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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 458: Reclaiming Joy When You Can’t Seem to Slow Down | Dr. Judith Joseph, High Functioning
00:53:42
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- [00:02]
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- [00:30]
Ginny Urich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have just read an incredible book that I knew nothing about. Never heard of it. It's called High Overcome your hidden depression and reclaim your joy. And the author, Dr. Judith Joseph is here. Welcome, Dr. Judith.
- [00:50]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Thank you for having me.
- [00:52]
Ginny Urich
And you have your own podcast called the vault with Dr. Judith. And this episode is coming out the day before this fantastic book launches. So if people want to grab the book right now, grab it now because you get an exclusive interview with you and Mel Robbins. That's part of a pre order bonus. So I'll make sure I'll put the link in the show. Notes I've never heard of this, Dr. Judith. Never high functioning depression, although I have heard of so many people who burn out. They burn out. Like I've talked to a lot of people. They work with high functioning CEOs and this type of thing. And there's a high percentage of people that just don't sort of complete their mission or the thing that they're passionate about because they burn out. So could you. I mean, you kind of coined this. It almost seems like. Or you're the one that's researching it. At least no one else has researched it. Where did the sort of interest come from to go after something that no one's really talking about?
- [01:44]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Well, you know, high function depression is not a term that is already recognized by the medical community. And you know, when, when people started using the term, everyone was saying that's not real. You know, there's only one type of depression, the type when you break down and then we do something about it. And I was experiencing a lot of the symptoms of depression, but I wasn't breaking down. Like many moms, I couldn't afford to break down. I have a small child, I had a career, people depend on me. I have elderly parents. So I was exhibiting these symptoms of depression but not meeting that final checkbox where you're supposed to break down. And I was sitting at my desk in 2020, giving this lecture to a large hospital system, trying to help them to deal with their stress. Halfway through the talk, I realized I think I'm depressed, right? And it surprised me. I was experiencing something called anhedonia, which is like a lack of feeling and pleasure in things. I felt kind of meh, blah. And you know, it wasn't burnout because with burnout it's related to your job, right? Burnout is a, is a relatively new diagnosis that was only recently recognized by the medical community. Burnout is specific to your occupation. What I was experiencing was that even when I wasn't at work, I was over functioning. I was doing all these things, trying to keep busy. And in my research, because I published the only peer reviewed study in high function depression ever to be published in the world, I found that trauma is highly correlated with it. So what happens is instead of dealing and processing with painful experiences and trauma, people run by busying themselves. So when I started putting out content around it, it just went viral. I teach doctors at NYU how to do social media and I thought, let me just test out what I'm seeing in my research and in my lab and my practice and, and literally people were like, that's me. You know, how did you know? They're like, how did you know that when I'm not busy, I feel restless? When I'm not moving around and doing for others, I feel empty. How did you know that? You know that I can't sleep through a night, that I'm constantly thinking that I wake up before my alarm, you know, that I just shove the food in my mouth and move on, that there's no simple joy in life. How do you know what this is? So when I started putting content out, people were like, I finally have a term, a name for what I'm experiencing. Because if you go to your doctor and you have symptoms that I'm discussing right now, but you don't check that final box of breaking down, they're going to say, come back when you break down. And I thought that was a broken model. Why are we waiting for people to break down? We should be giving them the tools so they don't have a breakdown.
- [04:26]
Ginny Urich
I've never heard of this. We're trying to slow down. That's the whole premise here. We're trying to set aside some time just for getting outside, for slowing down. And if you are someone that was dealing with this high functioning depression, not only would it be really hard for you to make that commitment because you're go, go, go do, do, do. But additionally, it would be hard for you to enjoy that time. So I would love to talk about this anhedonia, which is a weird word. And I love that you wrote in the book you wrote. It's awkward. It is an awkward word. I never heard of it. Never heard of high functioning depression. But you talked about how it was coined in the 1800s. It's a reduced ability to experience joy in life, which makes you feel, you said earlier, meh or blah all the time. So you wrote this. Not all who are depressed feel sad. Some feel nothing or empty. Some even feel constantly restless. Your goal is just to get through the day. Would you say there's a high percentage of people feeling this way? Is it a lot of moms? I mean, I could imagine. I mean, there's. It's just. Yeah, you're trying to survive.
- [05:30]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah. You know, like people say, well, that's just life. No. Women are twice as likely to have depression and anxiety than men. Twice as likely. Like, that is a shocking statistic. But it's not surprising, right? You know, we deal with a lot. Biologically, we are more vulnerable because of our hormones. You know, even from puberty, our hormones are contributing to, like, ups and downs that may contribute to a depression. You know, and then in terms of. And that's our. Just our biology alone. Psychologically, women are more at risk for things like trauma. Right. We're more likely to be in abusive relationships. And then socially, the world is really not set up for us. You know, the world tells us we have to be a mom, we have to have a career, we have to take care of others, we have to be polite, we have to be gracious, we can't complain. We have to be attractive. You can't look tired. It's just there's a lot of social burdens for us. And then we don't get paid equally. Right. We have to work twice as hard and get paid, you know, significantly less. So there's a lot of biopsychosocial factors as to why women experience this. And I think it's important because when I break this down in front of, you know, I speak a lot of mom groups and women's talks, they feel so validated, they're like, yes, I finally understand. No, I want joy, but I can't access it because biopsychosocially, you know, and that's the model that I use to tell people to understand the science of your happiness, it's really difficult to derive joy. And so I explain that if you don't know the science of your unhappiness. If you don't know the things that are taking away from your joy, then how can you know what can make you happy? So it's important to break it down that way so that people understand the different areas of their lives and their experiences that are pulling joy out of their lives.
- [07:19]
Ginny Urich
Wow. Yes. This book is going to be so impactful because you read it and you're like, oh, this explains a lot of how I feel. And you also just give a goal. Your goal is to increase your overall joy, and you have to start to prioritize those things. You talk about how social media affects us, too. So you said bio is biopsychosocial, talking about just the sort of social pressures. But then even social media itself is affecting how we perceive ourselves in the world. What piece does the social media play?
- [07:50]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah, social media is something that's in the social bucket, right? The social bucket of the biopsychosocial is anything in your environment from what you eat, drink, to who you're partnered with. But we have a really unhealthy relationship with social media. For me, I have to take breaks because sometimes I'm looking at it and, you know, I'm a pretty accomplished person, but then I see someone else having accomplishments, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, what am I doing with my life? And I think a lot of moms feel that way. I know that when I first gave birth and I was working so hard and I was seeing other moms posting, like, these gorgeous pictures of their, you know, like, mom's chronicle lies, like, one month, two months. And I was like, I could barely just, like, get the crust out of my eye. How are these women doing this? You know? And so it would make me feel so bad about myself. And the research shows that, like, exposure to socials, excessive exposure, can make you feel so bad about the way that you look, you know, what you're doing in life. Because we weren't. We weren't built to constantly see what other people were doing. You know, our. Our brains, when we were put on this earth, we weren't supposed to be exposed to how great lives looked. Right? And that's why I think a lot of us have a hard time finding happiness. I constantly have patients coming into my private practice saying, Dr. Judith, I just want to be happy. And then I'm say. I say to them, well, what is happiness to you? And they'll be like, oh, it's when I finally get that job or I get that partner, I Had the perfect little family. And I tell them this. I said, even if you get those things, you're still not going to be happy. The research shows that when you delay happiness for I will be happy when you're still not happy, even if you get that when, right? And so in my private, in my research practice, I reframe and I say, instead of thinking about happiness as an ideal, think of joy. It's more attainable. So in the research, when we add up how we know whether or not someone is happy, because you'll rarely see the word happy on a scale, we look for things like, when you ate, did you feel satisfied? When you talk to a loved one or snuggle with a loved one, did you feel connected? You know, when you took a nap, did you feel rested? Those are all the little points of joy that make up happiness. And so what I tell my patients is try to see if you can get a point of joy every day. Like, and maybe today you get two, maybe tomorrow you get three. But that's way more within reach than I will be happy. I just want to be happy. This ideal, right? Happy is this idea and ideal joy is the experience. So try to grab as many points as you can in a day.
- [10:26]
Ginny Urich
I loved this sentence. The goal is to increase your overall joy by creating new experiences you cherish and by finding more joy in the places where it is lacking right now. So creating new experiences you cherish is sort of opposite of what people are doing with the high functioning depression. They're creating more experiences of work and accomplishment and filling in the needs of others, but creating experiences you cherish. And with the social media you wrote, humans are designed to live in the world, not in front of a screen. I think about that too. So I just posted a podcast. This man was named Levi Lusko. L U S K O. So then I spelled it wrong just yesterday, I. So and then you get on social media and you're like, here's a woman who can paint with both hands and both feet at the same time and create four different images. You know, she's got like her feet under the table and they're dipping into paint. And outcomes. Four, you know, different portraits of horses. I don't even know. So you do you feel this, like, what am I doing here? And I just think that's so important to be reminded with the social media. Just because this is the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. I wanted to mention that you do talk about, like, when did you stop prioritizing play? You talk about sun exposure, you Talk about the power of going for a five minute walk. Can you just throw in a little bit about how for some people, nature or doing those types of things might help them?
- [11:48]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah, you know, like what you're talking about with technology, we are only, we're so limited with our sensory stimulation when we're on screens. And again, we were really built to feel, you know, to smell, to hear, to taste all of these sensations. And that's why it's exciting for me to talk about this. Because when you know that you could be using all of your senses to access joy, then you're getting joy delivered to your brain in all these different avenues versus just one dimension or that just image, the two dimensional screen. So when you're out in nature, there's a reason that you feel better, right? There's a reason because you're getting all the sensory stimulation and you're also experiencing a sense of awe, like, wow, this world is so beautiful. And I'm the only me who will ever exist in the future of the universe and in the history of the universe. It just puts things in perspective, right, that how special you are. You don't really think about, you know, whether or not you're as pretty as the other person. You don't think about whether or not you're as talented as the other person because you realize that you're part of this incredible universe and the chances of you even existing are so small. So you are here for a reason. It just really sets your perspective. But we don't access that. And again, that's something that we can try to access more of. Even if you're in like a big city and you don't have a lot of nature around you, there are parks, you know, like you can get a plant. There are things that you can do to still feel connected to nature. And it's also so easy to access. It's free, it's something within reach, but we just kind of overlook it. We'd rather look at a beach on Instagram than actually walk by the beach near our homes. Right. Or the lakes by our homes.
- [13:40]
Ginny Urich
So the goal is to increase your overall joy. And you talk about living life with your eyes closed. We talk about people who are feeling like they have no enjoyment. The word is, and how do you say it?
- [13:50]
Dr. Judith Joseph
And antidoniahedonia. I remember when I first said the word, people were like, what is that, Anna? What? It's all sounds like a, like a very exotic name of a woman in.
- [14:01]
Ginny Urich
Some part of Europe, you know, Ann Hedonia. So if you are experiencing a reduced ability to experience joy, you feel me or blah, all the time, your goal is just to get through the day. This is a wonderful book for you to read. It's called High Functioning. Another word that you talk about, which I guess I didn't really know what it meant, is masochism. I thought about it in terms of like weird things. I honestly don't even really know what I thought it meant. It was just sort of one of those words in my mind that was like, I don't know. But you say it's a propensity for people pleasing, self sacrificing and self sabotaging behavior. It used to be part of this personality disorder, but was removed because it was politically controversial. Can you talk about the people pleasing, self sacrificing? It seems like a wonderful thing, but maybe it can be taken too far.
- [14:51]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah. You know, when I was in training, masochism was the dirty word you're not allowed to say about patients. Right. But behind closed doors, we would write down, patient exhibits masochistic trait. So I thought, why are we like keeping this to ourselves? Let's democratize this information. If people know that they're being masochistic, then they can do something about it, right? So it was taken out of the bible of psychiatry, the DSM, in the 80s, because unfortunately, masochism was used to victim blame, right? So if a woman was partnered with a abusive person, you know, one of the things in masochism is you incite violence or incite people to treat you poorly. So it's very victim blaming. So that's why it was, it was politically controversial. We didn't, they didn't want people to be labeled as being the cause of their problem. But there are other parts of masochistic personality disorder that I think are beneficial to be aware of. Like the tendency to. People, please. The tendency to bend over backwards, the tendency to self sabotage your happiness for the sake of others, tendency to feel unworthy of praise. All of those things are the traits that therapists still talk about, Right. And they still write in their notes. And so people with high function, depression, who are, you know, they believe that they are humans doing instead of a human being, they're doing for others nonstop. Even if it may actually be robbing them of their own joy and their self sacrificing and self sabotaging. And so a lot of times this is related to this core trauma where they don't feel good enough. So they believe that their role is who they are. Without that role of Being the RO without that role of being the go to friend, you know, the reliable, you know, middle child, good, good girl, that they are nothing, that they are unlovable, that they need to hold on to that. And so I want people to understand that, you know, there are three risk factors and red flags with high function. Depression, there's that people pleasing or masochism, right? There's that anhedonia, the meh or the bleh, and then there's that trauma that you're running from, and that's why you can't sit still. And when you understand these things, right, then you understand the science of what's making you unhappy, right? How do you know what's you happy? How do you know the science of your happiness if you don't understand the science of your unhappiness? And the masochism thing is really important because a lot of healthcare professionals, a lot of educators, like teachers, you know, a lot of people who are caregivers and moms, right, we, we don't think about ourselves. And I recently gave a talk to 300 women and I asked them, like, how many of you have like sat through a meeting and you really had to pee, but you didn't, you just pushed through and there was like a audible laughter because it's like every woman in there knew that, right? But I want you to think about that like you're robbing yourself of a point of joy when you don't go to the bathroom and relieve yourself because your body's tense, you're very uncomfortable, your brain's like thinking, when is this lady gonna go and pee? But you're on zoom, trying to look like your perfect, like, career mom, right? Just, you know, take a bathroom break. And when you relieve yourself, that's actually a point of joy because pain robs us of joy. And so it's those little things that I want people to have this shift, right? You know, why are you carrying five bags? This I used to be called, my therapist used to call me the bag lady, because I'd have two bags here, three bags. And he said to me, don't you realize that's masochistic? And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, do you really need to carry all those bags? And I was like, oh, my gosh, like, no wonder my back hurts. What was the reason that I was doing that? Like, and half the stuff in the bags I never even used throughout the day. So these little things you do that you don't realize are self sabotaging because that's robbing you of a point of joy. You know that that pain in your body that was so unnecessary. You didn't have to like crick your neck that way. You could have just taken one bag, you know, like the little things. Like if you have those bags of groceries and someone's offering to hold the door and you're like, oh, it's okay, I got it, I got it. Let them hold the door for you. So we don't realize all the things we do. Like when someone offers to help you, you know, and you're overwhelmed, but you feel guilty, you don't want to burden them, let them help you. These are all traits of masochistic personality disorder that we want to be able to address, right? We don't want to victimly, but we want you to realize that there are things that you're doing that are self sabotaging your happiness so that you can actually access your joy.
- [19:08]
Ginny Urich
Do you really need to carry all those bags? I like that. It's like literal and figurative. I mean, that's great.
- [19:15]
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- [23:04]
Ginny Urich
1000Hours so I think the tricky part of it is if you are that type of a person, you want to help. You want to help. You don't really expect that other people are going to take advantage of it. So you wrote people will take advantage of you at work, in friendships and romantic relationships and even in family relationships. If you're giving, other people are going to be taking. How do you vet relationships properly? You talk about that in the book.
- [23:31]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yes. So one of the things with people with high functioning depression is that they, they tend to be givers. Right? Again, they bend over backwards, people, please. And then it's human nature for people to want to take. If you're given, they will take. And it doesn't mean they're a bad person necessarily. It just means that it's human nature. You know, people pick up on whether or not you feel good about yourself. They pick up on your low self worth. And then, you know, you project that and then you get it back. Right? So what I look at is relationships in terms of families. You know, are you the one person in the family who's showing up all the time? You know, the dependable one. But then when you have a crisis, no one's there for you, Right. Are you that person in the workplace who's always like, I got it. No, I'll help you. Yeah, I'll take on that project. But then when it comes time for helping you, it's crickets, right? Are you that friend who's always, like listening at night while, you know, other friends trauma dump on you? But then when you're like, when you need help with a heartbreak, crickets, no one's there, right? So it's important to think about it. And I use this imagery in my book like a seesaw. Like when you think about over the past week, you know, if someone who, let's say that one or two people are significant in your life, who you talk with the most, start to see how many times they're there for you versus you're there for them, and that kind of helps you. I'm not encouraging people to keep score. I think that that's not healthy. Right. But just like, be mindful of that. And you may want to, you know, do like a, a check with them and say, listen, you know, I find that I'm always kind of showing up for you. Right. But like, when I need help, you're not really there. Sometimes your friends will be like, oh my gosh, I just thought that you had it all figured out. I had no idea. Right, because you're projecting this onto them too. Right. But other times they'll be like, well, what do you mean? You know, and they're defensive and then they just kind of don't want to be around you. Right. And that tells you what type of relationship it is. And so it's important to try to think about that in terms of what you're also mirroring for your kids. Because a lot of times these moms who are like, so people pleasing, they don't realize that their kids are seeing that. And so then it's being reenacted and they're the child's relationship with their friends. You know, like observe what your, what your kids are doing in the play. Is your child constantly like, you know, giving a toy to a friend who's pushy and bossy? Is your child constantly saying sorry to a friend who's irritable and who like, criticizes because they're watching us? You know, it's important to know that our relationships and our dynamics get mirrored in the, in our children's relationships.
- [26:08]
Ginny Urich
Oh, it's so interesting because you talked about that. You wrote it's contagious. You can pass it on to family, friends, co workers. So something to be aware of. So these are all things so far. High functioning depression, masochism, anhedonia, never thought about, considered. And so I've learned so much from this book. High functioning. Let's talk about the trauma piece. So you talk about running from trauma and you say you're running from trauma and then you end up just going for these accolades and accomplishments. He wrote, distracting ourselves from our trauma by hyper focusing on achievements like becoming a star athlete or the school valedictorian might look positive, but it prevents us from fully shaping our identity. And also you, it can be masked because you say you work extremely hard and your body's releasing these endorphins. You don't get too exhausted. This can mask the symptoms. So you talk about, though, how this high functioning depression which is present in successful people has a root in trauma. And you talk about four different types of trauma. One of them is just divorce, which the divorce rates are really high. And I think because it's so common, maybe people wouldn't necessarily look at that as being a trauma situation and especially even maybe if it was more amicable. But you write about how even when it is amicable, there can still be quite a bit of trauma.
- [27:28]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yes. And one of the rating scales in my book for trauma encapsulates all these type of things that are little T and big T traumas. So big T traumas are the ones that, like when you look at the combat veteran research, you're thinking about assault, you're thinking about like things that are near death. You know, like you're thinking about all these things that are very, very visible and almost violent. You know, things like a motor vehicle accident. Right. In the PTSD literature. According to dsm, those are the type of traumas you need for that type of post traumatic stress disorder. But there are Other little traumas that are emotionally significant and they shape the way that we see ourselves in the world. They shape the way that we interact with the world. There's a very famous study called the Adverse Childhood Events Questionnaire. So looking at all these things in life that could be emotionally painful and in that they included divorce as a childhood trauma because what they found is that people who had parents, who had divorces had these negative health outcomes. And so not to say that there's anything wrong with divorce, like sometimes it's, you know, people need to be divorced because it's unhealthy and toxic. But it. Two things can be true, right? Like sometimes you need to divorce and it's also traumatizing. It's also emotionally, you know, significant and it shapes you. So I included things like divorce and my trauma inventories and that anyone could take if they read the book and go to my website. And I also included traumas that people don't think about, like, you know, the collective trauma of COVID 19 pandemic things like generational traumas, like if your parents or grandparents came from very little, like mine did, and you have limited resources and you worried, you know, whether or not you'd be able to eat and things like that, those are all traumas, right? They're not life threatening. You wouldn't get the stamp of approval from the dsm. But they do shape the way that you interact in the world. And divorce is one of those things that, that does that. And for some, divorce can be financially traumatizing. For some people, they don't, you know, they, they leave a divorce with a lot of financial stress, so they're constantly in fight or flight. And so when you think about trauma responses, you know, like not being able to sit still, not feeling good enough, feeling as if you're the reason for the trauma, all of that can take a toll on people. And then what they do is they actually avoid processing the trauma by busying themselves. And I know when I was going through my divorce, I like again, I have to constantly put myself in perspective because I go through my patterns of high functioning depression and then, and then not, and then being able to slow down. And it's a daily journey for me, for me. But when I was going through my divorce, I just remember doing a gazillion things at once and my daughter saying, mommy, can we please just slow down? And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm doing this again. You know, so many of us do this, right? We run from what's bothering us. By busying, by adding things on. And we know we're like, there is no way I can keep doing this. But then you add something on and you say, yes. And that's a part of this. It's running from the pain by avoiding it, by busying yourself. That's why when you sit still, you're restless. When you're not busy, you feel empty.
- [30:39]
Ginny Urich
Right.
- [30:39]
Dr. Judith Joseph
There's something off, because that's how you learn to cope. But in my tool, in my book, I have these tools to help you process the trauma, to slow down and start to heal so you can access that joy again.
- [30:50]
Ginny Urich
It is so incredible that you figure this out. You said you kept having patient after patient come in who was experiencing this, because you would think, well, if you're having these financial struggles, you just got divorced. You're so sad that it would express in that way, and this is something that could just so easily be missed. Instead, it's expressed as being pathologically productive. I like that terminology. Using hard work and achievements to try to outsmart and outrun the trauma. So you talk about childhood trauma, adult trauma, which might just be like, the line of work that you're in or a humiliating event, intergenerational trauma. You touched on that. I thought it was amazing that you put about the collective trauma. And Covid. I've not seen anybody write about this. Dr. Judith, you wrote, because I feel this. No Memorial Day or of remembrance. There's no Memorial day for COVID 19. We've just been told to move on without acknowledging how tragic, difficult, and joyless those years were. We suffered collectively, but the onus is on us to heal individually. Those of us who feel like we are not back to normal, which I feel like it upended our family situation. And, I mean, it just sort of changed our whole course. You wrote, something bad happened to all of us, and we're still processing it without the help of society. And so, like, you talk about how sometimes we even ignore it, or we say, well, it was bad, but it wasn't that bad. But all of these different types of things can sort of shift your path to trying to outrun the feelings from these different situations.
- [32:26]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yes. And, you know, in disaster psychiatry, which is that field of psychiatry where they focus on bad things that happen collectively to society, it's really important to have things like memorials. Why? Because when we know that something bad happened to all of us, we feel less blame and shame. That's important, you know, so, like, when you think about, like, how you see yourself in the world after the pandemic. Many of us are looking at our phones and we're like, I don't feel back to normal. But it looks like that person has it all figured out. How they bounce back like that. Why am I not like that? You kind of blame yourself. But if there's a day of remembrance and it's like, we all went through something, and here's this memorial and here's this day of observance, it kind of takes the onus off of us, right? It tells us that, like, this bad thing happened to everyone. I didn't do anything to deserve it. And that allows people to heal. I do research in PTSD all the time with children and adults, and what we're told is that right after a traumatizing experience, people need to hear that it's not their fault. It's so important, because what happens is that people blame, and they try to contain and kind of intellectualize it by saying, well, maybe if I had done this, it would have been different. Maybe if I had done that. But when you tell someone it was not your fault and it was out of your control, that totally relieves them. Well, and the second thing is, after a trauma, you tell them that they're safe. Well, we were told that we were safe one minute, and then we were told, oh, go back inside. Wear the mask another minute. And then it's. We were put on this up and down through that, and that is highly traumatizing, you know, and we all went through that. One minute. Yep. Take the mask off. Next minute. Nope. Put it back on, you know. One minute. Yeah. Leave your home. Next minute. Nope, Go back in your home. Don't touch anyone. And then the last thing is routine. Well, you can't have routine if the world is in chaos. Right. And then after the pandemic, it was just one thing after the other. I call it a trauma ocean. And I have that picture of it in my book where you get just hit with the pandemic, then you got hit with natural disasters, and you got hit with war and violence. You got hit, hit with all the bad news with, you know, the police brutality, and you got hit with one thing after the other, after the other uprisings. So we just haven't had our chance to catch our breath. It's just been like a wave and an ocean of trauma, and no one's telling us it's not our fault. Everyone's saying, just keep going. So, no, many. No wonder many of us are high functioning. No wonder when many of us are numb and blah, you Know, we're just trying to get through a day.
- [34:56]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, it would be interesting to have a day of remembrance. Our oldest son was like maybe 12 or something when everything, everything shut down. So he had like mouth gear. And he made this video series where he said. And you can't even hardly understand it because he's got this whole mouth thing in. And he's like, we have begun our social distancing with no contact with the outside world. You know, everything that awaits us is madness. And he did this like little log. He did this log for. I mean, it was supposed to be two weeks and then it will be like day 59 of Jackson's log. And so he did this whole thing. But that video comes up, you know, from March of 2020. You're like, oh, you know, it feels like in our family, a little day of remembrance. Because he starts this log that he did that he posted for a while. But yeah, just like sort of this move on piece. And. And then, yeah, no one really is talking about, well, it affected me this way or it affected me that way. And then like you said, there's an ocean of other things. So here is the good news. The good news is you go through this whole situation. So if someone's listening in, they're struggling with an Honia.
- [36:02]
Unknown Speaker
Did I say it right?
- [36:03]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Anhedonia. It's okay.
- [36:05]
Ginny Urich
Anhedonia. I really tried. You're feeling meh. You're struggling with people pleasing, you know, to an extent that's not healthy for yourself. You're struggling with these traumas that you're running from and just sort of filling your day with things that are leading to burnout. You're not experiencing joy. You have these five V's that are really easy to grasp onto, like ways to start to fix this in your life. So we're not going to talk about all of them. People can pick up the book High Functioning. If you get it today, you get that pre order bonus, the exclusive interview with Mel Robbins. So you want to pick it up. High functioning by Dr. Judith Joseph. I want to talk about just a few of these V's, though. And then people can pick up the book and read the other ones. One of them I loved was vitals. So one of the V's that helps his vitals. And you talk about what happens when you ignore your physical state and you hear about stories like this a lot. Like I talked about that Levi Lusko I just interviewed, I wrote his name backwards. He was high functioning. He had had a daughter that passed away. So Talk about trauma. And he said, he. I mean, I don't know, it was something like, I've been. I flew for 1 million miles on Delta in two years. Or I mean, it was like that, you know, going from thing to thing to thing, and then all of a sudden his body just broke down. Panic attacks, like you're go, go, go. Actually, it happened with COVID All of a sudden you stop. So you say that with high functioning depression, you stop only when your body shuts down. So can you talk about the vitals and how important it is. You say. Has a doctor ever asked you about the last person you hugged?
- [37:40]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah. So, you know, they're the traditional. The traditional vitals, like, you know, eating foods that are not processed in sugar, that feed your brain, that don't have a lot of, you know, things that are artificial in them and like getting good movements that, you know you're staying physically healthy and you're releasing endorphins and getting good sleep so that you're clearing your brain of toxins, so forth. Those are the three traditional vitals that your doctor will tell you about. The annoying vitals, right? You know, you need to do it, but okay, sometimes you get to it. But the three non traditional vitals are things that are being overlooked. Your quality of your relationships in your life are the number one predictor of your longevity. And I think if people knew that, they would take a hard look around them, you know, because think about the people who are toxic in your life. They are literally draining your life force. Literally. You know, look it up. The Harvard research says it. And then the other thing is, you know, your work life balance, many of us don't have one and it doesn't exist. We take work home, we can't take or shut our brains off from it. And then technology, you know, there's a whole center at Stanford called the Stanford Zoom Fatigue center. And they look at the ways that technology impacts your brain. You know, right now I'm speaking with you and I'm looking at myself and I'm like, oh, goodness, look at my hair. You know, we weren't meant to look at ourselves while talking to others. It is unnatural. So we don't even know the ways that technology is harming us, right? We're still learning that. But to go back to your point of touching, right, like when you touch someone and you're connecting with them, you're releasing something called oxytocin, which is a love and attachment feel good hormone. And if we're not getting those snuggles if we're not getting that connection, you know, if we're not getting that quality FaceTime, because you can still get that release even if you're just having an intentional connection over FaceTime with someone, then you're missing out on an important vital that actually could be saving your life. Right? They liken loneliness to smoking like a pack of cigarettes a day. So not pouring into the healthy, loving relationships in your life because you're too busy, that's actually taking from your life force. And the wonderful thing, you know, I talk about my five Vs in my book because I use five, because most of us have five fingers. So I imagine like joy is within reach for us, but we just don't know how to access it. But if you pull on the 5vs daily, you access your joy again. And it's all within our reach. We just need help and we need reminders and I don't want people to do all the five Es, you know, validating, venting values, vitals and vision all the time. I think that's too much. But pick on one or two and try to get your points of joy every day because it is within reach. But many of us have just forgotten who we are and we've forgotten how to access our joy.
- [40:31]
Ginny Urich
I love this sentence. We all need hugs. That's good. You know, talking about this high functioning depression and it feels very overwhelming. And one of the things that would help is hugging and I love that you throw in these sort of simple things.
- [40:47]
Unknown Speaker
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. You know, we invest in gym memberships, healthy food and regular doctor visits.
- [40:55]
Dr. Judith Joseph
But.
- [40:56]
Unknown Speaker
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- [41:44]
Dr. Judith Joseph
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Unknown Speaker
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- [42:12]
Annie F. Downs
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- [43:39]
Unknown Speaker
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- [44:54]
Ginny Urich
One of the things I loved was celebrating. I want to get there in just a minute because you have this wonderful list of ways that you can celebrate, but you do talk about with tech. I prescribe just one hour a day during which people detach from their device and focus on something else. I encourage my patients to do something sensory during this time, Whether it's having a delicious meal, practicing meditation, being present while playing on the floor with their toddler, journaling with a pen and notebook instead of a laptop, or walking through a park feeling the breeze on their skin. So the tech, the work life, balance, the relationships. Obviously the doctor always is going to talk about movement, they're going to talk about nutrition, they're probably going to talk about sleep. But you need to make sure that you are paying attention to all of these vitals. One more of the V's that I just. I thought this sentence was so big. It's easy. So this is about values. It's easy to figure out how to work harder in pursuit of material wealth. It's harder to figure out how to work harder in pursuit of emotional health. Well, that's so true. It's so easy to sort of figure out, well, if I work this extra 10 hours, I can make some extra money, but what are the goals for my emotional health?
- [46:00]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Yeah, because human beings. I just did a project with my daughter for her school, and I learned so much. I'm like, wow, these kids are learning way more than I did as a kid. As a kid. But there was a project looking at money and currency. Right. And how in the early days of. Of mankind, people would use, you know, things like, okay, I'll trade you this, this cow if you give. If. If you make me a coat. And they soon realized that, wait a second, this cow could produce so much more milk. And one coat is just one coat. It'll, you know. So they had to invent money. And they would use shells and then they would use stones. Stones are so heavy. So they had to pivot. And finally we get to gold, right? And then paper money. So I learned a lot from my daughter's homework assignment. But the reason I bring that up is because our brains were just made to quantify, right? We just, we need to know, okay, if I do this in life, I'll get this. And it has to be like this tangible, monetary, you know, mathematical thing. So we're just not set up to understand the quality of these. These abstract things. And that's why, you know, in the early days of mankind, or womankind or humankind, you know, people would gravitate towards these gurus because these gurus had it figured out they knew how to be enlightened and how to get people to tap into things that I call the values that are priceless versus the values that have price tags. Right? And that's why we have these, you know, leaders, these thought leaders, because we're all just trying to quantify, you know, all the points of joy in life that'll make life rich, but we just don't know how to, because we're so used to quantifying based on material things or monetary things. But when you start to tap into the values that anchor you. I have a happiness lab, and I brought in women recently and I handed out rocks and I asked them to write the values on their rocks. Like things that anchor you, that hold you down in life, that give you meaning and purpose. When you hold onto these rocks and you don't let the things that are superficial distract you, that's how you hold on to joy. You know, at the, at the end of the day, when you're on your deathbed, you're not going to be like, I wish I had a Birkin bag. You're going to say, I Wish I had 5 minutes snuggling with my. My child or with my dog or like, looking at that sunset or, you know, being active in that cause that just fed my soul. Right? These are the things that we want to hold on to, but we get so distracted by the things that have the monetary values. Not that that's not important, but they are not the most important things you want to prioritize, at least in a day. How to connect to values that give you a sense of meaning and purpose.
- [48:34]
Ginny Urich
And I think that's what you're sort of saying here. It's both, but it's just easier to figure out how to figure out the monetary part, but a little more difficult or a lot more difficult to figure out the emotional part. I had read someone posted recently about if you're an entrepreneur and you're able to have lunch with your family, you've won, you know, and like that's, that's a non monetary thing. And I thought, oh, that's actually really good perspective. So that would help someone with their emotional health if they're sort of spinning their wheels to be an entrepreneur. But you look and see, well, what are the things that I can celebrate? And you do talk about celebrating real quick. I just want to hit this because there's an amazing list in here. 30 mostly free ways to celebrate small wins. It's on page two. 42. I was like, this is a great list. You say, show me a person with high functioning depression. I'll show you a person who has surrounded themselves with friends who do not want to celebrate their wins. But what you say, and this is really important, is that celebrating is not about bragging, it's about joy. Can you clarify that?
- [49:34]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Many of us were raised to believe that if we talked about good things that happened to us, that it's being insensitive. You know, I know my, my parents are my, my mom's a pastor's wife and my dad's a pastor. And so, you know, as someone who was this high functioning kid, I was always told like, oh, just, you know, be modest, be humble, right? So we don't celebrate our wins. We take that people pleasing with us into adulthood. But it's important to celebrate your wins. It's important to make time in your schedule for joy. And there could be big and small wins. I laid them all out there. If I, if I get my daughter to school on time, that is a win. And so I will sit in my living room and I'll have my fancy coffee because I'm a coffee snob. And I'll just be like, wow, taste those yummy notes. I got this coffee in St. Martin and it's like, it's flavored with the rum. It's not alcoholic, but it has that rum flavor. It's so delicious. And I just sit there and I'm like, this is good. And I saw and I, and I deserve this break because I got her to school on time. Her hair was combed properly. She didn't look like who shot John? You know, when she showed up to school. And I'm just gonna take a second and just like acknowledge that win. It could be as small as that, but it could be bigger. Like as, you know, if you're this, I see this a lot with a lot of the working women that I, that I see in my practice. They'll have this big project that they just like wrapped up and then they get assigned another project. They don't even take a beat in between the big project and another big project. They just say, okay, on to the next. No, like think about it, sit with your team and say we all did that, we finished that, it was great, you know, bring in, bring in those donuts, you know, like, or just acknowledge that, you know, I did that work and let me just take a breather. Let me say I will start the other project tomorrow, right? Or another or next week because I just need to celebrate that win, right? It's these small interventions again. They're not grand but they really send the message to us that we are worthy of slowing down. You know, that we are worthy of self praise, you know, that we are worthy of this point of joy in our lives because joy is within reach for a reason for us. But we have just forgotten, forgotten how to access it.
- [51:47]
Ginny Urich
Dr. Judith this is so, so good. And you talk about, celebrate yourself like you would a best friend. If you don't recognize and celebrate your wins, they become overlooked. And when they're overlooked, you become numb to winning. You talked about how there's athletes that they don't even care about winning, they just don't want to lose. They feel down if they lose, but they, when they win, it just feels numb. The small wins help build you up so you can experience the joy of the larger ones. So many wonderful things in this book. Dr. Judith Joseph. Okay, what an honor. Listen to this. Judith Joseph, MD, MBA is a board certified psychiatrist, chair of the Women in Medicine initiative for Columbia University Vegalist College of Physicians and Surgeons. Clinical assistant professor of Child and Adolescent psychology at NYU Lagone Medical Center. She has conducted several clinical research studies. Pediatrics adult geriatric women's health is a principal investigation investigator of the research lab Manhattan Behavioral Medicine developed the TIES method to address mental health symptoms in menopause. She is on the board of let's Talk Menopause. She received a 2023 congressional proclamation from the US House of Representatives for her social media advocacy and research and mental health lecturer and professional speaker at prestigious institutions. I mean this is incredible. Fortune 500 companies across U.S. and Europe. You have been on Oprah's daily the life you want Good morning America, CBS today. I mean I'm skipping. People need to know that I'm skipping over things. Good Morning America Investigative Special on ADHD, a series on PTSD. Dr. Judas was named as the 2024 Black Health Hero by POPSUGAR she was the 2024 Very well Mind Top 25 Mental Health Leader. What an honor to get an opportunity to talk with you, Dr. Judith. And if people are interested in these topics, obviously you can hear. I mean, I just. I like, pulled out bits and pieces. There was way more than that that people can check out your podcast as well, which is called the vault with Dr. Judith. For all of these different types of topics, the book is called High functioning. Overcome your hidden depression and reclaim your joy. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
- [53:55]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Oh, my goodness. I grew up in Trinidad, and so there's just so many. But, you know, I remember that because, you know, there's like, a lot of, like, local things in my backyard. Mangoes, bananas. And every day the milkman and the fish man would come by and say, milk, fish, come and get it, you know? But every weekend after church, we would go to the beach and then watch my dad play in the Savannah because he loved cricket. But we just had so much access to nature, and it was just like part of the routine. You know, you go to the beach, you have your. It's called a bake and fish. It's like a fried bread with some fish on it, and you watch daddy play cricket. It was just the best, you know, So I love the water. I live in New York City now, and I'm right on the water. And I just love being around nature. So you can't access nature anywhere in the world. It may not be big, but access it just in small ways because it just reminds you of how important you are, that you're here for a reason in this big universe.
- [55:01]
Ginny Urich
Dr. Judith Joseph, what an honor. Huge congrats on your new book, High Functioning. Thank you so much for being here.
- [55:07]
Dr. Judith Joseph
Thank you for having me.
- [55:12]
Unknown Speaker
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