In this introductory episode in Season One, Host Ben Marullo introduces the "Mental Muscle" podcast and interviews Jennifer Furlong, LPC, about what emotions are in the first place.
Key takeaways: What is mental (or mental-emotional) health and mental muscle? What is the Mental Muscle podcast all about? What does it mean to have a strong mind? Lastly, What are emotions?
All Teens Considered podcast was previously the Mental Muscle podcast.
In this introductory episode in Season One, Host Ben Marullo introduces the "Mental Muscle" podcast and interviews Jennifer Furlong, LPC, about what emotions are in the first place.
Key takeaways: What is mental (or mental-emotional) health and mental muscle? What is the Mental Muscle podcast all about? What does it mean to have a strong mind? Lastly, What are emotions?
All Teens Considered podcast was previously the Mental Muscle podcast.
(INTRO MUSIC)
Introduction to Mental Muscle - Host Ben Marullo (00:00)
My generation is facing one of the greatest preventable health crises in human history. If left untreated, it will result in hundreds of thousands of people dying from suicide, drug addiction and violence. The worst part – it's invisible and it's growing faster than ever before.
Hi! I'm Ben Marullo and welcome to Mental Muscle. This isn't a podcast about psychology; this isn't a podcast about happiness; and it's not a podcast to take the place of therapy. This is a podcast about mental health. But really, it's about mental fitness
Why do I say mental fitness? Because just like our bodies, we need to exercise our own mind every day to achieve optimal health, optimal fitness. See I think the brain is the most incredible part of the human body, but rarely do we look at it as something that can change and grow. But just like our muscles, with proper and consistent training, we can make it stronger. Just like running every day to build stamina or doing curls to build bicep muscles, this podcast will take you on a journey to show you the techniques you need to build your mental muscle.
So, what is mental muscle? Well, mental muscle is a measurement of the strength of the mind. What does it mean to have a strong mind? It means that you're more able to be in control of how you think, behave, and respond to feelings. In doing so, you'll be at peace and content with your mind and your life. We’ll explore this a bit further today in this episode.
Why does it matter to be mentally fit? Well, because being mentally fit has incredible benefits that impact our lives in ways that we can't always see. It allows us to control our lives, not simply react to it. It allows us to be comfortable in our own head, to understand why you think the things that you do, why you feel things and what to do about it. Lastly it allows us to live a happier, more fulfilling, and successful life. Why is it so important now particularly for young people?
Because before the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC reports that one in five American teens –about 15 million – have a diagnosable mental emotional or behavioral disorder. Only about 20% of these teams are ever diagnosed and receive treatment. About 80% or 12 million are not receiving any treatment at all. In 2020, approximately one in three high school students reported feelings of depression. That's a third.
And between the months of March and October 2020 there was a 44% increase in childhood and mental health ER visits. In the past decade the youth suicide rate has increased by 56%. Treatment for these issues is few and far between often with high financial barriers preventing folks whose parents don't have the money or wherewithal to do anything about it. The results? A depressed, anxious, and angry generation. There must be a better way and I'm on a mission to change this.
Over the past several months I’ve become fascinated with the silent killer that’s poor mental health. Not just because of how devastating it is for youth but rather because there's so little being done about it. Mental health is seen as something that we should react to – not prevent. We only treat issues when they show their ugly face and that's too late. We must re imagine how we treat mental health and how we look at mental health as the society.
Millions of people exercise every day. Gyms and sports are insanely popular and there's no shortage of fitness Instagram influencers out there. Why can't we look at mental health the same as physical health? Why can't we work out our brain just as athletes work out their muscles? Mental fitness is something that we must uphold every day to be our best selves because after Covid 19 everyone should know that mental health is real, it's important and building mental muscle really matters. I'm here to help show you how to do that.
I'm no expert. In fact, I'm an ordinary guy trying to build his own mental muscle. That's why every week I speak with leading experts in the field of mental health, psychology and leadership asking them the tough questions. This is no campfire discussion with cryptic suggestions. Instead, I breakdown these complex issues and provide simple bite size solutions that anyone can implement into their life.
But I can't do it alone. I need you – the listener – to go on this journey with me. I want to hear from you and ask the questions that you want to hear answers to. Every week I will take episode ideas from my audience and find the best expert to provide their mental fitness training. At the end of each episode, we’ll provide what we call an action plan – your mental workout. A simple 2-to-5 step plan that will equip you with the tools that you need to best handle whatever is on your mind. Think of it like an expert personal trainer for your brain. We will always face mental hardships in life, but just like physical strength, the stronger you are before the problem occurs the easier it will be to solve. We can work out our minds, build muscle and become mentally strong. I know we can do it together.
My first guest is Jennifer Furlong. She’s the lead clinician on our Mental Muscle team and she’ll be helping us along our journey.
Jennifer Furlong Introduction (05:47)
I’m Jennifer Furlong, a licensed professional counselor with a Master’s degree in Counseling. I have worked in the field of mental health for more than 20 years working with teenagers. I'm in private practice right now doing counseling.
Host Ben Marullo (06:07)
Before we start exploring how to best build up our mental muscles, we must ask ourselves – what are emotions and why do we have emotions in the first place?
Thanks so much, Jen, for coming on the show. The title of this episode is “What are Emotions?” and it sounds like an obvious question but when you think a little bit about it, is a bit difficult to define.
Now when you look online it says on Merriam Webster that it’s a conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as a strong feeling that's directed towards a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. But it does say online, as well, that there doesn't seem to be a real consensus in the scientific community.
So, what is your sort of interpretation of what emotions are?
Guest Jen Furlong (06:59)
An emotion has three different components to it:
§ The subjective part - where you feel the emotion and
§ A physiological part - where you experience the emotion and
§ The behavior part - where you act on or express the emotion.
Ben (07:23)
What is going on in our bodies – in our mind – when we feel different kinds of emotions?
Jen (07:31)
Our nervous system is basically responding to something that we're experiencing. When I was a teenager, I was held up at gunpoint at a job where I was working. I experienced massive fear. Somebody came in with a gun held it in front of me and I felt such fear. My physiological reaction went straight to fight or flight. I turned around and ran to get away.
Ben (08:12)
Jen was experiencing the primal reason our emotions exist – as instincts, as tools to get ourselves out of danger and avoid bodily harm.
Jen (08:22)
What happens is our nervous system tells us we need to react somehow and then our bodies might have a reaction and then we behave a certain way based on that.
Ben (08:36)
These are instincts that we naturally have in our own bodies just by virtue of being human. And we know that they are, of course, like in the example that you mentioned. There are reasons why we have that feeling. You are reacting to get away from dangers is to save yourself and make sure that there's no bodily harm done to you. But I'm wondering sort of why this happens, aside from the obvious?
Because it seems that in our lives were almost governed by our actions by the way that we feel. And I'm wondering what purpose does that really serve in our modern world? Now, of course, that example that you gave makes complete sense and that's something that can happen today. But it seems like every day we make choices that are based on things that we feel that might be rational and it may not be rational. What is the reason behind these mechanisms?
Jen (09:35)
I think one of the reasons why emotions and how we experience them and display our emotions is so important in society because that's how we can communicate with each other and make connections.
Ben (09:58)
We know emotions are not just survival instincts used by our ancestors. They’re important tools that help us connect with one another. But what are some other uses of these tools in our new modern world?
Jen (10:10)
Let's say you have a presentation that you must do at school. And you get super anxious before that. You feel anxious and basically the reason why you're feeling anxious is because it's going to help you in the future to be able to get prepared for that presentation and do the presentation the best that you can. So, you need a little bit of anxiety.
But what might happen, in that moment, is your heart might starts racing or you might turn red, you might feel sick to your stomach. Then, in behavior, you might run out of the room, or you might get up there and present and have it go well.
Different emotions can trigger different responses and then different behaviors. The behavior that we have based on the emotion is really a choice. We don't have any choice over what emotion we're feeling at the time. It’s kind of like a spectrum – emotions are – there's so many different emotions and people feel emotions at different levels for different reasons and at different times. You might have like a little bit of annoyance some time over something silly or you might get angry with somebody over something big.
Ben (11:39)
We look at certain emotions in society with either a positive or a negative connotation to them. We look at being angry or we look at being sad as something that isn't good for us. Why do you think that human beings seem to interpret different emotions as either bad or good?
Jen (11:58)
Most people believe that the goal is to be happy. Our goal is happiness but really to feel happy you're going to have to feel sad. You've got a range of emotions that you have to feel. There are certain kinds of primary emotions and then there's those emotions mixed together that can create other, more complicated emotions that we feel. Basically, emotions are not all good or all bad – they just kind of are.
Ben (12:36)
Jen touched on an important point that's not bad or good to feel any type of way. Feeling is simply our instincts, our tools, reacting to life and they are all valuable.
Jen (12:50)
It's important, no matter whether the emotion is sadness that you're feeling or happiness or anger, it is important to embrace that feeling and to feel it fully. Because if we don't allow ourselves to do that, we end up shoving it down and then it comes back out like in negative ways later.
Let's say like if something bad happens. You have a breakup with your boyfriend or have a loss of someone or something that's close to you. We’re going to feel sad. It's not always socially acceptable to be sad and to cry and to have that emotion and to express that emotion. Because a lot of people are taught that you shouldn't be sad. Sadness is bad. Don't cry. Especially like you said, men or boys are taught you're not supposed to cry. That it's a sign of weakness.
I think it's important, if you're going through a loss or going through something that's making you really sad, to set aside time to allow yourself to be sad. Give yourself an hour during the day just to cry and listen to sad music and to really let yourself embrace it and feel it because then you can really feel it and get it out and you aren’t stuffing it.
Sadly, we can't help what emotion we are feeling at the time. That just happens. It's just a natural reaction. We can't fix that or change that. We can't really change our physiological response either if we're going to have some physical reaction to the emotion. However, the behavior part we do have control over, and we can change that. We have control over ourselves to be able to stop, think and then decide how we’re going to behave.
Ben (14:59)
We aren’t able to get a grasp on necessarily being able to decide how your emotions make you feel a certain way. If you hurt yourself physically, like if you trip and fall, you can't just decide I'm not going to feel the pain of falling on the ground. You just feel it. To what extent, would you say we can control the way we think and behave?
Jen (15:27)
Thoughts sometimes go along like with the emotion. It's hard to get. It's hard to control those most of the time. You really must practice and work on that to try to create different thoughts. But you can stop a thought. You can do some like reframing and stop a thought once it comes into your head. You can change the way that you're thinking about something. So, you might not be able to change the initial thought that you have, but you can intercept it and intervene and try to change the way you're thinking about it – think differently. Also, moving forward, to be able to behave differently based on that emotion. You must think it through to know the correct way to behave.
Ben (16:28)
It sounds like what you said is we have complete control over the way that we act based on those thoughts and feelings, a little bit less control how we think and pretty much no control over the feelings. Would you say that’s correct?
Jen (16:45)
Yes. I think so. Definitely.
Ben (16:47)
That kind of begs the question about the idea that we look at different emotions and different feelings – placing a value – like this is good this is bad. Why do you think that we do assign that value? Do you think that value might be more misdirected? That we say it's bad to be sad perhaps because the behavior that typically is exhibited with sadness is not something that's healthy or productive?
Like anger. That could be seen in violence toward other people. In the behavior of sadness, being in a depressive slump where you use drugs or alcohol and don't go out and do things that are productive and healthy for society. That would be bad.
Jen (17:37)
Kinda. First, I'm going back in history to Charles Darwin who first studied emotions as kind of a survival instinct. Emotions were attached to our emotions – like anger, fear, or love. All those things, they motivate us to act and to take actions for survival or for success. It was the survival theory which are the first studies of emotions.
One doesn't have more value than the other. They're all valuable and they all lead toward thoughts and behavior that hopefully will work to connect us socially to someone else on a deeper level. They'll help us to work through whatever is going on in our life at the time. They will help us be successful. If there's a test we need to study for and we’re feeling nervous, or feeling afraid, or feeling anxious about the test, that drives us to study and to prepare for it so we can have positive results when we take the test.
Ben (19:03)
I think what you said totally makes sense. The next question I have for you is – Is happiness the goal?
I'm so interested in this because I see other podcasts and resources that discuss mental health. It's always about getting happier. I've always thought the concept of happiness is somewhat misdirected. That, yes of course, it feels good to be happy but if we're discussing different emotions in the context that they're all equal, then it doesn't seem to make sense that happiness is more valued than sadness, anger or fear or these other things that we go through in our lives.
Why do you think it seems like a lot of what we talk about around mental health today revolves around happiness? Is happiness really the goal?
Jen (20:10)
Happiness is just as valid or has just as much weight as sadness. You can't feel happiness without feeling sadness. It's important that you experience the whole – all the emotions. I think in our society happiness is attached to wealth and power and some of these kinds of things that do not bring true happiness to people. I believe we’ve got kind of a skewed view in our society.
I don't think one emotion should be valued over other. They’re not good or bad emotions. What we're aiming for really is to be content. To be content, you really must be able to learn to experience every emotion as you feel them and then as you learn to experience them, to feel them, to manage the behaviors that come with them, we can become content with ourselves and with our emotional well-being and our emotional health.
Ben (21:44)
It sounds like happiness is similar to other emotions? But we want to aim for being content. Can you elaborate a little bit? What does content feel like? If that's the goal, what does that look like to us?
Jen (22:02)
It looks like someone who can experience something negative in their life and they are able to allow themselves to feel, to experience that sadness or pain, grieve through it and then come out on the other side. If you're able to experience each emotion and work through it, think through it and act through it, then it's going to create contentment in your life.
Because we're going to have things that go wrong – or that go positive – every day in our life. Emotions can be like a rollercoaster where they're up and down and all over the place. But if we know how to manage those and how to behave accordingly, then that equals contentment I believe. It's really learning how to behave and how to manage the emotions that we feel.
Ben (23:02)
If learning how to behave and manage our emotions is key to reaching mental well- being and feeling content, how do we successfully ride the roller coaster?
Jen (23:11)
There's the difference between moods and emotions – like a mood that a person's in and then an emotion that you might feel. Because somebody might be in a depressed mood, it's going to last a longer amount of time. But even when they are in a depressed mood, that doesn't mean that they're going to be sad all the time. There still might be something that happens to might make them happy for a moment.
But moods and emotions are very different things. I think sometimes people get those confused. I'm saying that because too much pleasure or too much happiness – extremes – we don't want anything in extremes. We want everything in moderation. We want to be able to manage it and have everything in moderation.
If you've got too much happiness/excitement/joy – like all these that people would consider as good positive things – it almost creates mania. Almost like a mood disorder. Probably a subject for a different day – talking about depression or mania with bipolar disorder. Totally different.
If you put too many extremes together, it's not going to work. You're not going to be able to level out. You must have the little bits of ups and downs and then you can figure out how to level it out. We don't want extremes. We want moderation.
Ben (24:55)
That’s a really an interesting thing you said – the difference between moods and emotions. If I'm thinking about an emotion – like a roller coaster that has ups and downs – and then there's some plateaus. Moods are just sort of more prolonged versions of that? What would be the difference between a mood and an emotion?
Jen (25:19)
Let's say you have depression and you're in a depressed mood. That is longer lasting than sadness. If you have sadness that lasts over a period of time for so many days or so many weeks, it turns into depression. That is your mood – a depressed mood.
You still might go into a room where people are having a surprise party for you. You might walk in and be excited. That's the emotion. You can still experience different emotions even though you're in a depressed mood.
Even if you're in a good mood you can still be in a good mood – and then have something like you spill coffee on your shirt and you might get really aggravated – really frustrated and irritated for a few minutes. You deal with it and then you move on. It doesn't totally change your mood. It's just something that happened – you feel that emotion and then you can go on about your day with however your mood was.
It's just it's different. The mood is longer lasting.
Ben (26:53)
I've always liked my personality when I am in a good mood. When things are going well, I feel like OK, this is really who I am. This is good. And then as soon as something bad happens to me or something that will bother me occurs, I'll be upset not just about what happened but about like feeling like crap. I was in a good mood and now I'm not anymore. Now I'm thrown off.
What would you say would be a good tool that we can remind ourselves of that? A tool that we can use when we feel something that happens in our lives does affect the way that we're feeling. What can we do to mitigate some of these ups and downs – kind of find that balance?
Jen (27:50)
You must remember to tell yourself that things aren't going to stay this way. If you do have a down time, remind yourself, this is not going to last forever. We're not going to stay that way forever. You must know and believe that things are going to change, that things are going to get better, and they will.
Look back on your life and you can probably see. I was happy these couple of days and then I was sad these few days. You're going to be happy again. You're going to feel sadness again. You must remind yourself of that so that you don't give up.
Along with depression comes feelings of hopelessness. And like you said, you get to the point where you feel like I just want to get back to myself again. You know this doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right but you just must remember to hold on and that things are going to get better. They will eventually get better.
Ben (28:59)
Even though certain feelings we have feel like they will last forever, remembering that emotions aren't permanent can help us better navigate that roller coaster ride.
I want to finish my conversation with Jen by getting a step- by-step action plan to use when we struggle to identify the emotion we feel or why we feel it. How do I figure out what's going on in me right now and how can I be clear about what's being experienced?
Action Plan - Jen (29:29)
Step #1: In your mind, recognize what emotion it is that you're experiencing. Then you want to name that emotion or emotions – whether it's anger, sadness, anxiety. Whatever it is that's going on inside of you at the time.
Step #2: We want to really feel that emotion. Allow ourselves to feel it and think it through.
Step #3: If we're able to verbalize our feelings to someone else, that would be great if there's somebody there that we can talk to and express ourselves to. If not, do journaling. It is a great thing to do. Actually, write out what you experienced in the emotion that you are experiencing – how you felt, how you dealt with it. It's great to keep track of those as they happen then you can go back later and reread it. It helps you to understand what you experienced, how you deal with it and then are there better ways to deal with it in the future. Did you do a good job of dealing with it or handling it? How can we effectively deal with it better next time?
Closing - Ben (31:08)
We may not be able to get off the roller coaster ride of emotions, but we can control how we think and behave on the ride. Emotions are instincts we have evolved with whether we're getting ourselves out of danger, preparing for a presentation or just connecting with one another. Emotions are incredibly valuable. Understanding why emotions exist and realizing that they are precious tools, not hindrances, is the first step in growing mental muscle.
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to Mental Muscle and I hope you stick around as I continue to explore the many ways we can all grow mental muscle and stay mentally fit to live a better more fulfilling life and leave the world a little better off in the process.