Behind the Bluff
Uncover best practices to participate in life on your terms. Every week, hosts Jeff Ford and Kendra Till guide listeners with short conversations on trending wellness topics and share interviews with passionate wellness professionals, our private club leaders, and additional subject matter experts offering valuable tips. Each episode conclusion includes Healthy Momentum, five minutes of inspiration to help you reflect and live differently. Subscribe now and discover the keys to living your greatest active lifestyle.
Behind the Bluff
How Our Values and Emotions Shape Our Lives | Dr. Katie Rider Mundey
Discover the secrets to human flourishing through the lens of the PERMA model with our special guest, Dr. Katie Rider Mundey. As a licensed psychologist and the founder of She Thrives Psychology and Consulting, Dr. Rider Mundey shares her insights on cultivating positive emotions and prioritizing mental health. Her expertise in women's mental health, including trauma therapy, perinatal mental health, and eating disorders, offers a profound understanding of how these principles can be universally applied. Join us as we explore her professional journey and the values that drive her passion for helping individuals thrive.
We'll guide you through Martin Seligman's PERMA model, a cornerstone of positive psychology. Learn how to balance hedonic pleasures with eudaimonic fulfillment by aligning your actions with your personal values. We'll discuss practical exercises to help identify these values and align them with your daily life. Dr. Rider Mundey emphasizes the importance of living a life that reflects what truly matters to you, providing listeners with actionable strategies to achieve well-being and a sense of fulfillment.
Gratitude takes center stage as we explore its transformative power in cultivating positive emotions. From gratitude lists to the profound impact of a gratitude visit, we'll share creative and effective techniques to integrate appreciation into your life. You'll also hear about the importance of mental health routines and how reducing stigma is reshaping our approach to well-being. With Dr. Rider Mundey's expertise, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips to inspire you to create a proactive mental health practice that complements your lifestyle.
Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. I'm your host, jeff Ford, and I am joined today with Dr Katie Ryder Mundy, licensed psychologist and owner of she Thrives Psychology and Consulting. Katie did her APA accredited clinical psychology residence at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, and she has a passion for partnering with women in their journey toward healing and growth. Katie has specialized training in various women's mental health issues and an extensive background working with women of diverse ages and backgrounds. Today, we're going to discuss the PERMA model, specifically the P of this model and how it relates to human flourishing. Dr Katie Ryder Mundy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm so glad to be here and I should note, you know this isn't just for the women out there, so for any men that are listening, don't panic and think oh, she's a women's mental health specialist, so forget this.
Speaker 1:I've worked with men for many years as well, and this is a broader concept, so 100% and speaking from experience, I just had the pleasure of sitting in on Katie's presentation to our community and there were so many actionable takeaways that we know you will be able to get from our time together today, which will drive those positive emotions in the right direction, exactly, yeah. So, katie, before we dive into the P of the PERMA model, can you share a bit more about your background?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. I'm originally from central Ohio and have lived all over pursuing lots of levels of training, but I really decided freshman year of college that I wanted to be a psychologist and kind of never deviated from that path. So I completed my master's degree at a school outside of Atlanta and then I did my PhD in Indiana. Then I completed my residency and postdoc fellowship at the Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, also part of the VA there, and during my time there I really specialized in primary care mental health, which is essentially embedding psychologists into primary care medical settings so that we can offer people holistic care in the place that they're most likely to show up, which is the doctor's office. From there I began working for the Ralph H Johnson VA, which is really located downtown Charleston, but we have multiple locations.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and that's where I focused more on women's mental health. So I served as a women's mental health coordinator there, started an eating disorder program, did all sorts of stuff, and then I had a baby and decided that I wanted more flexibility and freedom in my life, and so that's when she Thrives came about, and the purpose of my practice is to, like you said, partner with women to help them thrive and flourish. So I have lots of different specializations, but some key ones would be things like trauma therapy, perinatal maternal mental health, managing life changes like menopause, um, and I also do a lot of work with eating disorders, body image concerns things like that.
Speaker 1:Now, what made you want to specialize in women's health?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a woman, so that was part of it. Um, you know when, early on in my training, I did a lot of research and practice in the area of eating disorders, which, while eating disorders absolutely impact both men and women, there's certainly the rates are much higher among women than men. So that kind of was my entree into women's mental health, women's health in general, and it's just really meaningful work. I think as a woman, I have a level of passion about it that maybe I wouldn't if I was a man and also women. Women go through a lot. Women have extra high rates of things like trauma. Women have to have babies, which is a whole thing, and that's like no joke.
Speaker 1:It is, it is no joke.
Speaker 2:I think if men had babies we'd live in a very different world, but, and so I think it was really just a matter of finding that population super enjoyable and meaningful to work with. There's a lot of work to be done, so, and with women, and it matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's so exciting that you're off on your own. She thrives doing your thing and you've recently moved to the Buford area. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, I've lived here for a while, but my practice is on the newer side, so yes, yeah, love that.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go ahead. High level. What does PERMA stand for?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So PERMA is a model developed by Martin Seligman, who is the founder of positive psychology. Positive psychology is a movement within the practice of psychology that focuses on optimal human functioning, so it really was developed as a response to psychology's excessive emphasis on everything that goes wrong with humans. Historically, psychology has been about looking at what doesn't work, and Dr Seligman and others said why are we only looking at what goes wrong? Why don't we study people who are really doing well and figure out how we can take what they're doing and spread it to the masses? From there and over many years of study, he developed the PERMA model, which encompasses what it takes for an individual person to flourish or to really do well in life.
Speaker 1:And you use the word optimize. Right, if we're going to optimize our life. These are the five components.
Speaker 2:Exactly Okay, they got to be present. You're really not going to be able to flourish or live at an optimal level of functioning if one or more of these is missing or lacking Makes complete sense.
Speaker 1:It's almost like setting up a training schedule or an eating pattern.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now taking just a step back. When we say flourish, besides living optimally, how else would you describe flourishing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're right in that optimal human functioning is kind of a good basic definition of flourishing. But more specifically it involves both the presence of mental well-being and the absence of mental illness. So true flourishing is not just not having things wrong with us, it's also being well and having a sense that our lives matter and that we're kind of living up to our potential. It includes both hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives. So those are fancy terms that are actually quite simple in practice. Hedonic simply means the types of pleasure that we get from kind of the basics of humanity. So these are things that are just enjoyable, like a good ice cream cone, sex sitting on a beach and feeling your toes in the sand, that kind of thing. Eudaimonic pleasure is deeper. It's meaning and purpose. So, from the perspective of flourishing and the larger perspective of positive psychology, to really be our best we need to have those basic pleasures, but also the deeper stuff that comes from meaning and purpose and knowing why we're here.
Speaker 1:Where do you think most individuals spend their time? Hedonic or edomonic?
Speaker 2:We're definitely, as humans, predisposed, I think, to seek pleasure, basic pleasure, and avoid pain, right. So, especially in American society, we likely spend a lot of our effort on the hedonic which, while important for flourishing, like I don't think we can really flourish if we don't have the basic stuff in place. It's not enough. So, basically, I would say we probably spend way too much time on hedonic and not enough on the eudaimonic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the eudaimonic doesn't come as naturally, it's not probably as readily available. You have to actually do some work to discover it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, meaning purpose, like. What are those things? Most people probably couldn't succinctly identify what their meaning or purpose in life is, whereas most people could identify what makes them feel happy in a given moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great example because even in the presentation that you gratefully shared with our community, you had a question that was posed to the group what are your values?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it seemed like it was just a stall in the room, like it was very difficult for people to come up with their five values.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, you know values. Work is something I do a lot in therapy and it sounds so simplistic in that most people would say, like what's the point of me identifying values? But really, at the end of the day, if we boil all this stuff down, values-based living is an absolute necessity for flourishing. So if we don't know what our values are, we can't align our lives accordingly, and then our lives are going to lack meaning. And similarly, if we know what our values are, we can't align our lives accordingly, and then our lives are going to lack meaning. And similarly, if we know what our values are and we are living in a way that's reflective of those, meaning is going to ensue without much effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the word that you're using that speaks to me and most likely other listeners who are tuning in today is alignment.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I feel like, when most folks are not going in the direction they want to be going, there's an alignment issue and they're maybe not taking the steps that are necessary to get them back to their values, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a related term would be like congruence or incongruence, and I think that's a lot of. What we end up doing, too in therapy is where is there a sense of lack of alignment or incongruence in your life, and how can we help create a greater match between what matters to you and what you're doing, as well as between what you believe in the way that you're living?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what if someone feels like they're very incongruent Like where does that person start? I know we've got to get to the P, but if we're not living aligned with our values or incongruence with the way we want to live, how would you have someone start who maybe isn't sitting down with you in the therapeutic setting? Oh, they're not sitting down with me, not yet, not yet.
Speaker 2:Well, I would always start with the values identification exercise, which, as I mentioned previously, sounds simplistic but can be incredibly powerful and, I would argue, is something that every human would benefit from and very few of us spend the time doing, and that essentially entails reviewing a lengthy list of common values and spending time whittling down which ones are most important to you. That's what a value is right, it's just what matters most to you and then, from there, doing some honest evaluation of are there gaps between what I've identified as meaning most to me, being most important to me, and how I'm living my life? If there are, that's where dissatisfaction, unhappiness, is going to come from. Also, if there are gaps, then we have to determine what's happening, and in that case, I usually like to ask people to walk through some reflective questions, one being are these things truly your values? So just because we say we value something or we think we value something, doesn't necessarily mean that we do. There's a lot of shoulds that come up when we're identifying values Like well, I think I should value-.
Speaker 1:Honesty.
Speaker 2:Thing? Yeah, honesty, exactly, but I don't, you know if I'm really honest. Ironically honest, I don't, and so that requires some real self-insight and some consideration. We oftentimes take values from society, from primary caregivers in childhood, what we were taught, but just because it matters to somebody else doesn't mean it matters to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a great point. We often shit on ourselves A lot, a lot, and so getting to a place, when you do the values exercise of asking that bigger question of like is this really how I want to live, is this how I want to show up? Yeah, yeah, great, great way of looking at it. Now go ahead and define PERMA and then we'll dig into that P.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I was just thinking about how. We've mentioned that a few times, but haven't defined it All right. So PERMA is again Seligman's model for human flourishing, well-being, whatever word you want to use and it's an acronym that includes positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement, and we're not going to have time to get into all those components because each one of those could be multiple podcasts in and of itself.
Speaker 1:And you wouldn't recommend going in the order of the letters, right? Oh no.
Speaker 2:I mean, what I would encourage is to do a bit of analysis for yourself about how you're doing in the different domains and then you want to you know you want to create action plans in the areas where you feel like you're lacking or where there's some kind of gap between where you'd like to be and where you're at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in other words, an inventory of how you're doing in each and then create some plans to bring congruence to your world.
Speaker 2:Exactly, okay, you know, the funny thing is I can see what you're saying that some people might think, oh, maybe I need to, maybe they're in order for a reason.
Speaker 1:To my knowledge, there's no order to them, except maybe they just sound catchy when it's said as perma yeah, it gets the acronym that we have today, okay so, so the biggest thing with positive emotions is the ability to cultivate them, and I think we have a lot of people out there who think that emotions are purely driven by their thoughts, and we also have this thinking, at least high achievers. A lot of the folks that we work with, highly successful people and I'm generalizing here tend to believe that they can control their emotions all the time. Right, could you dig into emotions in general and then let's get to the positive side of them and how we create them?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's ironic, isn't it, that emotions are such a key component of being human and yet, for most of us, I don't know that we really have a clear picture of what they are, why they matter. So I like to think of the most basic level of emotions as information. So emotions give us lots of different information. But, for simplicity's sake, negative emotions often point towards unmet needs, whereas positive emotions speak to needs that are being met or satisfied, and that's super valuable info, right, that's very valuable.
Speaker 2:Because if I can figure out, oh man, I'm feeling depressed and that depression results from the unmet need of community, then I'm now in a position to do something about meeting that need and, in turn, shift the emotion. And I talk about this with people in therapy all the time, because people think and approach emotions as a reality that happens to them and there's some truth to that. We could get into the weeds, that probably wouldn't be useful, but really it's way more helpful to think of emotions as something that you can in fact do something with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Act, do something with yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Like we can sometimes fall into the place of I don't mean to generalize again, but victim mode when emotions are created when we don't see them coming, and I say I think that's what makes it difficult for so many people is like what do I do with this? But your example of I feel depressed, I'm not connected and so maybe it's a social engagement situation that I need to pursue so met needs versus unmet needs.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Will drive positive or negative.
Speaker 2:I will say, just to kind of balance our perspective, that it isn't possible or even good to try to fully control your emotions either. I think sometimes people who are high achievers and who are really successful they're like Dr Mundy give me like the five-step strategy, to like controlling every single one of my emotions, and I always say that would be lovely. I wish I had that. I wish I had that for me. But emotions are way more complex than that. Sometimes the most effective approach to managing a difficult emotion is to acknowledge that it's fleeting and to let it run its course. Really strong emotions, particularly really strong negative emotions, don't actually last that long. We're never going to get stuck in a deep state of emotion forever. So sometimes just doing visualization, like visualizing it as a wave it's going to crash in, it's going to roll back out. No wave ever gets stuck on the shore. We'll allow it to pass and that's good enough.
Speaker 1:That's an excellent reminder, and even when we're in those moments we feel like it's going to be in our heads forever. Then you do wake up. The next day it's a little bit better, and then, a week from that interaction or moment, it did actually flee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, emotions can be remarkably fleeting. Right, you can feel horrible, in one hour and two hours later you might feel really different. I mean, they are not permanent, which is hopeful in and of itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, great perspective, yeah, great perspective. So positive emotions are what we want to create in our life. If we're going to focus on positive emotions and just have a plan around them, how would you propose folks go about?
Speaker 2:that Sure. So I could go so many routes here, because there are a lot of different evidence-based strategies for cultivating positive emotion, but I think the first thing I would note is what you mentioned a few minutes ago, which is shifting our perspective on emotions to something that are capable of being shifted or changed. So I like to think of emotions as malleable You're not. You don't have full control over them. That's reasonable. We don't want to try to get full control, but at the same time you're not just stuck. If you would like to feel more positive emotions and you're not there, there are very tangible things you can do that evidence suggests bring about more positive emotionality.
Speaker 1:Now, would this be a routine that someone develops, or is it going to be more about how someone deals with those emotions?
Speaker 2:Both. Okay, yeah, so absolutely both.
Speaker 1:Take what we're pretty much focused on dealing with emotions. I've got, you know, negativity coming in. What do I do?
Speaker 2:What a complex, simple question, for that has a complex answer. So there's many things you could do. One thing you could would be going back to what we talked about a few minutes ago and pause and become really good at identifying what you're feeling. So many of us have a very woefully inadequate emotional vocabulary. If we're going to view emotions as need, as information, rather about unmet needs, we're going to get the best information if we're skilled at accurately identifying what the emotion is.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we need to practice identifying our emotions, and the more we practice, the more we'll be able to identify them quickly in these moments of uncertainty.
Speaker 2:Sure moments of uncertainty Sure If all you can identify emotion-wise is anger which is something I hear a lot in my work then that's not going to be particularly useful because it's undoubtedly you're experiencing things other than anger, but if you're mistakenly identifying it all as anger, you're not going to get the right information from that identification regarding unmet needs, going to get the right information from that identification regarding unmet needs. So anger, for instance, if that's truly what you're feeling, your unmet need might be something like unfairness or injustice, but if you're actually feeling alone and it's manifesting as anger, you're identifying it as anger.
Speaker 1:You're not going to get good info from anger as to what the unmet need is. Yeah, it feels like you have to develop a level of intuitiveness and self-awareness to. I know this is an oversimplification again, but provide the right prescription to the problem so that you can move yourself in a better state.
Speaker 2:So, as simplistic as this may sound, usually when people are reporting a lot of negative emotions that they want to shift, I often start with having them keep a mood or emotion diary and becoming really good at identifying what they're feeling in a given moment, and there's some interesting research that shows that simply stating what we're feeling, stating I am feeling- Written Out loud Both, Any whatever Doesn't matter, but actually stating it.
Speaker 2:Yep, I am feeling blank, so I am feeling lonely or I am feeling frustrated or I'm feeling angry. Calms down the amygdala, which is kind of the emotional center of our brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it always does feel better when you express how you're feeling. Now, how about? I am going to go down a rabbit hole, but in relationships you're experiencing a difficult emotion, in a work relationship, a significant other Is it wise to use those, I feel, statements? We've always heard that. What would you say about that?
Speaker 2:I mean again, there's lots of nuance there that we could get into the weeds about. But something that I frequently speak with people about when they're reporting communication issues is we look at, are they using I feel, versus you feel or versus you statements? So people tend to, when they feel something strongly in the context of relationships, say you make me so mad, and that immediately shuts down the other person. It makes them defensive and angry. So I feel statements are a way to express how another person's behaviors are impacting you without making it personal to them. So you're noting their behavior. You're not saying they're an inadequate person, they're doing something.
Speaker 1:Their emotions are not their identity. Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:And giving them concrete guidance as to what would be better for you in the future.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay. So we've spent time on the like. I'm feeling the emotion. Here's what I can do. Now let's shift gears into routines. I'm a big routine guy, love to create positive practices in my life. What would be the first practice that you have someone develop as just part of their living?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if we're looking at positive emotions and like what is a simple, everyday, actionable practice we can cultivate, engage in whatever word we want to use to improve or promote our positive emotions, I would start with gratitude. There is a wealth of research out there on the positive physical and psychological consequences of gratitude. I mean, you could argue that you're doing a really, really great thing for your physical health just by becoming a more grateful person. The thing that I see that goes wrong with this is that people think gratitude is just something that happens to them. Like I just feel grateful sometimes, but I would like people to think of it as an intentional practice that you cultivate and engage in on an everyday basis.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of means of gratitude practice. It could be as simple as a gratitude list, so every day, I'm going to write down two things that I'm grateful for. It could be a gratitude journal, which is kind of the list on steroids. So I'm going to every day spend some time writing about not only what I'm grateful for, but why, how this impacts me, who else is involved. Whatever, it could be a gratitude walk, which is nothing more than I'm going to take a walk by myself and I'm going to focus my attention, the entire walk, on identifying and stating things that I'm grateful for.
Speaker 1:And you would go through in your head the many different things depending on the length of the walk. Sure, there's no right or wrong, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:It could be a gratitude jar, which I think is fun to do if you have kids especially, but honestly, anybody could benefit, which is every time you identify something that you're grateful for, or, even better, make a habit of identifying one thing a day, writing it down on a slip of paper, sticking it in the jar, and then you have something to go back to on days where everything's going awry. You need an attitude check, pull a few slips out and reflect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're going to want to have that jar in advance of that day, as you said earlier.
Speaker 2:Right, which is why you might want to get in the habit of daily, you know, writing something down to add to the jar. So you kind of build up your cache of gratitude points.
Speaker 2:But then finally and this is a technique that Seligman likes to promote and has really good evidence behind it, but it's the gratitude visit and this involves you think about call to mind a person that has really made a positive impact on your life, somebody you really appreciate, that you can pinpoint specific things they've done that have made a difference for you. Then you write a letter to them identifying in a lot of detail why you're so appreciative to them, what they did for you, how they've impacted your life, how they've impacted where you are now. Then you call them up this is really designed to be done with somebody who's alive. You call them up and you say, hey, I wanna get together. Ideally, don't tell them why Get together, read the letter and then do some real reflection with them about how what you shared hit, maybe extract, you know, kind of expand on what you shared in the letter. There's really good research that demonstrates that this helps cultivate positive emotions that stick with us.
Speaker 1:So positive emotions become more ingrained in ourselves.
Speaker 2:They can.
Speaker 1:For sure that's really cool and that takes a lot of guts for someone to do that. It is vulnerable for sure, especially in this world where it's always so much easier when you're going there with someone to send an email or to text.
Speaker 2:But it's not as meaningful. Yeah, this particular practice, in terms of how it's been evaluated in research, is involves like an actual in-person sharing of the letter. That being said, that doesn't mean that there is not value to doing it in other forms, like I think. I certainly have sent emails before of gratitude and gotten good feedback that they meant a lot to the other person. I suspect cultivated positive emotion, so I wouldn't let that be a hindrance.
Speaker 1:But if you can do the whole thing, what's the most important part when you share gratitude with someone else like for them?
Speaker 2:So I don't know that there's research on like a one thing that's most important, but something to consider would be specificity one thing that's most important, but something to consider would be specificity. So the more clear cut you can be about what you appreciate and this speaks to a whole other area of research on effective praise the more it'll land and the more it's going to mean. So just saying to somebody like man, I really appreciate you, that's nice. That's better than saying you hate them. It's going to be's better than saying you hate them. It's going to be way more meaningful and probably elicit a lot more positive emotion for both of you, if you can say I so appreciate the way that you stuck by me through this difficult time. I remember how you sent me a meal when I was too exhausted to cook for myself and that was so comforting. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be very clear, be very detailed, and I relate that to a fitness setting, because we we try to have the highest quality of classes here at PB and the simplest way to impact someone in a movement based class is being very specific about their positioning. Hey, susie, your elbow was tucked in at a really in a great position. That kept you safe and you're going to get stronger.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So being very specific with cueing it sounds like being very specific with what you're grateful for is going to be helpful.
Speaker 2:Okay, the magics and the details.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I understand how evidence-based you are. How many positive emotions does someone need to experience after a negative emotion in order to, like, get back on track, if that's a thing, right?
Speaker 2:Sort of sort of not. So there is some research on that. It's called the positivity ratio, which kind of sounds crazy. I will say that there is also some question as to the strength or rigor of that research. What we do have suggests that it takes about 2.9 positive emotions to one negative emotion to be our best selves but I would take that with a bit of a grain of salt to one negative emotion to be our best selves.
Speaker 2:But I would take that with a bit of a grain of salt. I think the overall aim is just no kidding. You want more positive than negative emotions.
Speaker 1:The optimism in me. I'm like, wow, just three to one, I can do that, I can make that happen. Very cool. Well, we have spent Exceptional time on the P and so that listeners leave here just moving in a direction where they aren't controlling their emotions, but they're identifying them and then they're creating a practice of intentional practice in their life. What do you want listeners to remember about positive emotions?
Speaker 2:One key takeaway you know, what I'd like them to remember is actually exactly what we've touched on several times, and that is that emotions are indeed malleable. They are capable of being shifted and cultivated. The best way to be stuck with your emotions is to assume that I just feel what I feel. Good luck, I'm out of. You know options. Yes, we can't fully impact everything about our emotions. We're sometimes, as humans, going to feel things we don't want to feel, but there are lots of really valid, useful, evidence based strategies for promoting our positive emotions, and if we approach those and integrate those into our lives in an intentional way, there's really the potential to shift how we feel and therefore how we live.
Speaker 1:That's empowering. Well, this brings us to the end of our time. Katie, it's been an absolute pleasure having you speak to our community today and having the opportunity to sit down here and dig even deeper. What does wellness mean to you?
Speaker 2:To me, wellness means whole person flourishing. I think we live in a world where we tend to think of wellness as being diet or exercise, which is certainly a component of wellness, but I really don't believe that people can be truly well unless they're caring for all aspects of themselves. So I'm talking mental, physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, psychological, and I also believe that if we are sacrificing any one of these areas to try to excel in another, that's not true wellness. So I suppose, to summarize to me to be well is to be whole and integrated, and to be whole and integrated is really when the flourishing happens.
Speaker 1:Whole and integrated listeners. You heard it Well. Your message today is so powerful. I know men and women are going to be impacted greatly and I've enjoyed our time having you on campus and we'll look forward to doing more in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been my privilege. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:You're very welcome Listeners. You can hang out with me and get a little more healthy momentum for the rest of your week. What a timely episode with Dr Ryder Mundy. Seriously, y'all, when is it a bad time to revisit best practices for cultivating positive emotions? What I found most interesting about this conversation is the parallel she was able to make with other routines that we've carefully crafted or strategically created in our lives. For many of us, our fitness is dialed in. We have routines in our relationships, like date night or trips, but what about routines for our mental health? Do you have habits to help you with your thoughts? Do you have routines to help you with your emotions? The time was so well spent with Katie today because, to me at least, she made it super practical and it's a lot more tangible the way we were able to discuss it less touchy-feely kind of, if you think about it, and that's why it's so important that we don't let this episode just pass us by.
Speaker 1:So for this week's Healthy Momentum, let me highlight a few of the factors that have assisted with everyone's changing perspective on mental health. So first, there is definitely a reduced stigma. Right now, mental health is becoming way less stigmatized than previous generations, particularly younger adults, are finding that it's so important. There is an increased awareness for all of us wanting to learn more about mental health, and we all know that the social disruption of the pandemic the recession during that time it caused more people to struggle, therefore more people needing help. We can even back this up with statistics Visiting mental health professionals. For example, in 2021, 23.2% of adults between the ages of 18 and 44 received mental health treatment, and in 2022, us adults of every age averaged 3.2 mental health visits, up from 1.5 visits nearly two decades ago, so in 2004. We even see that a recent Gallup poll has found that four in five Americans now believe mental health conditions have increased in the US. So there's clearly something here.
Speaker 1:But the question is what are we personally doing about it in our lives? Not the cause of mental health, of course we can help there, but what are you doing to help your head? So for this week, I want to piggyback off of today's episode and encourage you to think about how you can prioritize your mental health. As much as you may be prioritizing your physical health, we have to remember that there will always be an inherent bias to focus on the physical. At least, that's what I'm thinking it's going to be like at first, but imagine how much better you'll feel when you develop and improve consistency with routines that assist your thoughts, feelings and those pesky emotions. That is a wrap on this week's episode. We absolutely love bringing on outside experts, so if you enjoyed the time today as much as we did, please leave us a comment with your thoughts and we look forward to bringing on more experts in the future. As always, have a great week and remember to actively participate in life on your terms. Thanks, everybody.
