Episode 30 · 36:04
Trauma’s Impact, Emotional Health & Mental Health Importance
A playful live demonstration gives way to a serious conversation about trauma, intrusive thoughts and the link between emotional and physical health. Dan and Tom consider why prevention and early support matter, especially before one generation’s unresolved pain becomes the next generation’s inheritance.
They also imagine tools that help people notice and communicate feelings without pretending technology can replace care.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Early support can interrupt patterns before they become a person’s normal.
- Trauma may influence both emotional and physical wellbeing over time.
- Simple tools can make feelings easier to name and share.
- Technology can support reflection, but safety and human care must remain central.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
Intrusive thought number two I've noticed that you can just pull off the plastic this is a live demonstration of how my brain works so if you're not if you're not watching us online then jump over to YouTube right now because time is innovating responsible okay yeah and as long as you don't rub it on the speaker because as long as I don't touch it yeah yeah or if I do it down there let's say yeah this is where we have to have our.
Buy now we'll get sued now don't stop [Music] welcome to sofa sounds we're now on sofas soon yeah we're gonna give you the sound of us on sofas that's our version of sofa sounds um welcome again to another week uh Tom and I were just saying just before we started every time we come and sit down we have great conversations in the week be like okay that'll go on the Pod that'll go on the Pod as soon as the Pod.
Starts it literally disappears out of my brain um but yeah nonetheless um we'll share some things and hopefully we'll Entertain You for half an hour or 15 minutes if you watch us at two times the speed so Tom how are you doing this week not too bad we are not sponsored by Prime but I thought I'd try the uh green one blue one is my preferred form I must admit but yeah there was actually it reminds me of something but I can't.
Quite put my finger on it which is annoying there was a news article that um a kid had a cardiac arrest because he'd been drinking the energy version of it so there's obviously this version which is just the coconut water with flavor Vibes and then there's the energy version that has like 200 milligrams of caffeine which is way more than even what a Red Bull would have in it um but yeah I've also I I um as you know.
I basically have been scouring London trying to find prime as well that's at a decent price and I found it in a garage and then bought four of them because they were like Max two and I was like but I've never tried this so they're like just put it through in two transactions I was like thank you so so the one I need to try is orange but um broadly speaking how would you describe flavors of it so you've drunk all of.
Them how would you describe so no for somebody that's never done never done Prime never had prime it's basically KSI and Logan Paul's drink um yeah which has taken the World by storm and all the kids are raging out because basically both of them are both YouTubers both are boxers no one is WWE and another is a boxer so yeah I don't know I'd say they're very flavoursome apparently there's hardly any sugar in it and I think that's what they've done.
Is by powering up the flavor to be a quite sweet flavor it makes it feel like I can imagine for a kid feeling like I'm getting the sugar rushes I would a Red Bull yeah but they've gone the health route which then encourages parents to get them it so it's a win-win to some extent because the kids get the so-called kick um and then the parents get the I guess the health benefits but it's not particularly that cheap so yeah they.
Don't get the bank balance benefits yeah I I saw some places are selling it for 15 quid now the retail price is 299 is it or two uh I think it's as far as roughly about 299 I think Sainsbury's have dropped it to two now yeah which is um I find it's fascinating the kids when you're younger you fight super hard for um like Collective like appearance like um to look like everybody else I I don't know what you'd label that but you fight.
Really really hard for that like group together that like yeah to fit in and then when you get older you fight hard to basically be individualistic and like be your own person and the unique qualities that make up so sustening as kids go through their Journey they go from like wanting to be like everybody to fit in to then being wanting to be unique I find that such a fascinating like Journey that people go through um because I think as adults you you.
More and more have obviously wisdom age like you see more of the spectrum that you are as like your personality and character and hobbies and and things and like we said before we're organic people right so we change I've just realized that I think I'm recording this the different side than I did last time so yeah what you can do you have to like flip yourself to make us look like we're looking at each other on screen it looks better so.
I just need to make sure the layering is correct otherwise it looks like we've got we're back to back talking to the wall well maybe that's kind of the way that we do podcasts because sometimes not looking at anything allows you to um Daydream and go into that like upper atmosphere of mind kind of thing to to be able to speak about stuff so it's not too bad but yeah I guess the fun fact about last week's pod for anyone that's.
Interested in video editing it is we did a trial with Premiere Pro and I think it was Pro Cut So Pro Cut I think it's that's what it's called pod cut I think it's called something like that and it's basically a AI um powered plug-in that you can actually have a month free which is super useful because it basically you can say who is video one who is voice one who's video two who's voice two and then it will cut.
It um and switch them and apparently you can switch to a wide lens if you had another one if we were actually in the same room yeah um so it does it within like a minute roughly a 30 minute long podcast it will literally cut it all um I'm sure there's probably some weaknesses there because I didn't review the footage but I think you did right at the end but you said I did it only there was only a glitch at the end yeah one.
Glitch at the end when it probably should have switched otherwise just looking at some massage still and just hearing somebody else's voice but I think another thing with the um kids stuff um I've been watching I've been kind of keeping a little bit of an eye on the youth Parliament stuff so youth Parliament is um I think they're 16 year olds or they might be younger but the kids from secondary school that have been brought in and each of them one person.
Represents there like County and they actually get to meet in the center down in South Wales and represent different views and typically the the way they do it is they obviously have all these individuals they then put together speeches present speeches in the Senate as as the politicians now would and then off the back of those speeches they collectively choose a theme like three themes that they want to focus on for the term that they do which I think is.
I think it's a year term I can't quite remember um and one of those is mental health now the last Parliament youth Parliament that they had focused on it too and the typical outworkings of this is they produce a rapport and it's all from the youth perspective and um and young young people perspective that they then advise um government with or they give that report to government to be like hey this is what we found and they hope they make.
Recommendations I read through the mental health stuff twice now um and it's fascinating that um there's a growing need so in I think the last one was 2020 I think through covert they had a dip um so there's similar recommendations in this report as there was in the first report which is like there's this organization this charitable organization that helps a lot of young people um and children with mental health issues and they provide counselors and stuff but their processes are long so.
You'll wait a long time or whatever to get to it and what the report is saying was like one we need to help to teachers be able to do some of this stuff but we also recognize that they're stretched so can we bring in more like counselors into school and secondly can we provide more like before it gets incredibly bad provide more preventative work by integrating mental health into the curriculum so you're more aware about it and it's basically not a stigma now.
Mental health there's an aspect of mental health that's basically um been around a little bit more than us introducing the language which is bullying right the impact of bullying and what that has on individuals and I think again we've not solved bullying it's still happening we have more labels to be able to articulate the type of bullying but I it doesn't feel like it's changing so it's like what preventative measures could you come up with in a digital platform to be able to serve.
More than there are people and counselors what is that what we're solving today yeah I I think so because have you seen um Snapchats AI friend no so in Snapchat there's basically a conversation you can have with Snapchat's AI um and it can basically be your friend now it's a little bit dodgy because people are like hey do you know my location and it says no we don't and it's like can you tell me where the nearest McDonald's is and it'll tell you.
The nearest McDonald's based on your location so people are like glitching it and it is a little bit you know it's very difficult to get an AI to have the right guard rails to to protect the kids that are chatting to it to not be suggesting bad stuff or whatever um but yeah lots of kids are befriending this AI which I think is dangerous but also I I mostly see the benefits so I'm like if the right guard.
Rails are in then the benefits are good because again what do we want we want to feel understood right and listened to yeah but I guess it's one of those things I guess the main or you'd like to think the main thing that humans can do over robots I guess is the the intimacy and the connection and not from a digital connection to the internet but connecting like human to human but I guess if we've always got a.
Or what do you call them like an intermediate person a medium person or whatever that sort of speaking around you you might always crave connection but never actually get it so unless it's more of a teaching tool to help you communicate to connect to the ones around you which I think that is the power of it and really useful in giving you the tools in that way I guess going back to your guard rails um it can be quite tough because if.
People are physically trying to want that human Connection in a robot well they'll be always looking at the wrong place but I recognize the the fear of rejection or something like that that will crop up even more because you're just talking to a robot that you know that you can go backwards and forwards with as long as you're paying the subscription or getting the free amount is it's only going to say I don't have this information and that's as much as a.
Rejection as you'll get I think the word resilience is thrown around a little bit as well so I think if we were able to teach um patterns or processes to hand over to someone to like build a sense of resilience and then that is like one one kind of tool the other one is yes connection but they did a study where someone was chatting to a counselor versus chat GPT and they found that chat gtp's empathy was higher.
Um so people were returning to chat TTP more I do agree that obviously there's the physical element but if we remove an aspect of physicality to any of these interactions and just like literally do you feel understood really do you feel understood comes down to like do you feel listened to and whether or not there is a mechanism to feel listened to now how do you know that I listen to you I add to your conversation or I ask you.
A question about what you've said so it has to have that um oh it's interesting you said about you know doing hockey when you were younger like tell me more it's like the the little drops isn't it to like eek it out but also take it on a journey for like help somebody self-discover stuff so I would be like I think robe like therapy robots will will happen I know that there's like because we have therapy dogs right.
And I guess the reason why that works is because one they have to listen because the dog is there with you but I think it's like the the affection and care and it's like as you said it's the non-judgment stuff so the difficulty with non-judgment is correction or like suggestive like well actually that's not quite entirely the best thinking process have you considered this it's like how do we do that if we have AIS that are too agreeable.
Then the kind of the critical thinking element might not be there so then it basically creates more division with all individuals because every individual is is right and correct so that's the only like thing that's not quite solidified in my brain but if you distill it down to how do you make people feel listened to like what can you do well firstly you can ask him a question right and then off the back of that is it about giving.
Somebody perspective we've always spoken about myers-bricks like when you're stressed because they talk about exam time Exon time stress is probably because you see that this one exam is gonna destroy your life if you get it wrong right and you want to do it right which is I would say like a a one step you're looking at the one step but if you look at the bigger picture which is like well broadly speaking you want a to c kind of.
Vibe and there are retakes and yes it's just getting you to the next level but after that like it's not going to screw you so much just so you get in after that it's actually most of the University course so after that it's actually more so your experience you know and then all this stuff it like in 20 years time doesn't matter but obviously it's careful because you don't want to disregard their emotion in the moment so like how how would you how.
Would you visualize a tool because you've done like journaling and stuff right yeah I've done journaling I find that quite helpful I think because I'm so used to taking in information I think for me journaling um normally on a piece of paper a because I hardly have a right it's quite nice um it feels a bit different from always typing or texting um but also it's getting out whatever you might be processing on the inside down on a piece of paper that then you.
Can um analyze it review it meditate on it think about it just a little bit more and it pulls out of this I need to fix it right now mentality and sort of that you can get stuck in your head or stuck in your heart pulls you out of that and then just makes you think about it more holistically uh it is really useful I think I think it would be interesting once okay you've got the knowledge of AI but.
Then once you tap into and now it's lined up with a camera or the there's a lidar or whatever on iPhone Pros so I've noticed with apple I think it's yesterday they brought out a new product that basically it will use for accessibility if you hover your finger over let's say a microwave it'll tell you like that's number one that's number two that's number three and it basically does a pre-scan with the lidar scans it all to know what's there so then when.
You then hover your finger over it tells you exactly what it is and I think once it gets into that side of non-verbal I think that will be even more fascinating because if I went to a counselor and had no words that is words if I went to AI chat and had no words but I wanted to be listened to or seen well I wouldn't be I'd have to explain that I don't have no words hmm so I think from a non-verbal or people.
That struggle with words or explaining or that type of thing which I can imagine maybe guys on the emotional side or dyslexic people with with maybe typing and that's why there will be like pockets of people um that would miss out on that I think if it was linked to some sort of and now it can read your facial expressions and that type of thing I think that would massively be interesting because it's then figuring out you telling the truth or.
Are you telling lie because I guess at the moment it's probably like more confessional because no one's looking at my face whatever I'll just ask it sort of anything but to some extent you might go I'm feeling depressed but actually you you're not depressed but that's the only word that you could come up with but actually your body language is quite relaxed um so it might not necessarily always be correct in in that regards because they can't match what you look like and then.
Your words and then match it together um because if you're saying you're stressed all the time but actually you look really happy and having a great time or whatever I guess it could be more your internalized net but technically you're communicating it so you're not internalizing it so surely it should be showing up not just in your words to one robot but I don't know maybe that's enough to be seen and heard that you can regulate your emotions and it would be.
Interesting because I think the government would want to tap into something that would just be a cost that is um yeah cheaper to run probably yeah I I think the um the whole building a language the language of emotions and the language of what you're feeling and the language of like understanding yourself and stuff it is in itself a bit of a work project uh something that came to mind when you were chatting is like so so two.
Things one I was thinking to remove this idea are you happy or are you sad like those Concepts might be like too hardcore like as like clean cut because emotions is like a range right and you and you might feel it different in five minutes versus 10 minutes so like if you were a particular color and by colors I mean like green is feeling like good you know Amber is not so good in the middle like you you might even.
Put Blue in there to be like well I'm a bit numb or whatever I don't know and then you've put in red to be like well I'm feeling like angry or whatever but you wouldn't label it you just be like what color are you feeling right now um and then I was like what happens if you had this group dynamic of like the most important thing with with my uh group therapy stuff that I've done in the past I think one of the most.
Significant insights is that you're not alone that even though you feel like oh this is my problem many people have similar problems and many people have problems anyway so the whole You Are Not Alone feels like an interesting concept to kind of visualize now how would you visualize that could it be that like oh your group of mates at school you've probably got five six mates they would all join like a fantasy football league of emotions where you're.
Just color blobs for every day of the week or every minute so whatever time you update the color blog at the blob you could go to the app to be like okay my my Tom orb has turned to Blue so anytime I look at it I can see a different emotion or something so then it's like oh cool it's encouraging me then Thomas blue ask him how he's feeling do you know what I mean like maybe it's a case of we.
Facilitate group therapy through an app where you can log emotions and then the other person is prompted to ask Tom something you know as well as Thomas asked hey you've signified that you're feeling angry like have you tried right now going to play football you know or whatever the suggestion is um so maybe like something like that would work yeah I think it would be a very interesting thing using apps I've thought about it before from a family.
Health perspective of people living in different locations um because I think something like a family WhatsApp you don't always want to mention every emotion that you're going through through the day it's normally a highlight reel of Instagram YouTube maybe big events of birthdays or weddings or whatever um and maybe an element of planning if you're catching up together but I guess unless there is a different watchtop group it's it's sort of a how would you make it normal that you know.
That information um it'd be cool if if you it'd be cool if you had a service where you have this app where you're changing the color right so based on okay like five minutes ago I changed to red and then it updated all of my profile images across all of my social media with me but with like a red circle around it and then it would be like if I changed it to Green it would update all my profile images with.
Like green around it and that would basically be updating my profile image so then EV then regardless of the platform you would have something because again how do you understand somebody because it's a choice to put up a photo it's a choice to be like putting up this highlight reel how do you know what's really going on is there a way to to do that thing because you're right you don't really want somebody to come into the app again as such you want it.
To be like so integrated into life um that it kind of works but yeah I'm like there's something here that's very interesting even with like I know that kids won't don't necessarily want their parents to know what they're talking about with the counselor and all that stuff but if you could have like a classroom where obviously kids would give permission or the parents would give permission for the kids to be like cool we've got these color swabs and basically you're swabbing what color.
You are and then here's the board and this is what the classroom currently looks like you've got a group of people that are angry got a group of people things so let's do something about it I also think like numbers of intensity would be interesting to think so yes you are red but you owe you a one out of ten or a 10 out of ten because you might be angry but you're not that angry it's just like I feel angry but it's a one.
Out of ten and I think that again gives the insight to somebody to be like Tom's just signified that he's read ten I'd be like hey what's up like and tax Tom you know hmm but I guess a lot of that would be very dependent of everyone buying into the ski it's like are you joining a team sport well that'd be really useful or do you prefer individual sport because you maybe can't process helping others or whatever because you've got a certain.
Goal that only you're going to yeah I wonder whether or not you could have instant like let's say you had cool we have this color app you do the color app you update it and then a text message comes to you because you just updated to red and the bot is like hey I just saw you check in an emotion like what what's triggering your anger and then you reply to it and then it just empathetically replies with it that must.
Be super tough like blah blah blah like it sucks like um like and then it just like ends the conversation there so like you've been you've been hurt you've been able to like out of like oh this really irritating thing happened because my I I had a nail in my tire or whatever whatever and it's like oh that really sucks like I hope you're able to sort it out something and not be two solutions orientated be more like from an.
Understanding perspective hmm because it there definitely is a need these kids are saying it because they've served like 2 000 kids right or 3 000 kids so there's a need for something in this space to remove the stigma to be more preventative like further down the flow so how do you do that with obviously keeping everything in mind with safeguarding and not having necessary kids pumping in a load of like you know hard times into an app and.
Compassions and like problems and stuff into an app where it's challenging to to know what to do and have all that encrypted and stuff but and I guess that's the thing is is there's two elements I guess it's they mental health but then also the emotional health obviously there's the the physical health as well but I think everyone knows about the physical health a lot more and then we've been through what 10 years if that may be of.
Mental health being a massive thing so be intrigued to know are we going to stick in the mental health Zone a little bit longer or then are we going to switch on to emotional health so then everyone knows how to work out everyone knows how to understand their brain everyone understands what their emotions are actually saying boom yes that's true like that's reminded to me that's triggered me in a positive way reminded me about a podcast that I listened to.
About um again if we think holistically about medicine and and private medicine and stuff you go to a GP and you kind of expect to be prescribed something um so that is like a default state so if there's a problem you go somewhere you hope to be prescribed something so there's a bit of pressure to do that um and also there's a there's a financial benefit for that thing to happen from pharmaceutical companies right so when you come to like a.
Counseling um or a psychotherapist or anything like that you might feel that there's a pressure or like the the route to providing um medicine for it is like a more of an option than providing methodologies and patterns and mental tools and things to help someone out at the back of that there was this doctor guy doing this podcast I can't remember the name of the podcast but he was saying that trauma actually um significantly um kind of like is correlated to.
Physical illness and physical um well-being and a lot of the time um trauma triggers inflammation and therefore things like um inflammation would be associated with asthma so there's kind of like a correlation with um childhood trauma correlated to adult mental health in the same way that smoking is correlated to cancer and people don't really talk about trauma childhood trauma and stuff um being such a link with therefore than the mental health issues and really is you're right speaking about emotional.
Health AKA speaking about trauma and processing trauma um could resolve some physical illnesses as well as mental illnesses um because yeah they were saying that they um did a study and basically um individuals with more trauma even though they were Rich so they took like a rich black person and a poor white person and even though they came from those backgrounds the person with more emotional trauma was like worse like more ill kind of thing because trauma creates inflammation inflammation.
Triggers things like asthma or whatever like you know and other um illnesses so I thought wow like you you super right if we're able to reel it back to again preventative about emotional well-being being regulated and so forth but like how where do you start with that yeah because I I think because I spotted a post on a news Outlet this week and it's basically a dude saying he knows he doesn't have ADHD but three different I think.
Um private sector and public or whatever have said that he's got ADHD um but he's like I know I don't have it and I think his last Resort maybe you went private again elsewhere said that he did didn't but he said the difficulty is is when you go down those Outlets they're more likely to encourage you to give you a certain drug straight away but then I listen to other podcasts of people that are very talk about emotions and that type of.
Thing but the lady's got ADHD and got ADHD friends and they actually talk about their Journal Journey with the drugs and how it basically numbed them as a person and okay they can focus for eight hours straight but actually their strength of creativity for example every time they instantly took the drug as if you wiped out their creativity and personality so it's fascinating how there's a hierarchy probably which doesn't help from a school perspective of by sitting down and not having a.
Voice and being silent being out of focus that is greater than someone that's annoying the classroom because they get sent out but actually that person that's super creative that maybe can't focus could be an amazing um business owner or sole Trader or whatever creating a product that works for a certain amount of people yeah but again there's this craving of I'm going against a grain I'm different so let me take the drugs and I'll be like everyone else.
But it's fascinating because then when you are like that other person you're then basically being a watered down worst version of that other person because it's removing the things that make you be you which is such a fascinating um that's probably all that I guess everyone's in of trying to find their niche in a hobby or a job or a relationship um and it is that do you water down yourself or do you carry on with who you are and or maybe.
Over um emphasize yourself I think it's tied into measuring impact unfortunately measuring impact is like either through a financial thing or like number of people helped which is all like Solutions oriented all with like quick fixes we don't like people being sad for long you know we want to move people on if we talk about the big farmer of like shareholders so they want like they they're geared up to sell stuff right so you want to be selling.
Things you want to be selling medicines and drugs and so forth so their metric is number of sales and then the doctor is like number of patients treated so they're like well what's the quickest way to get this patient to be like like better so they might feel pressure to get more people treated because again we're talking about waiting lists and we're talking about you know there's a load of people here to be served um and therefore there's a pressure to.
Push people through systems quicker um and then also I guess with any sort of thing you want to like some stop somebody coming to you so if you are able to give them drugs they in themselves might have a preconception or an or an anticipation that drugs is going to solve it and then they're less like likely to dig deeper and and be like satisfied with a level one fix rather than a level 10 fix as it were so.
It's hard I think all of us are driven with the wrong kind of Matrix which then makes it harder to actually have transformative deep um change and I think that's at a global big scale if you're going through school or whatever you have or similar to like if you're first born you're going through the Journey with those doctors and nurses and program of the local um Hospital Midwife or whatever that can track your journey similar to school to.
Some degree because if you're in primary school or secondary school or if it's merge there can be a track record but I think once you're past University unless you stick out one job or have one relationship or whatever actually you're constantly pressing reset when actually you need just someone there constantly because then you can tell if you're up or down um and sort of I guess monitor that either through relationship or maybe from a workplace if your mates.
Work colleagues notice that you're down all the time or whatever um but I think that's tough because I think it's easier to chop and change hobbies and jobs and stuff so there's less of that consistency um but yeah it's useful for my globalization because you might find hobbies and click with the people that you find better but then there's this constant look for more things or different people or better streams or better entertainment because you're not locked down to well.
We don't own a car and I live in a village and I can't walk far so I have to get to know these people and learn about them and work around it I think it is really interesting but yeah my random intrusive thought whilst you were talking is Imagine cutting out this Prime bottle and having it as like a speaker that's what um probably yes I should do yeah there are those like big boxes I I've seen a podcast with like a big box.
The phone box that you put on the bottom exactly intrusive thought number two I've noticed that you can just pull off the plastic this is a live demonstration of how my brain works so if you're not if you're not watching us online then jump over to YouTube right now because time is innovating responsible yeah and as long as you don't rub it on the speaker because as long as I don't touch it yeah yeah or if I do it down there let's say.
Yeah this is where we have to have our buy now we'll get sued now yeah promotion so you know I said that my battery was going to let survive because it was on 38 it's now come up with red battery so maybe this is a good time to end but just a final thought I'll do final thought and then you do a final thought one is um the importance of dealing with trauma now um because a childhood trauma whatever.
Whatever type of trauma that is um because if you become a parent typically what happens is a parent will pass the trauma their trauma down to their child unknowingly so not intentional at all but it's important as an individual to deal with trauma and kind of um work it out so then you don't pass it on to you know kids if you were going to have kids [Music] final thought that's a good thought I will just add an analogy it is like.
Having a rugby ball passing it on to someone else but sometimes by passing it a quick ball they might get hit so if they're picking up all your trauma and they've had their own trauma then they might be the ones that get the hard hit of the next um player that then goes into depression or something like rather than you take ownership deal with your stuff obviously as a parent try and help your kid the best you can but don't offload.
It um in an unhealthy way great shout and on that note keep on hammering those nails and self-reflecting and working on that trauma bye for now [Music].