Celebrating One Year of Y Health!

In this special one-year anniversary episode of the Y Health Podcast, listeners are invited to get to know their esteemed host, Dr. Cougar Hall! He discusses mind-body health, offering valuable tips for maintaining balance in life. Join in this celebration as the Y Health Podcast reflects on its journey and Dr. Cougar Hall's unwavering commitment to empowering listeners to take charge of their well-being.

Recorded, Edited & Produced by Averee Bates, Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, Madison McArthur, Kailey Hopkins, and Tanya Gale

Transcript

Celebrating One Year of Y Health!

Cougar: [00:00:00] Dr. Lori Spruance, welcome back to Y Health 

Lori: thanks. I'm happy to be here. 

Cougar: Are you really though?  This is gonna be fun. 

Lori: we're changing it up today. 

Cougar: So the producers have asked that we have a little role reversal that you interview me. Yep. Which is an absolute shame. I have nothing good to say and really kind of puts you, uh, Just in, in a different chair on the other side of the glass.

Cougar: So in a new role. Yeah, so I think I'm just gonna hand it over to you and we're gonna see where this goes, but I'm really excited. 

Lori: Awesome. Well, I'm happy to be the guest podcast host today. And Cougar, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your background, education background, and maybe some of the classes that you teach here at BYU.

Cougar: So this is what it feels like, huh? This is great. I would love to, I was born and raised in, Seattle, Washington, or just outside of Seattle, and, um, came to Provo right after my mission. [00:01:00] So I served a mission in Taiwan, in the Taiwan Taun mission, and came to BYU not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, but had realized on my mission.

Cougar: Two things. One is that, I love teaching. I would get on my bicycle after a discussion and I just, it was massive dopamine on the brain and I'd look over into my companion. I'm like, wow, was that awesome? And he did 

Lori: say, send me home. Yeah. Elder 

Cougar: Hall, that was, that was great. I'm glad you had so much fun.

Cougar: I'm like, I so. I realized I enjoyed this. I had a, there was a chemical reward. Right. That's awesome. And that's one of the things dopamine does actually interesting to note is dopamine really directs each of us individually to the things that are important to us and that, uh, we're good at or we feel like we're good at.

Cougar: And I think I definitely had a dopamine reward teaching. And then the other thing is, I, I wasn't sure if I was good at it. How do you know you don't get a lot of. Feedback. Right, but just 

Lori: door is slammed in your face. 

Cougar: Exactly. But one, one day, I, I think [00:02:00] it was probably midway through my mission, I was finally starting to speak a little bit of Chinese, and it was a little bit awkward, but, um, the investigator, our friend that we were teaching said, is it okay if just elder hall talks today?

Cougar: Now that's an awkward thing to look at your companion and be like, oh, I guess I'm taking it. But that happened a couple times and I thought, you know, maybe, maybe not lonely do I love this, but maybe I'm okay at this. Like at least better than average, you know, so to speak. So I knew I loved health. I grew up in a family where they were ahead of the curve, so to speak.

Cougar: We only ate, you know what, dad and mom grew in the garden and what dad shot. Like, I mean, it was farm to fork. Yeah, it really was. And so I think just, there was a real emphasis on our health, physical activity, nutrition. And so I was interested in those things as well. And when I realized in my first semester at BYU that there was a school health education major, and I didn't particularly enjoy school.

Cougar: I wasn't a particularly good student, that's for sure. I had, some learning disabilities. I [00:03:00] learned how to read, uh, about the fourth grade, which Oh, wow. Which for a parent of a fourth grader, they're like, what? But. It was, it was hard for me. So I immediately declared that as a major and I started my classes.

Cougar: I loved the health classes. The health classes were just awesome. It was just, just felt like this is where I'm supposed to be. Some of the education classes were challenging. In fact, this, this, , happened two semesters in a row where my education professor pulled me aside and said, Hey, you're a nice guy.

Cougar: You're not a teacher. And I was like, well, I've already declared this as my major, so I don't, no, no, you're not a teacher. It doesn't matter what you declared. So they, in both instances, two semesters in a row, they sent me to the Kimball Tower, and in the basement of the Kimball Tower, you can take what's called the Career Assessment Inventory.

Lori: I've taken one of those that tells you like, bus driver, like ridiculous careers. 

Cougar: No one's gonna believe that. I didn't prompt you to say that. Oh. [00:04:00] It's a pretty reliable measure. Both times it said you should be a bus driver. And uh, that is so funny because I had to take the results back to the professor in both instances.

Cougar: And it's almost like they had coordinated too, because they both said, see, you can work in a school, you can be a part of the education system, but you're gonna drive the bus. You are not gonna be in a classroom with kids. I was just like, it's a little devastating. I was a little heartbroken, but I, I was probably more angry, like, that's great that you want me to drive the bus.

Cougar: Nothing against bus drivers. I actually agree. I would enjoy driving the bus, but I'm gonna teach and you can't do anything about it. Actually talk to my major advisor and he's like, I'll just ignore them. And so I did. I ignored them. And the really cool thing is my first year of teaching, I won the teacher of the year award.

Cougar: And all I could think about was not, I'm a great teacher. I'm so, I can't wait to tell my wife. All I could think about was I want to go find those two professors and just [00:05:00] like thumbtack this to their forehead. Like, you know, every, every class that I took from you, you talked about school change and school reform.

Cougar: Maybe one of the problems is we think we know what a teacher looks like. We think we know who they should be and how like, Maybe we need to get some kind of non-traditional personality, some non-traditional perspectives in teaching. And so, yeah, I, I just loved it. 

Lori: Well, I think those stories are so great, particularly just because there's a lot of students who might be listening to this podcast thinking, how can I succeed and why does everyone look like the most successful person?

Lori: But you know, we only catch sometimes a small glimpse of some of our professor's stories. And so I think it's awesome to be able to share some times where we don't. Look like what we're supposed to Yeah. Or someone didn't think we'd measure up, that sort of thing. 

Cougar: You gotta go for it, you know? And, and there, and there might be some, some red flags or warning signs along the way that maybe this isn't your profession or, or maybe this isn't what you're gonna do.

Cougar: But I just, [00:06:00] I just really felt like, no, I think, I think I'm really drawn to this. Um, and I did. I loved it. I taught high school for 11 years. I had only taught for three or four years when I went back to school, so I taught full-time during the day and I found an executive program at the University of Utah Master's PhD?

Cougar: Both. Both, yeah. Okay. Both masters. My masters was in, in health promotion and education, and my PhD was in teaching and learning, which was really focused on how to help new teachers, how to mentor student teachers, and. How to help them through their, their early career. So loved it. It was crazy cuz I had a family.

Cougar: We had three kids and that's a lot of work. We were juggling a lot of balls, that's for sure. For nine years. And I had always thought, you know what, if BYU doesn't hire me when I'm done with all of this. And I thought, oh, that's fine. I already had my dream job. I love teaching high school and I'll be overcompensated based on, my education at that point, 

Lori: Before you get into what classes you teach here, tell our listeners where your name Cougar [00:07:00] comes from.

Cougar: Oh, that's funny. So, my mom and dad both came to BYU. Though I, I wouldn't say they're huge fans. Like they wouldn't know when it's game day, you know, per se. Yeah. They're not, you know, they're not sports fanatics. My father, Was a veterinarian and got his doctorate, a veterinarian medicine at Washington State University.

Cougar: They're also the Cougars. Yep. But I, I don't know that he's a huge fan of, uh, of wazoo sports, either of the university per se. I think he's a bit of a non-conformist. I'm the only one in the family with an animal name, but all of my siblings have fairly unique names. Oh, cool. So I don't know that there's a great story.

Cougar: Other than he is like, yeah, let's go for it. 

Lori: That's great. I just, uh, if you listeners, if you don't know, sometimes people don't know Cougar Hall is a person and they think it's a place and so gotta know where the cougar comes from. 

Cougar: Yeah. Pretty cool. Okay. Now, now I got another dumb story for you. So Hillary and I, so I'm married to Hillary and, uh, [00:08:00] When we were at BYU, they were in a, we were in a class together and she was trying to get ahold of me.

Cougar: I had given her my number, but I was so nervous cuz I was also crazy about her. I wrote down my prefix wrong, which students today won't understand that every semester you might have a new phone number. And so it's a combination of me to being, you know, dumb and not knowing my own phone number, but also being really excited to be talking to this girl who, I couldn't believe was talking to me.

Cougar: But at any rate, she, at the time she called the BYU operator. And said, this is a, I know this is a strange request, but there was a guy in my class named Cougar and I need his phone number. And so the operator said, yeah, just hold on a second. And came back a moment later and said, all I have is Cougar Hall, and she assumed it was a dorm or it's a building on campus.

Cougar: It's something with the athletics department. And so she said, okay, well thanks anyway. Isn't that great? So 

Lori: have it. Also, your wife has the same sort of situation. It's not just the curtain students. 

Cougar: Good stuff, huh? 

Lori: Okay. So tell us the classes you teach here [00:09:00] on campus. 

Cougar: Well, I was really hired to teach the school health.

Cougar: Students. And so there's classes that they take related to curriculum, and then there's classes that they take, that are really preparing them for the student teaching experience, which is beyond just the content they're gonna teach, but how they're gonna teach, how they're gonna manage their classroom scope and sequence, how they're gonna be effective in helping, helping students not only just learn content, because health education is really struggling and but, but trying earnestly to get.

Cougar: Past just content and focus on skills that young people need to know to be able to adopt 

Cougar: and maintain healthy behaviors. So that, that's the vast majority of what I teach for a couple years I taught, the introduction to public health class. That's, that's a class that you now teach Lori. You're much more suited for that.

Cougar: I really don't have formal public health background. Although I have to admit, I don't, I don't see school health as completely separate from public health. I think it's just, 

Lori: I was gonna say school health is public health.

Cougar: I think it's just a different setting and a different population, but, we're really trying to help young people, like I say, make good decisions and, and avoid, the [00:10:00] consequences of poor health decisions.

Cougar: That's for sure. there's another class I teach though, and, and maybe this is, you know, kind of where our conversation goes. I don't know. You're, you're in charge. But it's, it's called Mind Body Health. And in all honesty, it was the most impactful class I took as an undergrad. I was taught by Dr. Keith, Karen, and he's the author of the textbook that I use today.

Cougar: But I took that class in 1994 or 95 and it changed my life. It's really, it's everything health that's not, you know, diet, nutrition, vaccination, which is a lot. There's so many other things. Um, how we. How we see the world, how we perceive, uh, the things that we're experiencing, our relationships, um, that really, really are incredibly impactful on our health outcomes.

Cougar: So I love that class as an undergrad. And, uh, I think I'd only been on campus here as a full-time faculty member for maybe a year or so when Dr. Karen retired. 

Lori: Like it's [00:11:00] mine. I know I get to teach that now. 

Cougar: And, well actually I was, I was hoping that, but in that first faculty meeting after he left, uh, they're like, yeah, so maybe we should get rid of that class.

Cougar: Is there anyone who wants to teach it? And I looked around, I'm like, I'm the most junior faculty member. I'm like, well, I'll teach it. And they said, , you know, but you already have a full teaching load. And so it wound up being an evening class, and I've taught it as an evening class for 15 years and I love it.

Lori: So tell us some of the main, I mean, you said everything, not. You know, diet, nutrition, vaccinations, et cetera. But describe some of the main concepts you talk about in that class and how that's improved your life and maybe your students' lives. 

Cougar: Yeah. there's chapters on locus of control, which is really overcoming learned helplessness and.

Cougar: Recognizing we can't do everything, but there's always something we can do, and that's really impactful for our mental and emotional health. It's a chapter on explanatory style, which maybe listeners will relate with, you know, old school definitions of optimism and [00:12:00] pessimism. But it's, it's really much more than glasses half full.

Cougar: It's, it's really how you. Explain life events to yourself and that, you know, the stories we tell ourselves and, telling ourselves stories that are, are more hopeful generally, but, not at not attacking ourselves. So we have these three Ps. We call 'em personal, pervasive, and permanent. And so when something negative happens in our life, we may have a tendency to really personalize that.

Cougar: Like, it's me, I'm the problem, or it's really pervasive. It's not just this, it's not just that I'm struggling in chemistry, I'm terrible at everything. And it's also permanent. It's not just, you know, this is, this was a tough week for me. I had to work, you know, a 20 hour shift and then I also had this going on and I just wasn't able to study the way I normally study.

Cougar: It's not just that, no, this is, this is permanent, it's always been this way and it's always gonna be this way. And so have those kind of three Ps of really pessimistic thinking. And so explanatory style really flips that on. Its on its ear. And says, you know what? [00:13:00] Like, yeah, I, I underperform today, but that's not who I am.

Cougar: And it doesn't extend to other areas of my life, and it doesn't, it doesn't define me moving forward. I'm, I'm empowered to actually make, make more of the future. And so I, I. Anyway, there's an example of a chapter on, on explanatory styles. We have chapters on the health benefits of marriage, the health benefits of family and social support, the health consequences of loneliness.

Cougar: Something we're definitely seeing coming out of, the Covid 19 pandemic. 

Lori: Absolutely. 

Cougar: The health benefits of altruism, which is selfless service, which really helps, especially with, anxiety and depression. Because by nature those ailments cause us to focus inward, right? And, and altruism really directs our thoughts and our attention outward, in the service of others.

Cougar: So sometimes I feel like as we've gone through just a couple of these topics, it's in so many ways, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. But operationalized in a way that we can talk about in, in health and a  

Cougar: definition. Yeah. [00:14:00] Yeah. Isn't that cool? Non, non-spiritual. Yeah. So to speak. 

Cougar: But I think, I think there's a lot of social science that, aligns well with.

Cougar: Some of the doctrines, some of the teachings, that we, you know, we've learned and know to be true. So, 

Lori: absolutely. So sometimes in public health we can easily approach things from like a problematic lens. Like, you know, we have low vaccination rates maybe compared to five years ago, or all sorts of different problems.

Lori: How does this this mind body health perspective, so to speak, apply to like larger things in public health? 

Cougar: That's a good question, and especially when I'm talking about optimism, right? Because I think, I think so often we think that an optimist just puts on these rosy, you know, lenses and just sees the world, you know, may maybe with their head in the sand for a lot of the time.

Cougar: But that's, that's not really what it is. And, and, and maybe to back it up and talk about public health, because often the sky is falling in public health and, and whether we want to, you know, [00:15:00] Jar someone into this reality of, Hey, this is problematic and we need to pay attention to this, or it's gonna be, it's gonna be a significant issue for us as, as a population in, in school health.

Cougar: We do the same thing. We, we may lead a discussion with just how terrible things are. So the first five minutes of class I might. Paint this picture of like, if you don't pay attention today, you are doomed. Like this is, you're 

Cougar: gonna die from, this is so bad. Correct. Sexually transmitted 

Cougar: infection, they're coming for you.

Cougar: So in fact, I, I have to tell you, this may go on for four hours, but when I was at the high school, we had an , an assembly. It was the red ribbon week assembly, which is anti-drug, anti-violence. So I got my class together and we marched down to the auditorium and there was a public health professional. I won't tell you which county health department, but um, gave this, this presentation, anti-drug, anti-violence.

Cougar: Her first talking point was, you have no idea how bad the [00:16:00] methamphetamine problem is in Utah. And she started using words like everyone. Like everyone at Springville High School, everyone in Spanish for, I dunno why she's picking on the Nebo School district, but she made it sound like literally everyone is using meth.

Cougar: And so when we got back to class, I just said, Hey, let's just, I wanna reframe something. So point 0.2% of Utah High school seniors have ever tried methamphetamine. So when you, when you heard that woman say, everyone, just recognize that actually it's a small, 99.8% of people of high school seniors in Utah have not tried meth.

Cougar: So just just put that in perspective. But I understand what she was doing and why. It just turns out that that is exactly what we should not be doing. And what's really cool, especially in 2023, is most things are trending the [00:17:00] right direction and have been since, uh, actually since I graduated from high school in 1990.

Cougar: So I, I'm actually gonna give you a few statistics. Is that all right, Laurie? Yeah, please. I know I'm, I'm talking too much, but I would call these the greatest stories. Never told. And that is, if you look at teen pregnancy, so teen pregnancy in the United States, I'm talking girls 15 to 19, all time high in 1990.

Cougar: And because the population has shifted, we can't actually use, you know, numbers. So we use a rate, right? Yeah. X, X number of girls per every 1000. And in 1990 there were 117 pregnancies for every 1000 teens. And in 2021, They're 17. So from 117 to 17, that's amazing. Few people know this. In fact, it was not long ago.

Cougar: I was sitting with Hillary in Sunday school and someone raised their hand, I don't even remember the context, but raised their hand and said, well, that's why Utah has the highest teen [00:18:00] pregnancy rate. And Hillary can feel my blood pressure just like, I'm like, what are you talking about? 

Lori: Misinformation in Sunday school never happened before.

Cougar: No, but, and we've probably all heard something like that before, right? My, my students used to say, well, well then why is Utah the highest? I'm like, what are you talking about? We're always, we're always one of the lowest. I think, I think year in and year out we're, we're fifth, between fifth and 10th best.

Cougar: And if you talk to the county health department, they're like, well, we're actually the best. It's just that we have a lot of 19 year olds in Utah who are married and have children. Yeah. And they, and they get counted, picked up in that data too. Yeah. But so, so, Why does it matter though, right? Because if you're talking to adolescents in particular, and this is why normative education is so important, if you're talking to adolescents, one of the greatest risk factors.

Cougar: Is that they have this, this exaggerated perception of the risk behavior of their peers. So teenagers consistently say, [00:19:00] oh, like all my friends are pregnant. All my friends drink alcohol. All my friends smoke marijuana. Um, or, or BYU students say, they actually say the same thing when I talk to 'em when they get here.

Cougar: I'm like, so let's talk about this. And the declines in this, the trends in this, they're like, well, I'm not from Utah though, so I was the only one in my high school who wasn't pregnant. I'm like, no, actually. I don't know how to say this nicely, but you're wrong. False, right? But it becomes, it becomes not just misinformation.

Cougar: We are shooting ourselves in the foot because adolescents have this strong desire to conform to the norm. They say otherwise, but it's, an enticing. Um, powerful motivator to fit in with the norm. And if they think everyone's drinking, then they're more likely to drink. So taking a normative approach is really successful.

Cougar: Can I talk about alcohol real quick? We've been tracking this since 1975.

Cougar: I say we, it's called the Monitoring the Future, uh, study at the University of Michigan. So check this out. This is high school seniors. 30 [00:20:00] day alcohol use. And in 1975, uh, it was 68%. So 68% of high school seniors had tried alcohol in the last month pretty high. And in 2022 it was 28%. So these are, well, like I say, these are the the greatest stories.

Cougar: Never told abortion all time. All time lows. AB abortion rates in 20, in 2020. Um, Lowest since 1973. In fact, most experts think it's lower now than it was pre-Roe v. Wade, like so. And I'm not saying that we don't have work to do. In fact, that's where I'm gonna go with this. But it's really important that we correct some of these misperceptions.

Lori: Yeah, the sky's not falling in every single thing that we're observing. Right. And it's not the worst it's ever been. Right. In public health or other places, I'm sure as well. 

Cougar: it leads us to this realization that improvement can be needed and.

Cougar: Things are better than ever. [00:21:00] And I feel that way in school health. I feel that way in public health. Um, it's just we don't often communicate that. I've really, I've really made a focus in training teachers here at BYU and also in teaching my students when I was a high school teacher, we have to correct the misperceptions.

Cougar: So I would pull the audience. I would always ask them, what do you think it's at? What, you know, you guys come up here and you draw the trend line on the board. Where do you, has it gotten worse? And in every case, and I'm not exaggerating, in every case, everything in their minds is getting worse, worse, worse, worse.

Cougar: And so then to turn that around and show them actual data and look, it's actually getting better, better, better. With every year and every generation of young people, they're making better decisions. That that blows their mind. They're just like, I had no idea. Why have I never heard this? I don't know. Your parents haven't heard it either, but I'm doing my part.

Cougar: I'm screaming it like now in, in all fairness, I think when, when the numbers are trending the right direction and when there's this misperception gap, we need to lead with that. [00:22:00] That's the first thing I ask my teachers to do when things are getting worse. You, you have to be honest. There are things getting worse.

Cougar: We've talked about gun violence in schools in the, on the podcast before getting worse. We have a challenge now where we have a, we're likely to have a generation of unvaccinated children because, 

Lori: some hesitancy among parents there hesitancy for a variety of reasons.

Cougar: So, so not everything's eating better, but you know, for you in public health, you look at extreme poverty, it's. When I was born in 1972, half of the world lived in extreme poverty and now it's just under 10%. It's remarkable. 

Lori: Yeah. And we just think about how life expectancy's changed. Yeah. In a hundred years.

Lori: And you know, of course we face different problems. People aren't young babies, children aren't dying from pneumonias frequently. And now we have chronic diseases. Nice. But. We've improved over time related to quality of life, the length you can [00:23:00] live, that sort of thing. 

Cougar: It's really cool. And, and I think this idea, if, if, if we can go full circle.

Cougar: Is that okay Laurie? Yes, please. We go full circle back to a mind body health, principle. It's that we can hold onto both. We can recognize that things are less than perfect and that our work is not done. We can hold on to both of those. And in mind body health, we talk about what's called the law of present moment living.

Cougar: And, and we start like on, on day one with this in class, which is you all have some significant challenges in your life, but you cannot let that prevent your happiness, prevent a fulfilling life. And there's two things that I try to. Teach the students. When we talk about that, the first is this, I'll be happy when, uh, I don't know, story or narrative.

Cougar: That's pretty much ongoing for us, you know, from about age nine on, which is, I'll be happy when I'm 16. I can drive, be happy when I'm graduated out of the house, be happy when I'm into college. Be happy when I have a job that 

Lori: pays a lot more money, hopefully. Yeah. And then 

Cougar: we [00:24:00] get to this point where it's like, I'll be happy, you know, when we have a house, be happy when we have kids.

Cougar: Be happy when the kids are out of the house. And I, and I, I try to tell the students that like, I, I'm aware of this, I've been acutely aware of this for a long time, and I, it's still a struggle. You have to realize that like, if you can't be happy right now, like it's, it's gonna be really challenging. Like it's, it's not like a new minivan is gonna change that for you.

Cougar: I'm sorry to say. Right. And, and this idea, and I think this is a John Lennon quote, I don't often quote John Lennon, but we probably should, right? It's life is what happens when you're making other plans. And maybe a more academic, um, point on that is from Abraham Maslow, who's like, you know, people are either preparing to live or they're living, but the majority are just preparing to live.

Cougar: It's like we're not. We're not really fully engaging because we feel like there's some, there's something that's thwarting us. And until we get over that, or until we resolve that, then we can't really [00:25:00] live. Like I can, I can really live, once I clear this hurdle, once we figure out these finances, or once I figure out this relationship issue and this and this idea from Mind body health, I think, word for word from the text, it says, you know, we can't put life on hold.

Cougar: Pending the resolution of some problem or challenge, we we have to just move forward now and recognize that there's a bunch of stuff in my life that's not awesome. But there's also a whole bunch of stuff that's, it's more than awesome. And so you 

Lori: talk about strategies in the class on how to do this. I'm, you know, taking some notes myself, like, what do I need to do to not focus on all problems and live in the moment, or that sort of stuff.

Lori: What do you talk about strategies in the class? A little 

Cougar: bit. I wish I had more. I think, I think first and foremost is an awareness of that, right? Mm-hmm. Is an awareness and, and this is where BYU is awesome cuz I can talk about my spiritual beliefs and my faith and my conviction, in my savior Jesus [00:26:00] Christ.

Cougar: And recognizing that this is part of our Heavenly Father's plan. And sometimes I tell my stance, I'm like, You and I are here. We're hoping to become more like our father in heaven. Now let's just, let's just be totally honest. This is our father who hands off watched his son, his only begotten suffering Gethsemane, and hang on a cross on Golgotha.

Cougar: And yet you and I think we're gonna become like him and not experience intense heartache. And grief and disappointment, the 

Lori: refiners fire, right? 

Cougar: So that's part of it, right? Is being able to go back to what we know to be a spiritual truth. But we certainly learned skills. We learned, we learned mindfulness skills, which is really slowing down and really, really thinking about our body and what we're experiencing and allowing those thoughts to pop up.

Cougar: And acknowledging them, not necessarily challenging em, just say, oh yeah, well, yeah, of [00:27:00] course. I would say that to myself. That makes sense. I know where that comes from and I'm gonna dismiss that now. So, you know, some mindfulness, some cognitive behavioral therapy, which is recognizing our distorted thoughts.

Cougar: Mm-hmm. And finding, finding better ways of thinking. When I say better, Not that one thought is valued over another, but better meaning that are thoughts that are more closely aligned with who we're really trying to be with, you know, with our, our most cherished values and things that we're striving for.

Cougar: And so, yeah, we definitely go through some of those exercises for sure. It's still a challenge. I'm really, I feel very blessed to be able to teach this class a couple times a year because it keeps me kind of like focused on. How, how can I do this in my own life? And maybe, maybe the best thing for me, and I, I hope I share this sufficiently with my students, is just gratitude.

Cougar: Even, even when things are really challenging in parenting or finances or career or just, or just [00:28:00] stress or, uh, church calling or service or whatever it is, to take a, to take some time each day and just consider. Your blessings and express gratitude for that? Think, I think that more than anything kind of reenters me and says, you know what?

Cougar: I really am hopeful for some things down the road. I have a five year plan and I really am working hard, for fruition of some of those hopes and dreams. Yeah. But that doesn't mean I can't be happy today on a Tuesday. Yeah. It Does 

Lori: that make sense? Absolutely. I, I'd consider my dad maybe somewhat of a pessimist.

Lori: He'd probably say he is a realist and I'd probably take after him a little bit. But we had a quote, and I forget the original author, but, president, Gordon b Hinkley shared it one time, and I'm gonna butcher it, but just this idea that not every day is beautiful. And he talks about how most putts don't drop.

Lori: My dad's a big golfer, so he was always like, you're not gonna get a hole in one very often. If ever, you know, most beef is tough. And then he goes on to [00:29:00] talk about, the quote again, Gordon, me Hinckley shared it originally that life is like an old time, train journey. Yeah. Where so dust. Driving or being on the train in the middle of Utah and Idaho, where it's not all that beautiful, but that the trick is to thank the Lord for the ride.

Lori: Yeah, and I think that's a lot about what you're saying is not every day is beautiful, but there are beautiful moments in every day that if we're looking for them, we can appreciate that. 

Cougar: Yeah. Actually you nailed that quote by the way cuz I'm thinking of the quote. I'm like, I know that quote. And then you, you, you hit everything that was in your 

Lori: look it was posted on the pantry of my house for decades, so. 

Cougar: Well, I love it and I, I completely agree. I consider late President Hinkley to be one of the best examples of what we teach in mind body health. What a joy though to talk about these type of principles. But, but to really wrap things up and then I, I will turn it back to you for any last questions, but just this idea that we [00:30:00] can embrace both our hearts.

Cougar: Our hearts and our minds are capable of holding on to an acknowledging difficulty, uh, recognizing that there's still a long way to go, but also expressing gratitude, feeling contentment, and feeling blessed and experiencing joy. So we don't, we don't need to compartmentalize those things to the point where I can't be happy today because I've still got this issue.

Cougar: We can do both. We're, we're so. We're so capable of doing both. And I, anyway, that's, that's the parallel that I wanna make with public health and with school health, is that there's still massive room for improvement. But the progress that has occurred worldwide in my lifetime, in the last 50 years is absolutely breathtaking.

Cougar: Like, it's just, it's awesome to hear. You would've never guessed it. Right. So, really cool. Yeah. 

Lori: I know it's a tradition on the podcast to ask our, um, [00:31:00] speaker to talk a little bit about books they're reading. And for listeners, I feel like Cougar is one of the most well-read individuals and he listens to podcasts like no other.

Lori: And one thing that I really appreciate about him is that he tends to seek out perspectives from all sides that he understands arguments. And problems from multiple angles. So I'm curious to hear what you've been reading or listening to recently, Cougar. 

Cougar: Well, you're really kind. I've never been the brightest guy in the room, and so I'm playing some catch up, with my Audible app and listening to a lot of books.

Cougar: I have, I have a pretty long commute to work too, so I have lots of opportunities and I love podcasts. I think we are so blessed. In this era to be able to just have access to so much information to be able to learn at the feet of so many great minds. It's remarkable. In fact, that's why we do the podcast.

Cougar: I think. I think at one point I went to Dr. West, who's our department chair, and I said, man, have you heard this podcast? You've gotta get on. This is the Harvard, [00:32:00] you know, Chan School and it's amazing. And, and go to here to, you know, go to Johns Hopkins. He's like, wow, how do you have time to listen to all this?

Cougar: I'm like, oh, I got a long commute. And, and then at one point he's like, well, why don't we do our own? I'm like, Yeah, someone should do that. He's like, you're up. Why don't you do it, bro. Oh, so good stuff. , I have a couple books I've been listening to. Maybe, maybe I'll just talk about one. And it's called Enlightenment Now.

Cougar: , it's Dr. Steven Pinker. He's a, he's a Harvard professor and he's all over YouTube. but it's, it's interesting. So the whole premise of the book is that it's in fact it's progress. It's that, from the enlightenment moving forward, there's been massive progress and he touches on everything. I mean, everything that we talk about in public health.

Cougar: So it just, it feels like it's really applicable to what we're doing here in the Department of Public Health. The challenge for me is I think he's one of the best thinkers. Like he's a national treasure, but he's also, um, a really [00:33:00] hardcore atheist. If, if you can say hardcore in front of that, he's just so.

Cougar: There are so many sections in the book where he's ridiculing faith and mysticism and, and the hocus pocus of, you know, wishing it and praying it to come true. And so he really has this significant divide between science and religion and that, you know, you could pray all day and we wouldn't have any progress.

Cougar: But when you trust in science, then things move forward. Science and the scientific method solves problems that you know. The rosary, you know, praying, whatever it doesn't. Right. And so some of that's hard for me to hear cause I'm like, oh, he's, he's really, that's a personal attack on me, but I actually understand it.

Cougar: I just, I just see it from a different perspective. He talks about the enlightenment and I talk, and I, I'm thinking about all the progress. All the progress, excuse me, we've experienced since the restoration. And I actually don't pray for. [00:34:00] Solutions. Like I don't pray that people will have more food in Africa, you know, just to use an example that he brings up in the book.

Cougar: But I, I do trust that like I'm, we have great men and women who are inspired. And are finding solutions and are, are faith without 

Lori: works, right? You can have both are finding 

Cougar: technologies that are revolutionizing the way that we feed the planet, and so I just don't see them as different, but there may be people that do just pray and just hope that things get better.

Cougar: I'm just not one of those people. I get off my knees and I'm like, okay, now it's time to go to work and let's hope the spirit guides us. Yeah, so. There's probably a little bit of daylight between us, but there's probably not as much as he would think. I, I really hope that all of our scientists, social and bench scientists are, are enlightened the thought processes of the Holy Spirit.

Cougar: Guiding them, leading them to find solutions to very real impressing problems in the world [00:35:00] today. So, uh, love, love enlightenment now. Love the book. And, it's been, it's been a, a great one for me. It's quite long. I'm not, it takes me a while, but I love it. So 

Lori: That's awesome. Well, thanks again for enlightening us.

Lori: On all, all things school health and optimism. I know that's not the term you use, but that's the term I'm using and especially for letting me be the guest host today. 

Cougar: Well, you killed it. You're way better than I am, so, thank you everyone. It's been great. 

Lori: Yes. Thanks again.

Cougar: Thanks, Lori.