and I know we've talked offline about this and that's, I mean,
00:06:36
Speaker
Awful for anyone to lose someone they love to to suicide. Of course, that's awful and tragic and and I'm you know I know I'm not your therapist but that I'm so sorry for those losses in your life and so close together and just people that you cared for and Then I know that for you that started your journey and becoming kind of where you are today but regardless that's just we should not be having this type of like you said that this this rate of men taking their lives and
00:07:03
Speaker
how do we help them and kind of this obviously the story is extremely close and personal to you as well as just to our world and needing more right and this it's there's just not enough i would say and there's i think part of this is and i think this might be the next thing is i think there's still a lot of stigma around mental health there's still so much there's been a week that goes by or if i get a you know you know if i get 10 guys in my office new a week
00:07:27
Speaker
I'd say at least half minimum at least half if not more would are struggling with some level of stigma around even coming into talking and getting help for what they're going through and may not even have language language or understanding as to what they're experiencing they just know that maybe they're drinking a lot or frustrated or or numb or you know can't seem to shut their mind off or you know and stuff like that that I tend to hear quite quite regularly but don't really know what's going on and
00:07:52
Speaker
not having the language for it. I recently watched a video, it was an interview of The Rock, the actor, and he talked about how some years back he reached out for help because he was really struggling. He didn't say suicidal, but it seemed to be kind of implied, and he told a story about
00:08:11
Speaker
earlier on how he went through a period and struggled. And he's gone through a few of these periods. And this was the first time he reached out and talked to somebody. And I saw other people posting and sharing about it. And the main take-home point people are having is, hey, if you're going through something, reach out, talk to somebody.
00:08:30
Speaker
And that is there in lies the problem. I totally is. Yeah. It's like, it's something you need to do. It's very effective. And if you're in that state, please reach out and talk to somebody. But the issue is when I look at the situation is the first time he was going through something that was really bad.
00:08:48
Speaker
He didn't have words for it. He didn't even know he was depressed. And that's what he said. He didn't even know his depression. He just was going through some stressors and some problems. And he didn't know the way he was approaching his mental space was something you call depression. And so it's hard to get someone to reach out if you are
00:09:08
Speaker
They don't even have words and don't understand where they're at in the first place. And I think there's a whole bunch of different barriers there. And when you talk about guys dealing with stigma and being able to come in to therapy for the first time, well, that's because it's a really big step for a lot of guys. And in a lot of ways, that's kind of what we're building ourselves around is instead of just, hey, reach out to someone, talk to someone, go to therapy, which is fantastic advice.
00:09:37
Speaker
A lot of men aren't there, I think that's the issue. Like going back to what I said earlier, the main issue with the rock reaching out is that a lot of men in that place, they wouldn't reach out because to reach out is to go very much against the conditioning of what it means to be a man. Like the classic kind of unbalanced, hyper-masculine, rigid box of you don't reach out, right? Because to reach out means weakness, vulnerable, all these things that they've been conditioned not to.
00:10:01
Speaker
A lot of men won't even do that phone call. Or, right, why would I do that? I mean, that's what I've seen. Even research shows this in anecdotally, I've seen this quite often. What do you say? Yeah, I mean, there's just there's a lot of barriers there. And the last step is reaching out. But yeah, it could be you don't have words, you don't understand what you're going through.
00:10:20
Speaker
You don't realize that there are the tools available that they actually will help you. You're not convinced of that. You maybe do feel embarrassed based on your idea of masculinity, of reaching out. There's a stigma around it. Or maybe in the past, you have been vulnerable and there's been repercussions around it. So you actually don't feel safe, not because you have some weird view, but because you've learned that. And so you actually have to overcome some trauma in order to reach out.
00:10:48
Speaker
And to me, that's kind of when I look at cultural conversation around men's health. They're so often simplistic. They maybe have good messages, reach out to talk to someone, go to therapy. But if you actually understand where guys are going through, you realize they're multifaceted in these kind of simple campaigns. Maybe the reason they're not working is I don't think they're working very well. The suicide crisis has been going on for a long time and is now at all
Critique of Simplistic Advice
00:11:15
Speaker
time high.
00:11:15
Speaker
Maybe there's something else we need to be doing. We need to be approaching the problem a little bit differently. And to me, a key part of that is thinking about this in a more nuanced way, trying to understand guys, where are they at? What are all the blockers? If they actually get into a crisis and you want them to reach out to help, why is that so hard? And what can we do to get them
00:11:37
Speaker
in a different place so that if they do hit a crisis point, that they actually find it to be a good solution to reach out and talk to a therapist, to reach out and talk to friends and admit what's going through. And I believe we can get there. I just think we have a different approach. I think the cultural conversation that's happening with guys is failing them. We shouldn't have this high of suicide rate.
00:12:00
Speaker
And when you think of the current cultural conversation, like whether this is anecdotal research or, you know, I guess hard data research, because I know that you, part of a reason why I wanted to have you on, among others, one, because you're, I think just, we connected and you're kind of rad. Well, not kind of, you are rad.
00:12:17
Speaker
But I think that you also have a, you're trying to understand the research, but also take it and make it applicable to day to day, like real life, like, okay, how do we understand this research? And how do we take this information, which is helpful, but sometimes doesn't always necessarily translate practically. And so how do we process to on this, whatever you want to call it and make it applicable. So with that, from the cultural conversation, is there like,
00:12:38
Speaker
what you're seeing is there like one or two things that are really like, yeah, this this is maybe actually impeding the transition or creating more of a gap than actually being helpful. Like, is there anything like that that you're noticing? I mean, the cultural conversation you see in the newspapers on a daily basis is mostly around masculinity and
Diverse Mental Health Approaches
00:12:59
Speaker
But there really is, I feel like it's kind of two sides to this debate and we call one side the better eat your veggies side. And it is like, man, be vulnerable, share your feelings, go to therapy. Great advice, research-based, you should do that. The problem is, is that for a lot of guys, like we just said, that's not connecting. And if you don't connect and guys don't use the tools available, then you don't make a difference. So it's not actually, it's not helping.
00:13:23
Speaker
The other side is, hey, everyone should just go back to being John Wayne, the cowboy out there. The pendulum the other way. Yeah, traditional masculinity. Yeah. He'll note everything they're saying. But the thing is we don't live in an environment where it's the fastest
00:13:39
Speaker
draw with the six shooters, the one who survives. I mean, out there on the plains and olden times, it maybe was sensible to be a mean bastard who was just focused on themselves. And because that's how you survived. And that's probably how you actually made it past the age of 20. Right. It's probably that as you had to not because of you maybe wanted to it because there was no other really option.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. And now it's just not that way. Modern pressures are very different. If you're going to succeed in modern society, you need to know how to collaborate, how to build up teams. You need to know how to handle companies trying to compete for your nonstop attention and feeding you a load of mental poison. You need ways that like,
00:14:22
Speaker
to handle modern pressures. And so if you don't figure out ways to kind of level up your mind to handle modern society, you are going to struggle. So it's become clear. Guys need to be able to approach things differently than they did 50, 100 years ago. And so what is that? And so that side of the argument clearly fails as well because they're presenting a model that just doesn't work. And when I look at it, going back to the better eat your veggies side is
00:14:51
Speaker
To me, maybe if I'm with your audience, they're probably guys who have tried therapy and maybe do resonate with it.
00:15:01
Speaker
they're on board with it. But if you take guys who are on board and you say, hey, mental health, the one way to deal with it is therapy and emotional vulnerability. That's your option. And guys don't resonate. They go, well, I guess there's no options for me. So they do nothing.
Lifestyle Changes and Holistic Approaches
00:15:20
Speaker
And that's the end of the journey for them. And then they're miserable. And they get to a place where maybe they have at a crisis point in a dark spot.
00:15:27
Speaker
It's a really big chasm to cross reach out for help. If you've never done any work on your mind, on leveling up your mindset, that's a big chasm. But when I look at the science out there and I look at the whole space, is therapy an emotional vulnerability, the only tool there? No, it just isn't. It's an extremely effective tool, but it's one of many tools. And there are all these other tools out there that guys are much more open to.
00:15:56
Speaker
So tools around, for example, neuroscience based tools to change your autonomic response to stress. How do you, there are all kinds of ways to improve your, how you handle stress, how you
00:16:11
Speaker
change yourself talk that don't require first focusing on emotions. So you could often kind of skip the emotional vulnerability and other bed and do other stuff first. And you see, Hey, that was impactful for me. And then maybe later on, once you start seeing that these tools are working for you, then it kind of starts opening up your mind to this possibility of, well,
00:16:32
Speaker
These mental tools work for me in this situation. I have a slightly different situation going on. It's a little bit more complex. Maybe I'll try on a different tool. Maybe therapy is the one that's right for me in this situation. But you get to a point where it becomes a lot easier to get people to do therapy when it is the right tool, the best tool for them in that situation.
00:16:53
Speaker
But speaking more to some of these tools, so many problems that guys have, guys and women, everyone, is around lifestyle. There is a recent meta-analysis that showed probably the single most effective thing you could do to improve your mental health is exercise.
00:17:12
Speaker
reliably and so say you're struggling mental health and you decide therapy's not right for me so you do nothing but if you don't exercise say you try to exercise in first and then you feel better maybe you're maybe your problem solved maybe you're happier and that leads to upward cycle versus a downward cycle and that is where we're often at mentally if you start finding ways to move upwards
00:17:34
Speaker
tends to get going and you spiral upwards. And if you do exercise and it doesn't work for you, well then maybe there's other lifestyle tools out there. For example, maybe you need to put your phone down and start hanging out with friends. Maybe you shouldn't be looking at TikTok and social media all night and news, which creates lots of
00:17:52
Speaker
negative emotions and people. Maybe you should read books. There's so many different ways. Maybe you should be eating better, trying to improve your sleep. There's so many different things you could do that can improve your mental health. And actually, I think really good therapists out there, they often usually start by talking about what's going on with your lifestyle. Let's try to fix those things and then we can go deeper with other stuff. So
00:18:13
Speaker
Totally. I agree. I mean, it's like the biopsychosocial theory, right? Essentially, as I examine, you know, the categories of a guy. I mean, I fully do that. My assessment is looking at, okay, well, how are you taking care of these categories? Like, you know, what are you doing physically? What are you doing, you know, intellectually, socially, spiritually? What is that? What does balance or health look like in these categories?
00:18:34
Speaker
What I'll find with a lot of men is that there is a lack of or high imbalance in a lot of these categories.
Resistance to Therapy
00:18:40
Speaker
You know, they're working a lot, you know, but they're not sleeping well. They're not eating well. They're not physically active there. They have no social connections really deep, you know, there's nothing. And so it's starting there. And then, then, you know, maybe I do more deeper work as I get there buying and stuff and, and.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I agree with you, I think a lot of men, some men are ready to jump into the emotions, but often those men are the ones that they already got the buy-in. They don't need convincing to do the meditation or use the Calm app or like they're ready. They know that maybe they've dealt with some stuff, but they're already, they're in a place of they're beyond contemplation, right? Or pre-contemplation. They're in a state of change and like, yep, I know I need this and I know I've had some stuff, but I'm ready.
00:19:21
Speaker
And, but like you said, the other guys, it's, it is getting them in the door and anecdotally what I see with those guys, it's often an ultimatum. It's often, which understandably so, often it's in a marriage or partnership. It's like, well, I'm, we're divorcing or separation unless you get help, right? It's stuff like that or, or you're drinking too much and you need help. And it's often bringing them in by a partner. And I'm not saying that's because often the partner is struggling and there's a real reason, but often it's like they won't go unless it's kind of like that crisis of like,
00:19:46
Speaker
there's a crisis and something's about to change and then there's like kind of a little bit of a wake-up call of oh I should maybe go do this and and even then it's hard because sometimes they might come for one or two sessions then and then they disappear again because it's like well then that's not for me and then and you know how do you reach those guys and get there by and
00:20:04
Speaker
And that sometimes, it's not always easy, you know, even as a, you know, I was a male therapist, I do get more men coming to me because I'm a male. But other times too, I think what I've seen anecdotally for other men being male therapists is that I might even be a barrier for initially where they are because now I'm a guy. And then that could be a block because it's breaking a code, right? It's like, I'm, why would I?
00:20:24
Speaker
I don't want another guy knowing that I'm weak by doing this. And he might even see me as weak for even being a therapist, right? So there might even be that type of like internal bias. Cause I've had that happen where it's like, no, you know, I'm not going to do that because this is kind of going up against the barriers. So it's just so much there.
00:20:41
Speaker
And there's a lot of layers, right? Depending on the guy's story and there's, what was his upbringing? And I think you hit on a point that's so key to earlier about asking for help. And maybe they did at one point, but they learned that people really aren't dependable. And they learned that people aren't safe. And they learned that you don't ask for help because asking for help actually get more pain and suffering. And you get either explicitly told or implicitly told by
Proactive Mental Health Strategies
00:21:02
Speaker
parents, by caregivers, by coaches, by school systems, by whatever, or friends at school. Don't do that. And so why in the heck
00:21:09
Speaker
What I reach out now, even if I know something's wrong, why would I do that? Like that? That's a threat to the nerve and something I'm doing is it's a threat to the nervous system, right? Survival would say, no, that that's not even an option. Survival would say, do what you've been doing, disassociating, disconnecting, working, whatever to like keep going because that that's not an option. And you haven't built trust that that the tools that are available, that the solutions that are out there, that they will help you.
00:21:37
Speaker
And you're going from, I never use them. I have no trust. This is kind of unsafe thing for me to do. And it's like, no, just doing, and guys get ultimatums or they get shamed into doing it. Like everyone needs good therapy. But if instead you kind of start a little smaller and it's like, Hey, like therapy can help you understand lifestyle issues and help with behavioral change. And it's awesome that you start that way, but you could potentially, you could do that outside of there. Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:22:05
Speaker
in a lot of ways geared around that. How do we get you to start doing some smaller things? And it's small. It's done on your own. You're not doing therapy. You're not diving into your emotions. You don't have to go deep. You're just doing small steps that get you moving. And what happens is guys come into our app. We ask them at the beginning, how stressed are you?
00:22:25
Speaker
guys are really stressed. We asked them a month later, how stressed are you? And we're seeing like up to 40% decrease in stress levels just from doing a tiny bit different of a morning routine. And that's enough to see this huge drop in stress levels from like buried extremely stressed down to like kind of stressed. And, and the thing is, is like, if you get guys to do that, well, then you built trust because they're like,
00:22:49
Speaker
Oh, the tools that are out there from neuroscience and psych literature, et cetera. Hey, they do help this shift in mindset. It actually does make me happy. I feel like I'm living a little bit better of a life. I want to have had a taste of it and I want a little bit more of it. And so they're willing to go. So you built up trust. And to me, that's like, people have asked me, Oh, it's mental and app for guys who are, you know,
00:23:10
Speaker
and a suicidal crisis, and it's just, it isn't. I don't think apps are well-suited to handle crisis state. You do need to talk to someone in person. You need hands-on help. But the way we are getting at it is very much how we respond in society. It's like we're very reactive with mental health. With physical health, we're different. If you have a heart attack, yeah, sure, we'll treat you. But the ways we've really made progress is by figuring out what are the causes of heart attacks
00:23:39
Speaker
And we treat those ahead of time so that you never have that heart attack. And we've been talking about doing this forever and the psychology field, but we're still very reactive. I do think that if you move upstream, you meet guys where they're at when they're doing okay, or maybe even excelling, they're doing better than that. Okay.
00:23:57
Speaker
We all still, even if we're doing awesome, we have big stressors in our life. There are always things we're under pressure with. If we could find better ways to handle those stressors with different mental tools by training our mind, well, then we level ourselves up. We become the best versions of ourself. We live a life of more meaning. We excel in our careers. It really helps us get ahead. And that's really where we're trying to meet people and teach them the tools.
Lack of Education and Awareness
00:24:24
Speaker
level themselves up and hit excel versus trying to reach guys who are in this danger zone. They're struggling and how to just help them get back to normal. That's not really where we're at. But the thing is though, is the guys who use these mental tools and they train their mind and learn this stuff while they're doing okay or better.
00:24:42
Speaker
they're going to be less likely to fall through the gaps if someone goes wrong. If they hit a crisis state, they go through a divorce or something of that sort. The other thing is the guys who do fall through the cracks and do hit a crisis state anyway, well, we've built up trust that these tools do work. So then it's not this huge chasm you have to cross, it's instead of small bridge of like, oh, these tools worked when I was in that state, I'm somewhere a little darker right now, maybe,
00:25:09
Speaker
I'll use a different tool which is a therapist in this situation and we'll reach out to them. And that's where I believe we really see the change. We need to address all the stuff ahead of time that is preventing men from following the advice of just go to therapy or just reach out when you're in that spot. We need to get ahead of that.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I like that. And I totally agree. I think in a lot of ways, I'm thinking of some other things about getting upstream ahead of time and providing some level of education and understanding about these tools, right? Because I think part of it is it's just not part of the conversation. Among other things, right, I'm even thinking of, you know, as a dad, right, as a quick little sidestep, is that even understanding like the birthing process, or complications that could happen at birth, or a child, it's like, it's not in the typical conversation that you're trained in in school.
00:25:58
Speaker
or like I feel like in some ways a lot of our education system again total sidestep but also I think very much aligned with this is that there's a lot of things that we're learning in school that in some ways aren't really setting up for life and some things that I think would be more beneficial to learn in school as part of our education that would prep us to be more healthy in life like mental wellness or
00:26:19
Speaker
Having kids like these things that until you get there and even then it's like where do you start to get the education? I think so much of it is just a lack of understanding a lack of a grid or framework of What it what's considered well or normal because it's just so you experience this thing and you're like I don't know what to do So you do what you know how to do whatever that might be just to get through it whether it's healthy or not It's your body your body just finds a way which is pretty incredible by the way them out what the mind does that
00:26:45
Speaker
people are very resilient what they get through. Now, it's not always effective long term, but we find a way. And so I think with this, when thinking mental health is like, yeah, I agree. Well, how do we get upstream? And now for a short break. So if you're looking for ways to support the show and my YouTube channel, head on over to buy me a copy.com forward slash therapy for dads. There you can make a one time donation or join the monthly subscription service to support all that I'm doing at the intersection of fatherhood and mental health.
00:27:14
Speaker
and all the proceeds go right back into all the work that I'm doing into production and to continue to grow the show to bring on new guests. So again, head on over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash therapy for dads. Thanks and let's get back to the show.
00:27:30
Speaker
So what, you know, if, if, if Anson had his way, if he could like, you know, snap his finger and be more upstream, what is like one thing that you would, that you can see in a way society, obviously on top of the mental lab, which we'll talk more about, but on top of mental, what else could you see that? Well, I think this, if we could change this thing, I could see this being a pretty significant aid in this upstream process.
Introducing Mental Health Tools
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah. That's a really good question. Yeah. And I think, yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker
I mean, just kind of speaking off of what you just said, it is kind of amazing that there is an education around mental health and the different tools you could use to address it in education while people are growing up. Going back to The Rock, he didn't understand that he was depressed. No one had educated him. He didn't learn that anywhere.
00:28:16
Speaker
You know, you're speaking with dads and the situation. I just had my second son. Congratulations. And multiple times I heard questions asked to my wife about postpartum depression, which is really good. There's particularly a woman, a lot of hormonal changes that are causing it as well. And it's really important that we're doing that type of work. But even thinking, and there's all these times in society where it's like, guys don't get what they're going through. And you actually see a lot of
00:28:44
Speaker
postpartum depression in men as well, and it's just like this opportunity to educate a guy, hey, you might go through a change, and if you do, this is what it is. Yeah, not to scare him, but just kind of normalize it, right? Just like here, and here's some tools that can help you if you're here, right? But that's not had, right? That typically, now I think there's some change, but typically, men aren't even asked that question.
00:29:06
Speaker
And so it would be great to kind of just see the education about what's an elbow and ways to approach out there. And when I say education as well, really, I think one of the biggest changes that we really believe in a mental is trying to move past the simplistic conversation of just
00:29:25
Speaker
Therapy and emotional vulnerability are the only two tools available. They're very effective tools, but there's just a lot of tools. So how do we open people up to all the different ways you can work on your mental health and ways to improve it? Because I think if you kind of have that breath of education, it opens people up. It's like a conversation on trauma.
00:29:46
Speaker
There's kind of a cultural narrative that I've seen, which is that all causes of mental struggles and mental health are due to trauma. And if you think that's the case, then you think the only way to solve anything you're going through, it has to be therapy. And if you go to therapy, you're also basically saying, I'm a person who's been traumatized, which guys are particularly resistant to saying that. And if instead you're like, Oh, there's actually all these other causes, like,
00:30:15
Speaker
lifestyle issues. Maybe I haven't socialized with someone for two weeks. I just come home and drink beer and watch TV and look at TikTok. Maybe that's your issue. You just fix that. It's much more fixable. Yeah. So how do we open guys up and change our conversation where it's just, we just broaden it. We had a lot more nuance and then we enabled to speak to kind of some of the guys a little bit earlier on in different ways.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. And thank you for answering that question and totally agree. Everything you said, it's definitely vulnerability and motion. It's not the only two ways. Absolutely. There's so many other things that you can do and other tools that even I utilize within a therapeutic process, depending on the person and where they are, it's kind of assessing what do they need right now?
00:30:56
Speaker
They need those practical tools. They need like the basics of like, are you drinking water? Are you sleeping? Are you eating good food? Like basic for some of that stuff to, okay, let's talk about emotional vulnerability and all these other things. And so there's more tools, but you're right. I think sometimes it can kind of be very much hyper focused on one or two things. And then it becomes just about those things. And then therefore it's like, well, I don't fit in that category.
00:31:17
Speaker
Or, like The Rock, if they have no education as to where they are, they're not going to know what category they even fit into at all.
Engagement Through Humor
00:31:24
Speaker
You know, so I think education is so key. And so if we're trying to get men to use this app, right? So, okay, let's say, you know, I'm, you know, a spouse or something of a guy and of a, you know, or I want my dad to use it or my brother or my buddy, like, you know, how?
00:31:39
Speaker
how would you pitch it to them and say, hey, I think this app or tool, you might find benefit from it. So do you have any insight on that? If I'm thinking of the listeners that I have that asked me this question, I'm thinking of, you know, a lot of spouses like, how do I help my husband or a dad or for other do this? Any helpful tools or things you could do that might get guys to get into this thing? I appreciate the question. I mean, a big thing that we're trying to do is again, it's like, who's app four?
00:32:05
Speaker
It's not for guys who are struggling. It's maybe guys who are under a lot of pressure. And so it's like, we're going to help you deal with that pressure. Do you sometimes feel like you're a little bit on autopilot? We'll help you live a life a little bit more meaning purpose. We're just going to level you up a bit. It's small steps. And so I think that's important because all guys out there, the most successful are dealing with lots of pressure. They're fine tuning themselves, making sure they're on the right track.
00:32:32
Speaker
This is something that successful guys do. So I think we partially view ourselves that way because that's what guys are interested in. They're like, oh, I'll push harder. I'll level myself up. It's very different than like, hey, you have all these defects and problems. I'm getting upset with you. Go fix yourself.
00:32:50
Speaker
guys struggle with that or they're like, screw you, I'm not broken and there's resistance there versus like, oh yeah, actually I am under a lot of pressure with work. I am trying to figure out how to balance work with life. And so I think that's one, but it's also so much of what you see in the space is mental health apps and industry generally is it's often very serious and clinical.
00:33:15
Speaker
which is pretty sensible because it is mental health struggles can be very serious and medical kind of effort here. But you either get clinical or the other side is you get where it could be a little bit woo woo or feels like going to a monastery kind of side to things, particularly in the mental health app space. And either of those really tend to resonate with guys. If you see how guys talk to each other about mental health and how do you get them to open up, it's often through humor, entertainment, where we joke and tease each other.
00:33:45
Speaker
Our app is really built around that. We're certainly the only mental health app out there that made hiring a comedian one of our first hires. When you're in the app, it is about having a laugh and a good time. Dark humor, comedian swears quite a bit too much. Because it doesn't have to be so self-serious, it can be irreverent and we want to have fun with it. You should be able to learn these things
00:34:13
Speaker
while having a good time called mental attainment. Yeah. Well, I think, I think a Victor Frankel and his book, Man's Search for Meaning. And in fact, one of the ways you've never read the book or read the book, it's a dark, it's, it's a hard book, but he was a Jewish psychologist, lived through the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Dachau. Anyway, but one thing he found how they survived the prisoners or I'm not going to call them prisoners, the Jewish men that survived the Holocaust and these print death camps where one way they got through it was humor and often dark humor.
00:34:39
Speaker
because he said it, and I'm paraphrasing here, so don't quote me on this, but essentially he said, it kept our humanity, which is powerful to think about that. I think humor in the right time, right? Obviously, of course, right timing and how you use it is helpful for, I think, the release of stress and like this kind of letting go and opening you up. Hardest of laughed has been at funerals. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you share stories. A group of people cracking up in the corner. It's weird, but it...
00:35:06
Speaker
It is a way, particularly the guys tend to respond. Yeah, and it's not about irreverence. It's, you know, it's not about that, but it's about the he may, I think the humanity, I think Victor Frankel hit it, right? And that and his experience is about losing our humanity in the midst of the, of the chaos of the pain of the loss. And cause obviously there's times for being serious, right? It's not just irreverence for irreverence sake. It's that balance and the capacity. So.
00:35:28
Speaker
So that's how, you know, and let's say, you know, a wife coming in saying, how do I get my husband? He's stressed out. Any, anything, a practical tip you would say, like how she could maybe pitch it to him or offer him to get on the app. Any ideas on that?
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we have built our, the first part of our app is really just built around men's kind of shit shower and shave routine. And really it's just slightly changed your morning routine, a slight tweak to it. And you will, you could see tremendous impact from that. And that's what I think when you try to get guys into doing someone therapy, it's these big steps. Well, if instead you're just like, here,
00:36:10
Speaker
slightly tweak your morning routine and you have a laugh and it's kind of fun and you will see really big gains. You'll be able to handle your stress better. You'll feel kind of more alive. That's a pretty good argument to try this app and you guys are more open to that. They're like, oh, I could do that instead of going to therapy. Okay. I'll give that a go first.
Innovative Features of 'Mental'
00:36:27
Speaker
That is what we hear from a lot of our users. We don't ever discourage people from going to therapy.
00:36:33
Speaker
times therapy is fantastic but we do hear from a lot of guys who say that they don't want to and they find us and they're like oh but I'm finding something that does work and that's you know our our daily do so that you guess which part of that routine it goes into it's just two minutes and it really is just built around just having a laugh and a mindset shift helping you understand a little bit
00:36:57
Speaker
a little gem that's science-based or action-oriented. And so many of our users have written in and said, that was the thing I needed to hear today. And it just sat with me for the rest of the day. And it changed my perspective and mindset the rest of the day where you're just kind of, instead of feeling stressed as this threat and you're worrying about and anxious about it and said, you're kind of like, this is a challenge that I can take on and you're motivated.
00:37:21
Speaker
You're in the exact same situation, but your mindset is just a little different, and your whole day has become better. Yeah, which I love with the Daily Deuce. Yeah, it's great. We're marketing, but great language around it. I've been testing and playing with the app as well. Obviously, I'm sold on therapy. Clearly, I'm a therapist. Obviously, I'm sold. I hope I would be, although I'd be in the wrong profession.
00:37:47
Speaker
I've been using it just to kind of see and so far it's been a great experience like you know it's a lot like this like two minutes of philosophy or challenging your thinking I mean it really is it's kind of like bite-sized pieces of like making you think and shifting your mindset and I actually appreciate the daily deuce I'm not always on the pot when doing it sometimes I'm brushing my teeth and listening to the daily deuce it just depends on how you're breaking the routine
00:38:10
Speaker
It depends, man. I'm also weird. I have a poop routine, so I won't go into that. It's the whole thing. I get that anxiety around. Anyway, but that's good. And the second part, which I think is the next piece of the app, which is really cool, and I've been actually utilizing this as well, and it's really amazing. And what is that second piece that you guys, this app? The shower bed. It's the first ever guided cold showers. Yeah.
00:38:31
Speaker
When I say this, people are like, I don't quite get what that means. And also why do I need guided cold showers? If I'm going to take cold showers, turn cold on and then turn the cold off and not that hard. Really. And yeah, the guidance maybe can help motivate you. And we do.
00:38:46
Speaker
start you really easy. They always start hot and go cold. It's James Bond style of doing cold showers. He built up from five seconds to 90 seconds and it's based on habit formation research. So if you've been wanting to get into cold and you've struggled to do so, it does help you there. But really to us and our teacher who guides it, who's a master chief Navy SEAL until he just retired a couple of years ago, a combat test guy who's cheering stories of what he's gone through.
00:39:15
Speaker
We view cold water as just a training environment. We intentionally stress you with the cold so that you could learn and train all these different mental tools that the Navy SEALs use that are based on neuroscience and then practice them in real time on stress to decrease your stress. And so basically we intentionally stress you so that you could rewire how your brain responds to stress.
00:39:42
Speaker
So it's a really cool and novel kind of approach. Every other app out there, they're always trying to just like calm down, relax. And we're doing the opposite where we're actually trying to get you to be a little more stressed. And the best time to practice these tools are when you're stressed because the stress becomes your cue.
00:40:02
Speaker
to use these tools. And that's what we're hearing from guys. They're saying, Hey, this just starting to show up reflexively in my day. I'm like, kids are screaming in the back of the car and instead of shouting at them, Sunday, they're using one of these mindset tools that the Navy SEAL taught them. They just kick in. And suddenly they find themselves relaxing, handling the situation differently.
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah. And even more cool. We're seeing with some one dad said two friend dads were using it and he was like, I don't want to do that. It's cold showers and sound fun. But he, two other dads were using it and they were using it with their sons who were teenagers. And you have to be aware if you were to do that, that there is swearing on that. Yeah. But one of the other dads told a story about how his son had to kick the penalty kick at the very end of the game. Hmm.
00:40:48
Speaker
And he saw a son out there. What the son later said was seal breathing, figure out ways to call himself and prepare himself mentally. And he scored his penalty kick to win the game. And it became this kind of bonding experience between the dad and the son where they were doing this process together. That was kind of tough and the guys bond over doing tough stuff. So like the boat, the dads were like, this has been amazing. And it finally motivated the other guy to try it because he had, uh,
00:41:13
Speaker
11 year old son, he's like, I'm going to try this with him. Yeah. So there is a, I would love to see more, more dads out there trying that. I think most 14 year olds are probably already exposed to the occasional F-bomb anyways. Yeah, I think so too. And yeah, I think my experience using it, the, and I've been doing it just to kind of see what you're teaching and you know, I, you know, I'm coming from personal, but also my training as a therapist and clinician and training through polyvagal theory and all set the stuff that I do about their nervous system.
00:41:40
Speaker
breathwork and stuff I teach my clients as well but it is different because you're you know what I'm teaching my clients in here you know they're not they might come in in a stress state but very different like you're putting you're purposely putting yourself into a place of stress and in a way it's a kind of these subtle little tools each day kind of building up and adding and I think it's such a genius way of doing it because I'm listening from my lens of like
00:42:01
Speaker
well, how do I teach? What am I with my clients? And I think the thing you said is so key is that no one else is doing it where you're purposely putting yourself in stress to then practice the tool or the skill. I think that's such a key component is that you're in small doses learning to pay attention to your nervous system. And you know, obviously, he's teaching you these different ways of thinking, asking questions and paying attention and whether it's how you talk to yourself to your breath work to all these different things. And eventually they're all combined. You have this amazing toolkit of these different things to pay attention.
00:42:30
Speaker
And knowing you're actually practicing it, which then I think just gives you that sense of confidence. So when you're in stress at work or with your kids tantruming or something where you're feeling it, you've had an experience of, like you said, in stressed, practicing a skill.
00:42:45
Speaker
And so you're more likely, brain-wise, because you've rehearsed this in that to more likely to be six, that's perfect, nothing's 100% transfer, but more likely. And so I think it's awesome. So it is such a cool piece of the app. In fact, I think I'm enjoying it more than I initially thought, because I didn't know what to think when I did it. I was like, okay, what are they doing here? And then I'm really seeing the benefit of it. And it's really, really cool how it's progressing and the kind of like, it's like, it's really little by little adding a little bit more
00:43:14
Speaker
And do the habit stuff. It makes sense because it's, it's not like, let's do 10 minutes. It's like, you know, it's, it's literally, what is it? 10 seconds or five seconds. It starts the first day. Yeah. Which is like, I could do five seconds, you know? And then you kind of, and then you have this habit of cold and yeah, no, I appreciate that. Same as one guy told us recently, he said, now I just kind of view everything as all stressors as a cold shower.
00:43:39
Speaker
He's like, I know I have the mental tools to handle it. And it's just, it's just this stress. Oh, that's just stress. I know how to handle stress. I can knock it down. I changed my breathing. I changed how my body's feeling. I changed myself. Talk. I've practiced maintaining mental clarity under stress. It's cool to just see that kind of change in people and it creeps up. Yeah, it's slow and it's kind of entertaining. And then before you know it, you've kind of learned and trained all these different approaches to handling daily stress.
00:44:07
Speaker
I'm mindful of time and I'm thinking of the last question. Is there anything about any preview of what or excitement of where the app might be going or anything upcoming that you could, I mean, I don't know if you can share or anything at all that you might be adding to the app or things that it might be expanding, anything like that with
Future of AI in Mental Health
00:44:24
Speaker
the app? Yeah, we are really close to releasing our first journey with AI coaching.
00:44:32
Speaker
feel like that shifted morning routine. That's a way to just kind of daily nudge, change your mindset. Before you know it, you've learned all these ways to handle stress. The other side of our app that we're building out is how to go deeper if you actually are really struggling with something. And AI offers this enable opportunity to do it in a way that's appealing to guys because you don't have to talk to anyone. You don't have to expose yourself. You don't have to share anything. I recently talked to someone who went through, lost somebody who went through a death.
00:45:00
Speaker
And people encouraged him to go to group therapy. So he was struggling. And he said he was driving on his way to go to group therapy.
00:45:07
Speaker
And he turned around halfway there and went back home because he decided he just didn't want to share it. He didn't want to share it with anybody. And that's unfortunate because a group therapy wouldn't have helped him a lot. But there's so many guys who are in that position where they're like, yeah, I want help, but I don't want to talk about this. And with AI, you could do it in private. You could do it in secret. You do it on your own. But the thing is, is AI is going to help you solve your problems, move to resolution faster and better than you're going to be able to do so on your own.
00:45:37
Speaker
And so we have these deeper coaching journeys that are that we're building out and are helping you with specific things. You know, it's like you see guys who are a lot of them go to therapy for the first time ever because he went through a breakup and they're struggling with breakup. And yeah, I actually had a lot of guys coming in because of that more than you would think.
00:45:56
Speaker
Or they want to be with a girl and they're like, maybe something happened in the relationship and they're like, yeah, I need to change some stuff. And they come in and they're like, okay, I need to actually work on some things because I like this girl enough to, I need to figure some stuff out here because, you know, she's kind of challenging me to be better or healthier. So I get that more than you think. It's funny you say that. Sorry. No, yeah. It's a, it's a major one that and like a lack of purpose. I think her, do you want to pop up? What to do now? Yeah. Especially early twenties and stuff like that. Yeah.
00:46:24
Speaker
And if you look at the breakup, the way guys interact with each other when a friend's going through a breakup is we tend to be pretty harsh on each other. It's like, ah, you know, get over, just go out and get laid. You're good. It's very simplistic advice that doesn't help. And the guy in that situation doesn't feel helped as we've talked about. So many guys don't want to go to therapy because they feel like they're men in defeat, which it isn't. It's helpful for you. But if you feel that way, you don't do it. And so then you're in between bad advice from friends or no advice from friends and not getting help.
00:46:54
Speaker
And maybe you're browsing around on the internet trying to get something to help you jog you out of this ruminative state you're in. What we could do with AI is we could talk to you. We could walk you through, help you gain insight into what's going on so that you can shift your mindset process and move through it. So instead of being miserable for six months, you're miserable for less amount of time. You still don't suffer to some degree, but you can walk through it more efficiently.
00:47:19
Speaker
And so I, yeah, I'm really excited for this AI bit because I think there's just, there's so many people out there that need deeper help and they're not getting it.
AI's Role in Bridging Gaps
00:47:29
Speaker
And it's partially because there's not a lot of, there's not enough therapists. If you're a guy and would like a guy therapist and there's definitely not enough. Yeah. We're the minority, I would say.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah, if you're a man of color... Color, it's even smaller. Oh yeah. Yeah, I've heard that if you're a Latino man, there's less than 0.2% of therapists are Latino men. How do you find someone who understands your shared experience in that situation? That is tough. And then you also have to have the money. You need to have the time to be able to go to it. It's expensive, it's costly. Unless you have insurance and even, you know, then if you have insurance, there's other hoops too with insurance. I mean,
00:48:06
Speaker
So there's, yeah, there's a lot. I think this AI thing, you know, utilizing AI for the, in fact, I've done, I'm releasing a video actually on some basics that I think we can use AI for therapy and how it can be beneficial. Obviously, it's not going to replace to some degree, it cannot, at least right now. But there's ways we can utilize it. So I think it's really cool that you're going to be adding it to the app of like, you're right, like maybe the guy's not ready for group therapy, even though we know that
00:48:29
Speaker
hey, being in the presence of other people and things could be very powerful. But if he's not there yet, what's the gap? How do we bridge the gap? And it sounds like really what I'm hearing is that mental is this, it's bridging the gap for guys who are not anywhere near it, but they're not also anywhere near therapy.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:48:45
Speaker
They're believing the benefit or education around it. And so they need something to get them. And maybe for some of these guys, this is enough. And maybe it's just some bad habits and it's nothing serious.
00:48:57
Speaker
or maybe it is something serious but this is still the stepping stone to like begin to change and then they get to a place of more open to you know what maybe I need to go deeper and maybe I do have some trauma now maybe I actually have things I got to deal with that's coming up or I'm having some other things like depression is not going away or panic or something else that is a little deeper that you know this app is
00:49:17
Speaker
While helpful, there's still something and I can now have this trust to then reach out because I've been building this toolkit and in a way you're already sprinkling in therapeutic tools within the app. I mean, I'm clearly seeing it only because I have the experience and knowledge of it that I'm seeing in it.
00:49:34
Speaker
But the way you do it is such a, the delivery of it is very just kind of like, it's just kind of floating it out there. It's not like punching in the face or demanding or shaming. It's just kind of part of like, it's just in it. It's just part of the DNA. That's my experience of using it. So I'm really excited. And so with that, as we close out, what, like, how do we find the app where we can, we find more about you and what you're doing? Like what, what are the details for that? Love that question. Yeah. Getmental.com.
00:50:00
Speaker
Our website, we love telling people it's time that we all get mental. But also, if you search mental in the App Store or the Google Play Store, you'll find us there as well. Yeah, so come over to the website, give us a download. Yeah, we'd really appreciate you checking us out.
00:50:18
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Anson. It's been a pleasure, and I can't wait. Yeah, everyone, go check it out. Guys, if you're listening, check it out. No matter where you are, I think this would be beneficial regardless. I think the cold shower thing alone, the cold shower protocol alone, you're gonna find great benefit. Even as a therapist who knows these things, I'm finding benefit out of it, if I'm honest. Like, I'm actually, it's just taking me...
00:50:37
Speaker
It's taking me a little step further and I have a laugh too in the morning. And wives, if you're listening of a partner, hey, you can always give this to your husband. Hey, check this out. This is a cool thing that, you know, a lot of dudes are getting into. I mean, there's a ways you could package it. You could always give them as a birthday gift or something. Why not, right? Or start a dad group and get guys kind of challenging each other in the cold shower and how long they could do it. But thank you so much. Blessings to you. Keep doing the work you're doing. I think it's so needed. And obviously as a guy, like I do, I believe in this. I think it's needed. We need more help with this and getting men in.
00:51:06
Speaker
and healing men to heal the next generations. And I think that's really what we're going to see how our world can change is by helping men help the next generation of men coming up and being more holistically healthy. So thank you, Anson, for the work you're doing and have a great rest of your day. Awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for joining and listening today. Please leave a comment and review the show. Dads are tough, but not tough enough to do this fatherhood thing alone.