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okay knee welcome to the show thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today here at true hopecast how are

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you what is going well for you great thanks for having me uh I am in

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Southern California it's nice and sunny outside uh today was a good day

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excellent glad to hear that but why don't you just as an introduction tell us tell us who you are and what it is

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that you do no problem my name is Dr nideng I am a

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family physician I've been practicing for over 10 years I'm a lot older than I look

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um I am married I have two sweet little girls um they're actually the reason why I wrote These book series for their

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generation amazing yeah we're certainly going to get into the book series it looks very

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interesting The Adventures of uh Max and friends will certainly get into that and

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yeah it's wonderful what kids what kids can give you as gifts creativity and all

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of that quite quite remarkable so why don't you tell us a little bit about your personal Journey your experience

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with mental health as a physician no problem yeah so

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um as you know um all of us go through medical school to become a doctor so during medical

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school you know you have um criterias that we memorize definitions that may memorize uh you

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know to meet certain criteria for certain diagnosis you know even in mental health we have certain criterias

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called the DMS support that we follow um but it's not until

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we finished Middle School where we go to residency and that's when we actually get like more personal firsthand

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experience with patients and kind of see the true colors of mental health then

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you know you realize that it's it's not just those definitions and those criterias uh it's much more deeper than

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that that's when um I think being in practice for a while is when you the

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more you practice the more you realize you know that understand the the conditions more and kind of relate more

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to the patients and pick up all the nuances that you didn't pick up you know when you're just in med school and just

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trying to memorize certain definitions and criterias where you know for any of the medical conditions

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overall but especially in mental health where it's a it's kind of a tricky topic that you

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kind of have to experience to really pick it apart yeah well mental health is quite

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specialized right so I wanted to like during your you know general education

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during medical school which is obviously very very vast very extensive but it's

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also very Broad in regards to different topics right so yes what within your

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what was the mental health training like what was the mental health like um

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pathophysiology like what did they really discuss in regards to the actual like you know fundamental training I

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suppose so uh let me see I'm trying to remember what

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the what we learned so uh we did have like a block where it was kind of

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concentrated on Mental Health um but since it's it's kind of a catch-all like you know all these

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conditions and all these uh things you might run into it wasn't a very like in-depth

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um into each you can't really jump super in depth into each um Condition it's more

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just a general overview these are the criterias these sort of things to look out for uh

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so then you know take that times 100. yeah and then uh that was our uh our

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education so like I said it's it's not until you really practice when you see the patients when um you have a

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better understanding of uh the path of his behind the conditions and you know

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things to look out for can you give us an example in regards to

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so yeah as you say you when you're studying medical school and you are going over let's just say a hundred

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different psychological disorders obviously some are more common than not so you learn that stuff from a lecturer

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from a professor and you obviously have to you know learn that information and it's you know very much um student

4:33

lecturer book you know it's all it's all very much like you learning it through books and through the experience and the

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um written definitions I suppose and written um criteria and kind of the pathways that

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you would go during the process of diagnosing compare compare that to

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actually you know being a being a doctor being you know being qualified and then you know you're practicing you're you're

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taking patience in and you're seeing them day to day how wildly different was

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you know experiencing someone with depression opposed to just like learning about it in a textbook

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yeah so that's why that that takes a lot of learning sometimes you know so in textbook

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um or even on tests you know you they give you all these whole scenario they give you all these diagnosis

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um and then you know based on your you know what you can recall what you can recall and memorize like okay that

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probably qualify for this certain criteria would be okay let's say depression like okay

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that guy has all the pretty much all the criteria you know uh what does he have he has depression right but you know in

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uh in normal practice no one goes in and gives you all those symptoms

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right they go they go for most people um let's say depression for example you

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know I realize that most people they don't come in telling you that the price that they they haven't had the pleasure

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of doing things they don't you know they don't give you all those criterias so they most likely they'll come in uh from

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my experience saying you know that's just been feeling tired lately no energy um just don't you know don't feel like

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they want to do very much lately so it's very very vague symptoms correct that give me like a whole slew of things so

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then you know so that's what takes practice when you kind of dive in and ask them further

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questions and keep trying to tweeze it apart trying to realize like okay I think I know what's going on here now so

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that's what the the difficulty with mental health is that if you don't have it on your radar you won't catch it

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certainly and have you seen in the last couple of years especially with you know with covid have you experienced

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um a rise in certain conditions or a rising psychological conditions coming

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in to see you over the last kind of couple of years what have you what have you seen as a um

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unwanted response to you know the last couple of years you know like um

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obviously with the pandemic we have more people who are laid off they're more

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anxious about the pandemic they're more depressed you know with certain situations you can't see their family

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members so there definitely been a high rise in depression anxiety overall not

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just in my practice but not any other Doctor's practice um but I also realize there's also a

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rise in these um symptoms in kids as well because they're not going to school

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they're doing homeschooling um you know one you know when um one case that struck

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out to me that I can remember was uh I think it was a 11 year old girl she came

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in with her dad um her dad was saying that she's really having struggling with the homeschooling

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she used to do really well in school and now she's just kind of fallen behind and having trouble

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concentrating you know and you know getting deeper into it you know she finally

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you know opened up and said you know what I'm really struggling I just I miss my friends I don't want to keep

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going like this and she was admitted to having thoughts of hurting herself as

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well so that that really um stuck with me

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and that's one of the reasons why I kind of pushed me forward to you know write the series to kind of help educate

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children because I mean I'm glad it brought me in and brought her in to see me but I was

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seeing that case really stuck with me and that made me really realize you know how much

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like lack of uh understanding the public general public asks for mental health

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and the importance of mental health I've I've just got a question for you in

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regards to you know you have some someone who comes in you diagnose them and then you know there's like a

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criteria or a model of care that you would you would you would go by how far off that are you allowed to go

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like we know how important exercise is for mental health and how important vitamin D is we're important other

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supplements and eating right and you know hydrating and like all these kind of other aspects these things you can I

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mean obviously you're quite also limited on time in regards to seeing somebody one-on-one you know you've got loads of

9:24

patients waiting to come in so you're kind of limited with how what you can discuss you know so how far often do you

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even get the option or the time to be able to discuss how you know like what someone's like

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stress levels are at home or at work or like do they get the have the ability to

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be outside for you know periods of the day or to move their bodies or to eat right do you do you even get time to

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have those conversations so yes and no you know the you know when

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initially they come in you know we kind of sit down and like get more information for them trying to figure

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out what is going on to begin with right so you know once we get that down you

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know I kind of explain to them this is I think what's going on this is um the general treatment that we

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generally provide um so generally what most of us do is we say okay you know I want to put you on

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this medication or have you go see a therapist or you know whichever combination of such uh but we would like

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to see you back in a month so we can follow up on this and then we can discuss in more detail with uh other

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alternative things you can try what's working what's not working so you know the like I said you know being that busy

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the first initial this is very hard to kind of like lay everything all the cards out right

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we're just trying to figure out what the heck is going on first I mean once we get that nailed down then the following

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visit we you know we have a little more time to go over you know different Alternatives and things that we can

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implement or try the the the hardest part is the buy-in

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right if they they're like what are you talking about I don't have the question you know that that's the hardest part is

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the the buy-in what's the acceptance yeah yeah once you have to buy and they're like okay I I think I I agree I

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think you know I'm willing to go along with this treatment plan then it's much

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smoother the following visits but if you don't you can't get them to understand

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or believe you or Buy in then it it's like talking to the wall

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yeah I understood yeah that's that's super tricky what have you seen in

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regards to the way when you're giving advice to people um and you're giving recommendations and

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you're even you know prescribing Pharmaceuticals what do you see that like works well for people when they you

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know they come back and see you or you know what do you find that really like

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works and no supports for people and in general I think what really

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um gets people to buy in or uh go along with it would be to reassure them that

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actually the treatment isn't permanent so I a lot of people coming in they're

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like oh my God I'm going to be on antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication the rest of my life I don't want to do that

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so I think so like I said when I first started I didn't realize that was their biggest

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concern right but you know as you get more experience you realize that's the big concern for like 90 of people

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so you kind of have to throw it out there explain to them like look this is not permanent this is you know to help

12:40

we kind of retrain your brain synapses you know and so you'll get all their uh

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receptors in line kind of resetting your brain almost and

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then once that happens we can taper you off and get you off and hopefully you'll be back to back to normal

12:58

so yeah interesting that's that's the biggest

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um a pushback that I didn't realize that was inherent in these things until I

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practiced more and realized that was their biggest concern that but they a lot of people they don't bring up but

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some do a lot of people if they're resistant they don't they don't bring up why

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yeah specifically with mental health do you do you experience patience come in

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and they are looking for a quick fix like they want that pill or that drug or

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that pharmaceutical that's going to you know fix them do you do you experience

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that type of attitude or do you experience people who come in and you say they don't want to take this drug

13:45

for the rest of their life so that might help them like revalue and rethink about the other things that they can do to

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support themselves yeah do you do you see that particular type of attitude like I know in my experience with a lot

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of people who you know we we kind of like want to fix our issues like really quickly you know like I'm I'm a

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nutritionist and some of my clients know they're expecting this like one diet

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plan that I give them to like fix everything in two weeks you know and they're going against 20 years of

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psychologically wired and fire patterns and it's just not going to work like that is that we do you experience that

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so I think it's like a mixed bag for me like some people yes they definitely go in they're like okay whatever I have I

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just give me something fix it I don't I want to move on uh other people are like you know let's maybe try something else

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try to kind of correct this you know some other natural way so it's kind of a

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half and half for me and do you have what type of advice do

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you have for people who are who are dealing with who are struggling with their mental health I'd say most people are becoming a lot more aware that

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mental health is a you know is a thing it's actually there everyone's kind of like everyone has it everyone's dealing

14:57

with it in their own different ways and the degree in which people suffer obviously is very very vast and

15:02

different so do you have any like advice like to me to the audience like right

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now like a few things that I can do that I can Implement into my day that's going

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to you know support me support my psychological health yeah so the biggest thing about mental

15:19

health is that um you know there's a new Trend that actually I find very effective called

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mindfulness meditation I'm not sure if you've heard of it uh but it's originally from the Buddhist uh

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religion where mindfulness uh meditation basically it's not a meditation where

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you know you zone out you go into this like trans type State it's basic

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mindfulness is um where you're just concentrating on the moment and you kind of so most of the

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mindfulness meditation I do is um the breathing techniques and you kind of visualize what's going on with your body

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feel your own body just be in that moment instead of worrying about the future

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causes anxiety you're more about the past causes depression you know you're just in that moment so the mindfulness

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meditation actually helps you stay focused by being in the moment so I think that's the biggest you know thing

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you can start doing for just your own mental being if just doing 10 minutes of

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a mindfulness meditation in the morning before you start your day or uh if at

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night you suffer from insomnia do some mindfulness meditation for bedtime for me I get through like half of it and I'm

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knocked out at night so that's my sleeping pill how and why does that work I mean I'm

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personally I'm very familiar with that type of meditative technique and I believe that you kind of you you want to

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if you're doing it for the first time or you're bringing that into your lifestyle you're using it as a way to become more

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conscious in your kind of everyday experience so so a lot of people who have severe anxiety or severe depression

16:59

are constantly in a state of of not being in the moment but the more we can

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bring ourselves to be present and be in the day then you know but how how and

17:10

why does that work so well I feel like for people that are

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suffering from anxiety their their brain can't shut down like they're constantly like even people

17:21

that tell me they suffer from insomnia a lot of times it's from because they have a lot of anxiety they're thinking about

17:26

what's going to happen tomorrow what's going to happen the next day you know what I have to do at work so their brain

17:32

is constantly on the go go go so it's more like their brain is in the the

17:39

fight mode so then I you know able to shut their brain down

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so the mindfulness meditation what it does is kind of just those like thoughts they just once you get good at

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mindfulness meditation anyways then you will concentrate on the moment and kind of those worries and the concerns in the

17:58

next day you kind of push out so you're able to just concentrate on the moment and let your body actually relax

18:05

and that's how you kind of re rewire your brain to just be in the moment and not worry so much

18:12

about the future that you're not even you know enjoying the moment let's say like you're with your kids you're and

18:18

I've been you know enjoying your time with your kids because you're worrying about oh what's my boss going to do to me tomorrow what did I do at work you're

18:24

not able to just enjoy that moment that you're spending with your family are you able to explain a little bit

18:31

around like the biochemistry of what happens when you know as you say somebody who might be constantly having

18:37

anxious thoughts somebody who might be having con constant depressive thoughts how because you just touched on that on

18:43

like the fight-or-flight nervous system and how that engages a very very different set of hormones and

18:50

neurotransmitters rather than you know if you are in a conscious meditative state for example or like

18:56

let's just say calm or relaxed or like a homeostatic State your body your nervous

19:02

system is engaging in a completely different pathway of hormones and neurotransmitters are you able to maybe touch on that a little bit in regards to

19:08

how that helps somebody shift from a you know an anxious state to you know a not

19:15

anxious state General for anxiety your what it does is it

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raises your cortisol level which is your stress hormone level and that will activate your uh your sympathetic system

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will make you in hyperdrive but you know as you calm down you can reduce your

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cortisone level and then you know if your body are able to shut down more and go into a more parasympathetic system

19:43

where which is the the relaxed mode perfect yeah that looks great that was

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awesome I I just find it so fascinating that um anxious thoughts or depressive

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thoughts that we have that we don't really consider to be like Mata or

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something that we can you know physically see if we opened up our brain but they do they can very much cause you

20:07

know physical problems and disease and pathology right and there's some more

20:13

common ones that's taking let's take anxiety for example you know if you are anxious and you are in this stressed out

20:19

nervous system for so long and you're pumping all this cortisol and all these other hormones and neurotransmitters in

20:26

your body how does that lead to you know a physical problem that you know we would then go from you know diagnosing

20:35

anxiety to something like more significant that's actually affecting like an organ or it's created something

20:40

else yeah that's actually a good question so I think I read one study where you know a prolonged cortisol

20:46

level in your body you can actually starts causing stress on your your heart leading to a higher risk of uh cardiac

20:54

disease and Mis or which is heart attacks so it's not something just isolated to your brain it can just

21:02

transfer down to the rest of your body as well yeah that's remarkable that how that

21:08

happens and I think for a lot of people they might not um correlate a you know physical disease with like

21:16

maybe the anxiety or depression or stress that they've experienced for like 10 years because obviously some people

21:21

go through light their whole life feeling you know some sort of level of anxiety and not necessarily

21:28

understanding that um that down the line for a long period of time the body can't sustain it and

21:34

there will be problems and errors along the way that the you know the body needs to be in a balance between you know

21:40

being in a sympathetic pathway through a parasympathetic pathway where we're you know we're healing and we've got this

21:45

you know rest and digest and our digestive system is working properly and we're able to heal effectively and sleep

21:51

well over the long over a long period of time that will eventually you know lead to problems down the road and I don't

21:58

know if many people are able to correlate those things because usually the timeline between those things is quite different and we get super

22:05

comfortable with being an anxious person or a stressed person or a depressed person ends up being just part of our

22:10

day-to-day part of our personality and we end up it's quite remarkable what we end up actually living with whether

22:16

that's anxious thoughts or actual physical pain it's quite remarkable how we deal with so much of these things

22:22

yeah no it doesn't actually that's that's that's how important like um I

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think the biggest thing I can message I can relay is that I wish that

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we wouldn't think of mental health as being separate from your physical health

22:39

like um you know people think like oh depression and anxiety just mental conditions and they think like let's say

22:46

like diabetes and hypertension you know that's the two those are different things you know I wish that they could

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just start kind of combining those conditions and say you know they're all a medical

22:57

condition whether it's mental or physical it's all one unit

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you know they wish they can just like yeah I have depression just like I have diabetes or I have hypertension I wish

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they can all just think of all those conditions as you know just medical conditions not just separate them into

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physical medical conditions or mental physical conditions I wish they would just

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kind of like you know what these are all medical conditions and they're all deep treatment

23:25

and there's nothing like to be ashamed about having any disc conditions consuming they are all medical

23:31

conditions like just like having cancer I mean it's it's it's all conditions nothing

23:37

nothing to be like ashamed about or to not bring up or not discuss

23:43

no I yeah and I I find um so much motivation and and power comes from a

23:50

lot of people who take let's just say cancer diagnosis for example and then they use that as their big big moment in

23:57

their life their big Awakening you know it can take something like that a tragedy a trauma or a death in the

24:03

family for people to really reflect on what's going on for themselves and it can be a really remarkable motivator to

24:10

make really significant change that people have probably been putting off for a long period of time so but I can

24:17

obviously understand the people who do get that type of diagnosis or something else and you know it can you know slip

24:22

them down like a terrible path of you know further stress further depression and we know that that's only going to

24:30

fuel the degeneration of the body I suppose if you can continue to flood the body with

24:37

that type of inflammatory State um it's very very interesting I have a question in regards to what's the

24:43

conventional medical thought at the moment on like the idea of like chemical

24:49

imbalance with like depression so the the general thought is that um

24:56

that's what when we go to the medication so the medications you know we have ssris and snris so basically all these

25:03

medications are trying to raise their serotonin level in the synapses in your brain

25:09

so what it does uh one prevents from the uh serotonal from being you know uptake

25:15

and destroyed otherwise trying to just stimulate more uh receptors to a

25:20

taking the serotonin receptors so we think that there's some in Balance you

25:26

know or deficiency should I say in the serotonin level in the synapses

25:33

so um those the most medications are aimed at increasing those serotonin

25:38

levels so the serotonin levels actually are receptors are not just in your brain you

25:45

know you have a lot of Serotonin receptors in your digestive system or your gut so that's why a lot of people when they do take medication explain to

25:52

them that you know you do have a lot of receptors in your digestive tract too so when you're increasing the serotonin

25:58

level your body it's it's not just localized your brain it's your whole whole body so

26:04

that's why when you first start these medications a lot of people will have like gas bloating you know until Donald

26:11

discomfort Loom stools so those are just the your GI system responding to the

26:17

increased serotonin level so you know I always explain that to people when all my patients when they first take the

26:23

medication because that's what um it's supposed to do great that's a good explanation thank

26:29

you very much and I I had I had a trap on the show I recorded an episode yesterday in regards to the so this guy

26:37

he he supports and he's attempting to um assist the mental health

26:43

um care in developing countries he's trying to do that from North America which is just amazing but I just want I

26:51

wondered what type of like continuing support and education do you receive as

26:57

a physician in California from like your governing bodies around mental health and the you know the the development of

27:05

the understanding of you know what actually is going to end up supporting our mental health whether that is

27:11

supplementation being outside Community different types of therapy mindfulness

27:17

mindfulness meditation that you're talking about do you is this something that you have to

27:22

um research and try out yourself or are you do you get continued support from

27:28

your governing a body you know to further assist you yeah so you need to renew our license we

27:35

do have to um you know have something called CME which is a continued medical education so certain hours but you know

27:42

you can spend those hours as such you don't have to be on mental health or it can be in any topic so they don't you

27:48

know directly uh hold our hand in terms of uh leaving us

27:55

you know in any type of Direction so I think that's kind of tired up to you and your practice so you know if you in your

28:01

practice you know you say you have a lot of mental health then you know you would you're obviously

28:07

going to spend more time doing those uh medical education on those topics whereas you know if you're in a

28:13

population where you're caring for you know certain conditions like diabetics or such then obviously you would spend

28:20

most of your time kind of learning it increasing your knowledge on those topics so it just

28:26

depends on what kind of uh demographics you see yeah it depends on

28:31

the the patients you come in and obviously you would have a you know a personal uh investment in that as well

28:37

regardless of where you want to go because obviously that interest would be very very valuable for that learning experience as well that's really cool

28:44

let's let's talk about your book series you know like introduce what introduce the books introduce the idea why did you

28:51

write it and you know who's it for because I think it's very interesting so please thank you so my book is uh

28:58

it's a book A book series the title is called The Adventures of Max and friends and it's a series of eight books where

29:06

uh you follow the main character his name is Max uh as he starts the first

29:12

day of sixth grade through the summer so as he goes to the year he uh him as

29:20

well as his friends that he makes along the way are going all experiencing different struggles of their own

29:26

different mental health struggles uh for book one for example you know he

29:32

said dealing with the bully for several years and then he ends up staying up to his bully and I want to give away the

29:39

book but um basically it doesn't end well for him

29:44

um you know so usually for the books at the end of the book I have a notes from the author kind of explaining each

29:50

condition and you know more deep like medical condition in medical terms and kind of explain what's

29:56

going on yeah for example the first one is about bullying you know I already give it away uh you know a lot of times

30:02

bullying people don't really um make much of it where uh

30:07

but you know there's a lot of when I was doing research for the for that section you know

30:13

students that are chronically bullied you know they have more chance they're more likely to develop depression have

30:20

like uh poor social skills and then and a more uh prone to uh

30:27

illicit drug use so it just basically those um those

30:33

like uh misconceptions that bullying has not a big deal he'll grow out of it make him tough it actually you know it can

30:41

cause really serious damage mentally in the long run and that little kid will

30:46

grow up to be uh you know an adult that will have these conditions with

30:53

him or her yes I mean that's it's a very Hot Topic

30:59

in regards to Youth and mental health I mean it's uh it's it's developing all the time I

31:04

couldn't imagine being a 10 year old in 2022 you know it's a serious business

31:10

and yeah it's like incredibly overwhelming very very stimulating environment to be and I I would expect

31:17

it to be how what do you find powerful about about storytelling and you know and and

31:22

explaining um I mean is this book for parents or is it for the actual kids

31:28

so you know when I first wrote this book um I was originally my thought was to

31:34

have the parents read it to the their kids but it turned out longer than that so I think my new target audience would

31:41

probably be like fifth graders to seventh seventh eighth graders where you know they're you know they're pretty

31:47

proficient in reading and they're emotionally like mature enough to understand these more serious topics

31:55

um and kind of take it in I find that storytelling it's you know just like much more powerful than like

32:02

anyone giving a lecture just like going back to the whole Medical School issue where you know we're just learning

32:08

memorizing you know these sort of the definitions criteria is just there memorize it done right and then after

32:14

the test most of us probably forget about it a couple months later so but whereas storytelling it goes back

32:20

to ancient days right where you know your ancestors tell a story that's how they you know keep their culture they

32:27

teach lessons through storytelling so storytelling is much more powerful than like anybody can give any lecture where

32:37

because the storytelling you can relate to the character where I think if you have like emotional relation then that's

32:44

much more likely to be impactful and for you to actually remember as opposed to

32:49

someone just like okay I might write these things I'm gonna give you a test a couple weeks later yeah yeah yeah it's um it's interesting

32:56

yeah I mean storytelling as you say it's ancient it's wonderful and it's you know getting around the campfire and sharing stories

33:03

um that are especially filled with emotion because you know regardless of the story regardless of the Storyteller I think most emotional states most

33:11

people can relate to and we can get into that story um based on that energy based on those

33:18

emotions which is you know fascinating in of itself it's the the books designed

33:24

to motivate to educate to Open the Eyes to all kind of individuals involved when

33:31

it comes to when it comes to that type of a thing when it comes to to the to kids and school and mental health and

33:37

bullying Etc yeah so um the story actually each story is in a

33:43

different character's perspective so you get to kind of follow go into jump into their brain and see what

33:50

they're thinking what they're feeling uh going through a certain you know turn

33:55

tough times you know each room had each of the characters has their own struggles so the purpose of me writing

34:02

that is I just wanna clear up any ideas that kids thinks like

34:09

with the social media like oh their life is perfect their life is perfect my life sucks my life is terrible how come I

34:16

can't have life like that I just want to clear that that's not true every everyone no matter how perfect their

34:24

life they seem has their own struggles obviously some people's struggles are tougher than others not saying everyone

34:30

struggles the same but just know that you know everyone has their own struggles has their own deep and still

34:36

fight so that's why I wrote it in each character's perspective as they're going through their own

34:42

challenges so I mean I took some creative Liberties in writing the stories but the emotions

34:48

they're feeling the thoughts they're thinking they're all 100 real these are like the um the emotions the feelings

34:54

and the thoughts that my patients and as well as like myself have experience I'm just putting that on paper

35:01

so then it's more so when you um you know I want kids read it and if

35:07

they're going through a certain thing and see like hey that character is actually feeling the way that character

35:12

is feeling um I'm thinking that what that character is thinking so

35:17

okay that's maybe it's not just me yet I'm not by myself I'm not like the weird

35:23

kid you know a lot of times when you're having these struggles in your mind you think it's just you and you're

35:28

embarrassed to tell your friends and you want your friends to think like oh you're a weirdo

35:33

but in reality that's actually very common I mean that's so the purpose of the book is to kind of show them you

35:40

know different emotions that they can exhibit in certain situations and that's okay that's that's normal that's no

35:47

that's completely in the realm of of normal so they don't feel like they're by themselves they don't feel they're

35:53

weird they're or they're too scared to get help because they don't realize that that's you know you're you're having a

36:00

medical condition you're having something it's okay to tell your parents to get help and kind of

36:06

go from there as opposed to it's just like trying to suppress all those feelings and trying to like just like

36:12

okay I'm not gonna talk about my I feel like a lot of kids being like okay I'm not gonna tell anybody about this just

36:17

like buried down and hopefully it goes away right yeah

36:23

yeah yeah it's great that I mean I think books are so unbelievably powerful and the more the more we have phones and

36:30

social media and screens of Technology the more I think a lot of parents and kids kind of stay away from books but I

36:36

think we always creep back to them we always creep back to the storytelling we always creep back to the the adventure

36:42

and the creativity and the mysticism that comes with like you know reading a tale reading a story and I think I think

36:48

the way back to supporting a lot of kids who are kind of drowned in

36:54

this no a lot of it just you know fake nonsense online and what will help

37:00

um individuals kind of like heal and bring bring themselves back to themselves and learn how they can or why they're

37:07

feeling certain ways and how they can get back and I love the fact that you're taking um taking the books and writing it in

37:14

the perspectives of different people rather than just like one individual in like a singular in a singular way I

37:21

think it's very important that children and adults empathize with other people in different

37:26

situations and recognize that they're going through stuff just like me they're going to have different perspective

37:33

different thoughts feelings and behaviors and being able to to um you know really be empathetic to

37:40

those individuals and other people is only going to assist you in you know healing yourself rather than thinking

37:46

you know I'm not good enough I can't be friends with that person you know I I I I I once you start recognizing other

37:53

people who've got issues as well it starts to build community build um understanding around the fact that

38:00

everyone's kind of everyone has their own certain struggles and that you know kind of makes it a

38:05

little bit more okay to deal with yours rather than thinking you're this wild isolated Outsider

38:12

um what advice do you have for parents when actually talking to their kids about mental health do you have any

38:20

advice in regards to how they would do that or what you know what type of

38:25

materials would they use like if you have any resources to be able to um to recommend to us

38:31

yeah so I mean that's kind of uh one of the reasons why I wrote this book so it's easier or more organic for parents

38:39

to talk to their kids about mental health is it because they're talking about the book so the characters they're

38:45

like you know not personal person instead of like asking your kid are you

38:50

having these certain symptoms you can just talk about the characters instead so it's a little more organic for them

38:55

to bring up certain topics and um and for the kids to kind of respond to so I don't feel like they're being

39:01

attacked by their parents are like why are you asking me all these questions like what's the deal but if you're just

39:07

talking about the character you know they're more likely say oh yeah I unders you know this character is going through this I I understand uh why he's going

39:14

through it and you know maybe my friend has something similar symbol during or maybe I had something similar so it's

39:20

more organic conversation as opposed to kind of an awkward like hey let's talk about you know depression or talk about

39:27

anxiety or you know talk about this and that that it seems very it's like a tough topic you know even me

39:34

being a doctor trying to see how I would even approach it to my own kids that's not awkward

39:40

so I think by you know using that book as a stepping stone saying you know have you read that that book or that story

39:47

what did you think you know what do you think about that character what he went through it's more like a easier stepping

39:55

stone for them to like okay now that we open up those doors let's let's dive

40:00

into this more yeah I genuinely think that stories and books things that kids can pick up and

40:08

read themselves and reflect and go through the Journey of the you know the

40:13

the um the protagonist in in the books I genuinely think that is are you going

40:18

to be a quite remarkable um tool for kids to understand

40:24

what mental health is what a lot of people experience or what a lot of things are normal as well especially

40:30

during a very complicated time between like 10 10 and 20 is like you know so much happens you grow so much physically

40:37

as well as like emotionally and psychologically I really think that um books and literature and stories and

40:45

that's going to really be a really incredible tool for parents as well as kids

40:51

um doing those tricky times yeah I mean like my biggest takeaway message from

40:57

parents would be that it's okay to say you don't know I think when kids open up to you about certain

41:03

things they just want to feel validated and want to feel heard as long as you're

41:09

you know you validate their feelings and you make sure that they felt heard I think

41:15

that's the most important thing let's say you know they're opening up to you you can say you know I'm really I hear what you're saying you know that

41:22

must be really tough for you going through you know or say Mommy or Daddy doesn't know all the answers but we're

41:28

gonna we will find all the answers for you we will you know get go see the doctor we'll get through this together

41:34

so I think that's the most important thing as China instead of China have all the answers or pretend like you

41:41

know everything I think that's more harmful than saying you know I

41:46

understand and I don't have all the answers but you will go find you some

41:51

answers yeah I think just the idea of of

41:56

dealing with that situation with compassion love and reassurance just goes an incredibly long way you know you

42:03

know everyone not just children this is what they want to be heard they want to be um understood and I don't think we all

42:10

want quick we don't we don't just want to be fixed you know we don't want just like somebody to just come at us with

42:16

the boom with the answers we want to be we want space to be held we want it it's a process it's you know it's something

42:23

that's very individual but you know having the support of your parents or you know close family members and

42:28

Friends it will will turn that process into something positive something that was you know incredibly

42:35

um worthwhile to learn and to develop as a as a child and as a and as a and as an adult

42:40

exactly yeah so I think uh like I said you don't have to have all the answers

42:46

you just have to be there and that's all all the kids can ask for yeah showing up is

42:52

there's 95 of it I suppose yeah that's awesome well how can people pick

42:58

up the book how can people learn more about it where should they go to to do that yeah so too

43:05

find out more in the book I do have a website uh The Adventures of maxandfriends.org or just Google The

43:12

Adventures of Max and friends and my website shouldn't show up um it has the release date of each book

43:18

on there and then you can buy the book through the clicking on the on the website as well and then at the end you

43:25

know there's the contact me where you can send me email information any questions you might have about the book

43:31

or or just some Diet questions you want to have on mental health and I'll get my do my best to answer all those questions

43:38

wonderful well that's great I'll make sure that that website is linked in the show notes so people can just click and

43:44

get there right away um but thank you so much for joining me today I I've been re-inspired to I mean

43:52

I love books anyway and I also love storytelling to my kids I usually make my stories up I find that to be quite

43:58

fun I ask my son like what he wants to wants in his story okay and then I'll just kind of like throw something

44:04

together it's kind of fun and different every night it usually involves a car wash unicorn and someone random but

44:13

you know it's kind of fun to throw that together but I think storytelling I think books is is a remarkable tool for

44:20

Learning and healing and I'm very glad that um you are out there and you are

44:25

writing these books and you are you know teaching and really supporting a lot of

44:31

a lot of people thank you thank you for having me it was a pleasure having to be on the show awesome well thank you very much again

44:37

awesome well thanks for listening everybody I'm gonna put the um the website so you can pick up the

44:44

adventures of Max and friends and learn more about it and if you've got any questions you can send you can send them to me on his contact on his um can

44:51

connect with him section on his website um don't forget to subscribe if you

44:56

haven't yet if you're on iTunes please leave us a review pretty sure you can do that on Spotify now just hit the five star button that's good stuff

45:03

um but that's it thank you so much for listening to True Hope cast the official podcast of true hope Canada we'll see

45:08

you next week foreign [Music]