Is Your Productivity a Symptom of High Functioning Depression? | Dr. Judith Joseph

31:18And it's like, oh, anger issues. Well, why do you think you're angry? You know, what's that about? Oh, because I yell and I'll slam doors. So they're calling it anger, anger, anger. Now, the behavior looks and appears angry. But then when we actually start to take a deep dive, what we end up finding out is that they're very, very anxious. And they worry all the time. Many times they worry about being able to provide, worry about work. But because they were raised in a household where men don't worry, men don't cry, boys don't show emotions, boys hit and slam things. they've been calling this emotion that's actually anxiety anger, and they've been mislabeling it.

32:00So anger management doesn't work for anxiety, you know? And so naming the anxiety is almost like turning a light on, a light switch on. And I liken validation and naming and acknowledging emotions to turning on a light switch, because imagine if you're in a dark room, you can't see anything, it's pitch black, and you hear a loud crash. Some would start screaming, some would start swinging, some would start running. But if you turn the light on and you're like, oh, it's a bookshelf that fell, I'm safe, then you know what you're dealing with. The uncertainty goes down. That's what it is like when you're naming an emotion accurately.

32:43Oh, I'm anxious, I'm not angry. Well, what am I anxious about? oh, I'm worried about not being a provider. I'm worried about this job. You know, I'm worried about losing this job. These moments are so important in the healing journey because when you're aware of what's actually happening, then you can pick the right tools to address it. So validation is really important. I've watched the science of adaptogens grow personally over the last few years, and I've become more curious in their role in nervous system support, focus, and resilience because adaptogens basically buffer the cortisol that gives us that stress and anxiety.

33:20But here's the thing, quality is everything. Most adaptogens on the market don't actually contain enough of the active compounds that you see in clinical studies to make a difference. That's why I've partnered with London Nootropics. These guys only use clinical studied standardized extracts. This is really, really important to get the benefits that you're seeing in clinical research. And they work with Hifas d 'Aterra, Europe's leading mushroom bioscience company. They have high bioavailability, they use incredible ingredients like KSM66 ashwagandha and Radole Life. And these are the active ingredients that you need to see the difference.

33:54They have lots of different blends. Flow gets me into deep focus with Lion's Mane. Zen helps support my calm and steady my clarity with ashwagandha. And Mojo gives a clean lift, no crash. And Mush Love, made with fantastic fungi with three Hifas d 'Aterra mushrooms to elevate your day. Enjoy 20 % off and use code LIVEWELLBEWELL. They come in these fantastic little sachets and they're great for traveling too. I think validation of yourself and also other people validating you is also really important. Because I, you know, I think a lot of people, especially now women, are getting diagnosed with different ADHD or dyslexia.

34:34dyslexia or a lot of women getting diagnosed with autism late in life because you know that conversation wasn't around 20 30 years ago as much and when you think about those and I'm just putting this there as a concept because this is I don't want to say it's trending but it's in you know media consumption a lot people are talking about about this at the moment it's the first thing that came up when I'm thinking about validation because all of those kind of individuals weren't validated when they were younger the validation of okay well maybe you do feel different or maybe this is worrying for you or maybe yeah you are struggling so whatever whatever it is that that person was like not coping with they weren't validated and so it feels like a real connection to kind of what you're talking about as well not just self-validation but I'm also thinking about other people validating one another even if you're in a relationship and you're not feeling validated by your partner as well on how you feel like how does someone navigate that?

35:30Whereas if they're listening to this and they're saying, okay, well, I relate to everything that you're saying in the sense of like, okay, this is a coping mechanism and I push harder and I strive for success and, you know, I get all of the rewards, but I feel empty. How can they not just validate themselves, but allow other people to see that and get validation as well? Well, the external validation is important. And that's why, you know, I talk about the different types of validation in my book because the clinical rating scales that I developed are a numerical way to validate. And I use examples that people will come to my lab or to my practice and they'll say for years, like they didn't get the right diagnosis.

36:14And then they did an assessment. Then I give them, I show them a number and they're like, oh my gosh, like it's not me. You know, there is, this is what I've been dealing with all my life. Look how high my scores are. And then they, sometimes they start breaking down crying because they're like, for the first time, it wasn't my fault. Like this score shows that like, you know, I had ADHD or I had PTSD or I had depression, you know? And so the, the external validation is important, even with things like lab work. If, if someone is coming in and they're like lethargic, a lot of my patients, I'll do like vitamin panels on them.

36:50And if I show them like, oh my gosh, like you're anemic or like, you know, your vitamin D is so low. Like, they're like, that's why I felt this way. Or like I do a thyroid panel and they're like, my thyroid is low this whole time. And I thought it was me being lazy. All of these things are like external forms of validation, right? So you can validate yourself. You can self-validate. You can validate others. You can use science to validate your experience. It's all important because what it does is it takes the shame and blame off of you and shame and blame are driving factors for a lot of these high functioning behaviors because shame and blame makes you feel unworthy of rest of slowing down of taking care of yourself and that's what there's a tight correlation between like this low nutrition like low health because if you're so busy running yourself ragged to prove that you're worthy, you're not taking care of yourself.

37:49You're neglecting yourself. I've recorded over 400 episodes on this show. And Judith, I have to say it's so interesting because I know that everyone that you speak to says something very similar. And I want to also ask you about your moment of validation because I think you're so impressive in what you do. You came here fighting from Trinidad and Tobago, you know, to want to be successful to only let you get in your way no one else and I think it's so impressive and how did you get to that realization because I think also the thing that I find really interesting about what we're talking about is a lot of people that probably suffer with this that are high functioning probably do carry a lot of shame which is why they're constantly on the go right they're constantly wanting to prove and that's something where I connect a lot of what you're saying which is why all my work now, even though I started in nutritional science, has really shifted into self-compassion because I don't believe that just eating well is going to give you the best brain health and the best quality of life.

38:52I think you also have to have less judgment with yourself and treat yourself with care. And so it's been a really interesting journey for me, you know, publicly, professionally, like everything that I do now is centered as that, as the foundation of health. And then you have your building blocks. and so for someone who you know for you who has done so much so impressive like how did you get to that moment of validation like what happened how did you connect to this term high functioning um what happened high functioning depression well during my most high functioning period i was the most impressive i mean like people were like impressive anyway they were like you're like you're killing it and I just remember one day I came home after getting all this praise like oh you're killing you're killing you're crushing it and then I had a moment I was like no I'm not killing it it is killing me it is killing me and it was really you know it was like in the height of like going through a divorce being so successful and I had this moment of like I'm missing out on the joy.

40:02And I have to say having a small daughter, a child helped with that because she is like very different than I am. Like she's like, if she's tired, she's like, mommy, I am tired. We shouldn't do it. And I'm like, you know what? You're right. We shouldn't. She's so much wiser in that way. They're intuitive, right? They just like, this doesn't feel right. Let's not do it. Like we've lost that whole ability as we've grown up, which is just really sad. Yes. And really that listening to the external cues helps, you know, listen to my team. When my team says we're doing too much, now I listen. I'm not like, oh, no, I think we could do more.

40:44I'm like, you're right, we are. So I think, you know, the self-compassion is important because as someone who felt unworthy of rest, that I had to continue collecting or else I'd run out. I had to challenge that inner fear that I would run out one day and say to myself, if I continue down this path, I'm going to miss out on all the joy. I'm going to miss out on my daughter growing up. I'm going to miss out on the team that I built because I really love working with them. For what? For these things that on my last, you know, on my deathbed and my last minutes in life, I'm not going to care about getting another study.

41:22I'm not going to care about getting another award. Like, that's not going to matter to me. So it was really, I think, an existential crisis for me. Like, why am I missing out on joy, chasing an idea of happiness? Because it is an idea. You know, patients will come to me in my private practice and say, I just want to be happy. And I'm like, well, what does happiness mean to you? and they're like, oh, when I finally have the soulmate, when I finally have the job, when I finally have the house or the family. But what we know from the research is that once you get those things that you're delaying happiness for, you're still unhappy.

41:57You're still chasing things. So if you can retrain your brain to actually just access joy in the present and be mindful and intentional about it, I'm not saying be hedonistic, but like when you eat your food, don't eat in front of a screen, like taste it. Savor it. When you're with your loved one, don't be thinking somewhere else or having your mind wandering. Be present with that person. Hold their hand, look into their eyes. Tell them how grateful you are. All of those areas of our lives that we're just so distracted, too busy, and not present in, that's where we're losing our joy. And then we wonder why we're not feeling happy.

42:40We're like leaving our joy on the table. So that was, you know, the moment for me was being the most praised and decorated and successful on the outside, but not feeling joy on the inside. I thought, well, what's the point of this? You know, I have to make a change. And leaning on other people in my life. You know, my point of joy is connection. So what's the point of connecting to people if you're not listening to them? I started to really listen to people. And that's what allowed me to access joy. I love that. I think it's one of those things, isn't it? That we can be, I mean, I imagine how many successful CEOs all have this.

43:18Like, I just feel that we're rewarded to push harder and harder and harder. and that was the moment that I happened when I was 23 and had my complete like breakdown when I was modeling and I everyone was saying how successful I was and I you know was empty and ended up in hospital and so there was this like real parallel of distortion of like wait this is what society praises us for but yet this is I'm feeling completely vacuous right now and I don't know what makes me happy like that question I couldn't I couldn't answer what it was how do we like navigate this? Like, how do you navigate this?

43:55Because it's really interesting to say like, okay, well, we can find what gives us joy, but we also do have a pool to be successful. And we also have a pool to maybe be curious and want to know more information. And maybe that is something that brings you to, is that like, how do you navigate, how do you navigate owning success without it being detrimental and sucking everything out of you? Well, when I went through that period, I started a journey really to understand the science of happiness. Because for most of my career, you know, being like this serious researcher studying severe mental illness, I'm like, well, no one ever taught me or trained me in just how to seek out joy and cultivate pleasure, because that just wasn't a part of the training.

44:44And when I uncovered the science of happiness and I started focusing on it, I wanted to develop a system that not only I could use, but that all of my patients could use. Because I work with children, adolescents, adults, and elders in my practice. So I wanted the system to be basic enough so that a child could understand it, but nuanced enough so that someone who's older would feel as if it applied to them. And so I came up with a methodology called the five V's and I use it every day and I think it works I think it's simple and it's based in science so the first V was the one I already mentioned to you validation acknowledging and accepting how you feel without judgment the second is venting venting is expressing how you feel and you can vent in different ways and usually when I explain venting in my lab I'll have people come into the lab and I'll have this big red balloon and they each take turns to shove this balloon in a tank of water and a hundred percent of the time that balloon pops up.

45:52Why? Because you can't out math physics. And I use this experiment because after everyone takes a turn then we all take turns deflating the balloon and then it's so easy to push that balloon down in that tank and this is really symbolic because if we don't slowly express how we feel our emotions and our you know experiences will pop up in our relationships it'll pop up in our health it'll pop up in ways that we can't control so if you're intentional about venting and you you know let's say pick one person or two people to vent to and it's a reciprocal relationship right so you vent to me i've been to you we do it with intention because we want to actually come up with a resolution we do it with compassion and empathy so you check in and say hey you're asking for emotional consent it's a good time to talk these are all effective ways of verbally venting when it's not your therapist if it's your therapist you know you pay for that person talk to them but they're there these are the key ways to vent you don't want to trauma it up you don't want to just be telling everybody your business right that's not effective the science shows that that's not effective.

47:02When you vent with intention and with empathy, it works. You can also vent non-verbally. A lot of my neurodivergent clients, they prefer just writing or singing or expressing through crying. My faith-based clients, they like to pray. So getting the emotions out is healthy or else it'll pop up in ways that you can't control. And then the third V is values. So how do you tap into things that bring your life meaning and purpose? So think values are things that are priceless, not with the price tags. Many people are chasing the accolades, the money, the fame, but those are things that have price tags.

47:43The priceless things are things that are like your family, causes you believe in, your community, nature. You know, those things that really give you that sense of meaning and deep purpose. So if you can figure out what your values are, then you are tapping into joy that is sustainable. And then the fourth V, I won't belabor this point because we talk a lot about the mind-body connection, but the fourth V is vitals. How do you support your brain and your body? We talk heavily about eating the right nutrients, getting good movement, getting adequate sleep. And also the more modern ways to support your vitals, you know, that healthy relationship with technology and figuring out who your tribe is, like connecting to people who are healthy and not toxic because toxic people will drain you.

48:34They will drain your body of its health. And then the fifth V is vision. How do you plan joy in the future so that you keep moving forward instead of getting stuck in the past? And how do you celebrate your wins? And so that was really important for me. Vision was important because I used to just like have an accolade and on to the next, on to the next. Now we actually celebrate achievements. We celebrate moments such as like, oh, we finished a project in the lab. Let's like take a break. Let's get a coffee. Let's, you know, really honor the fact that we did this thing and not just on to the next.

49:08so celebrating the small wins is really important there's something happened there in neuroscience because it was actually in the last couple of years my past relationship actually said to me he really taught me to celebrate the wins in the moment because I would just go on to the next thing and it didn't matter what time of the day it was whether it was the middle of the night it would be like a moment to stop and actually celebrate it and that's actually changed more for me than I realized it would like stopping even in that moment and just being like right I'm just gonna acknowledge what's happened because it's so easy to think well I've still got 25 things that I need to do and it's funny that when you get that accolade or whatever it is three months later you like forget how big a thing it is and you're already thinking about the next thing and it then becomes a lot smaller like you don't actually feel that that is a success weirdly and I I still struggle to like get my head around that because actually if you think about two years ago maybe write down all the things that you wanted to achieve and if you've achieved them that's a pretty big thing but actually so met so little of us actually stop and acknowledge it and i think that's been the biggest turning for me actually is the acknowledgement yeah it's important because if you don't train yourself to do that then you get numb to the winds you don't enjoy it you become and hedonic to the wins.

50:31And then you're just doing it just to do it, just to not lose. You know, you're just going just to not fail. And that's not a great way to live life. So celebrating the small wins, I love celebrating small wins. Like in between my meetings, I'll go out and there's a little park outside. I'll go out and get a matcha and I'll just like sit in the sunlight and be like, wow, I'm so lucky. I live in New York City. You know, they say if you make it here, you can make it anywhere. And it sounds so cheesy. But, like, I celebrated a little, like, a small win. And, like, I felt good. I got my point of joy and I went back to work, you know.

51:10So those little moments are helpful. Even with the corporate talks I give, I'll give people the homework assignment. And they'll laugh. But I'll say, tomorrow when you return to work, when you have to pee, I want you to get up and go and pee. And people will just start laughing. But they know because they know that they sit through meetings and they don't go to the bathroom and then they wait till they get home and then they explode, right? Get up and use the bathroom. Like, it is really hard to be joyful when your belly's distended, you know, like pain is not great for joy. That's true. And so, like, the little things, having a sip of water, getting up and moving around, those are tiny ways to celebrate your wins.

51:53So it doesn't have to be grand. It doesn't have to be after a big promotion or a big award. It could be, oh, I finished my morning meetings. Let me celebrate by like taking a walk down the hall, going to the bathroom, getting a water break. You know, all those little things send a message to your deeper self that you are a human being, not a human doing. Oh, such a good line. Human being and not human doing. Well, I feel like there's one part in your book actually that I think you said you don't speak about online because the algorithm picks it up as a sex reference but it's when you're talking and I'm probably going to say this right again but about machism is it masochism um masochism that's it that is the hardest word for me to pronounce but basically there it's about self-sabotage and you know not being able to gain pleasurable experiences and so it kind of relates to what you're saying because actually if you can't connect to that pleasurable experience or that moment it's kind of like a self-sabotage can you just talk to me a bit about that because you actually have spoken about in the book you suffering with this I think it was a therapist that mentioned it to you and said this is my first therapist my first therapist said you're a masochist I said well aren't we're not allowed to use that word anymore I thought that was like not allowed and he goes it's not allowed but you You're a masochist.

53:18And so masochism is a word that's been kind of like banned from the DSM because it used to be very victim blaming for women. So a masochistic person from the old definition is someone who incites others to treat them poorly. That's one of the traits. But the other traits in it are, you know, like you don't believe that you're worthy of praise. You don't feel comfortable being praised. You bend over backwards for others. You don't feel as if you should celebrate yourself, all these things. But the problematic component of it was that, oh, others, you incite others to treat you poorly because it's very victim blaming.

53:58So it used to be used to diagnose women who ended up in these domestic violence relationships. When my therapist used a word for me, he said, you're masochistic because you're always late to your therapy appointments. And it's because you don't feel worthy of the therapy. And so that to me hit me like a ton of bricks. And so when you look at the masochism elements in high-functioning depression, we're getting rid of that part about the inciting others to treat you poorly. But we're holding on to the other elements of it. Like the part where they say people don't feel worthy of enjoying life. They bend over backwards for others, but they don't allow others to do for them.

54:40And a lot of the folks that are high functioning will say things like, well, only I can do it right. And, you know, I don't feel comfortable when people help me. But it's usually stemming from like, oh, I don't feel worthy of it. And so I want people to understand that when you develop a life where you're not letting others help you, you're not letting yourself rest, you're not allowing yourself to enjoy things. eventually people will catch wind of that and they'll start you know being comfortable taking from you and not giving and then you end up in these relationships where it's like one-sided where you're doing so much for others and then they're taking advantage of you not because they're bad people just because that's just the way that the dynamic has been set set up you know not just because they're bad people but there are some bad people out there who do take advantage but yeah that's what i meant does that relate to hyper independence i mean you know sometimes you do develop this codependency or this one-sided dependency because you've you've set things up in a way that you are deriving your self-worth from how much you do for others and people fall into that dynamic with you they're like okay you're doing i'll take you know you're giving i'll take.

55:57And you may, and I talk about this in the book, you may end up realizing that you're in many relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, family relationships, where people have just gotten accustomed to you doing, right? You're a human doing, not a human being. So it can be a grieving process when you start to create change and say, nope, I'm going to set limits. I'm going to set boundaries. I'm going to start focusing on myself. You may lose people. And that is the part that's difficult. Not to say that the healing process is all roses. You may start to lose people because some people in your life are not willing to allow you to change, to start to take care of yourself.

56:36They want you to keep giving to them. I don't think we talk about that enough, about people in our life that maybe don't make us feel great. And a friend said to me about five, six years ago when I was struggling with a you friendships how does that person make you feel and I remember saying anxious it makes me feel anxious and they said do I make you feel anxious and I said no you never you would never make me feel anxious so she was like why are you friends with them and it was this like guilt that I had to let that person go and I think there's this thing with friendships where it's like well no I will change I'll do more I'll do more and the guilt and the worry of letting that person go but actually when you kind of go through it sounds awful but like a bit of a cleansing with all of that a bit like cleansing of social media really similar like getting rid of anything that makes you feel uncomfortable if it's if it's been around for long enough for you to notice it not just if someone upsets you but I think lots of us are kind of unconscious to these relationships that we surround ourselves with that don't actually make us feel good but I don't think we talk about it enough I mean I'm really grateful for the person in my life who brought that attention to me because I even had shame voicing it.

57:52And I think, I don't know why that is. I don't know why you feel so uncomfortable with having those conversations maybe more openly than we should. But I think it's something that a lot of us kind of go around unconsciously unaware of, of just how many people in our life maybe don't make us feel great. Well, also those of us with high function depression or who are high achieving, we don't like failures. Like it's back to that same relationship thing. Like we see a streak as being somehow a reflection of our worth. Like we did this. So like having a friendship for like 15 years is something that we're like, wow, we did it.

58:30Well, that's a success, but it may be a terrible friendship. It may be a friendship where that friend talks about you, you know, doesn't celebrate your wins, is secretly jealous, but you're celebrating it as a success because it's a streak. It's been going on for 15 plus years. And you're like, wow, it's a 15 year friendship. It's a success. But it's probably the most unhealthy relationship you have, right? So I think it's something I have had to challenge personally as someone who's like a perfectionist, high achiever, high functioning. That like, no, sometimes a successful relationship looks like one that ends when it's supposed to end because it's no longer serving you.

59:16You know, that's a success. Like saying goodbye to someone who is no longer a positive influence in your life or who never was and making peace with that. And then in hindsight being like, I'm so glad I ended that. that was not a healthy relationship. What was I thinking? Because you were so fixated, you know, on the idea of happiness that you were missing out on the experience of joy, right? Because idea, if you posted that photo on Instagram and you're like, look, friends for 15 years, you're going to get a lot of likes, like BFFs. But like, were you experiencing any joy there? No, it was toxic, you know, AF, it was toxic, but you just stayed there.

59:58You stayed there because it looked good. The idea of the happiness looked good, but you were not experiencing joy. You were stressed out because that was not healthy for you. So that's been helpful for me, not just in romantic relationships, but with my friendships to really be like, this is not, no, we're not doing this anymore. Yeah. I think that needs to be spoken about more. I did that about five years ago. And my God, I mean, I'd never did it before, but actually the thing that I tell people now is that it made a new wave for people to come in who are more like me, more like my tribe, who championed, and I championed them back.

1:00:35And the more space that you make, even though you might feel dread about letting those people go, it allows room for something new to come in. And I think that's the beauty, that when actually you do make that leap and that jump, you actually allow something that's more connected to you to come in and support you. I do think maybe with this high-functioning depression, there is a shield of not allowing people to truly see you right because you're probably always you're probably always on and masking how do how do people overcome this like we've obviously spoken about all the traits that can be occurring and the things to look out for but if you're changing your friendship group or your relationships that are toxic if you're trying to upgrade your nutrition and people that listen to this podcast i'm sure you are all like 10 out of 10 on you know wanting to do that they're all very hyper focused on wanting to eat well and live well and all of those things like their sleep their environment everything so say like we've ticked all these things and say okay we've actually gone to see a therapist say 50 % of people that listen to this podcast see a therapist and they're still struggling like what does one do like what is there any other stages that one can do to help support themselves through this?

1:01:55Yeah, I actually go through all of those scenarios in the book because I wanted to put in practical tools to support people. And so, for example, if you're struggling with that very same thing, having people in your life not comfortable with your change, not comfortable with the fact that you're, you know, valuing certain things that you once didn't value. And you will go through a grieving process. And I go through different steps that you can take to stay the course because healing doesn't feel good. I think people often think, I'm going to heal and it's going to be amazing off the bat. But healing has stages.

1:02:40Healing has stages and the initial stages, they kind of suck. So I put in a lot of somatic tools So when you're feeling that overwhelming sensation, there are tools in the book that you can tap into to help you to self-regulate your body, your emotions, so that you do stay the course. and also like i would say start with validation it's the most important step but constantly self-validating acknowledging and expressing the venting those first two really do help you when you're starting to feel as if you're faltering because we often tend to push it down and just keep going back into our old patterns but if you can keep self-validating and venting, then you'll realize that, okay, I now have these values that I once lost and I don't want to lose sight of them because that's what gives me purpose.

1:03:37And I'm going to protect my body and brain. I'm going to practice the vitals so that I can keep doing this. And then I'm going to celebrate my wins when I stay the course. I'm not going to just say, okay, I did it. I'm supposed to. I'm going to celebrate it. I'm going to practice vision. So that's why they all kind of go together because they do help to anchor you. The five V's really are basic, simple, and they go well together. And that step and those specific steps to help you to stay the course. And, you know, some people are going to need more support. Some people are going to need more medication.

1:04:09Some people are going to need more different types of therapy modalities. I have like a whole chapter in the book about that. Everyone's going to be there. I need different supports based on their own science. But first, understand the science of your happiness. like what is it that's taking away from your joy now like really understand where are you losing your joy the most because before you start to chase this idea of happiness really start to understand where in your life you're losing the most joy because that's where you should be focusing your efforts and do you think for a lot of these people like when they struggle and I say these people I feel like I connect to a lot of this as well the slowing down and the rest how can they just like how can you stop because there was there's a lot of interesting moments in that book which I mentioned earlier like I will go to bed and look at my phone within that list it's like do you scroll at night do you struggle to read a book you know do you struggle to hold concentration in those moments when people do struggle like what's the advice that you would give because I guess that's the biggest thing right is like stopping to pause stopping to like breathe basically like how can you get in your body and stop if you're in that kind of just keep going all the time yeah when i when i tell people to slow down they automatically have this all or nothing thinking of like well i can't stop and i say well hold on i never said to stop i said slow down so that just shows like that automatic like oh you're telling me to slow down that means i'm going to stop and i'm going to lose everything the all or nothing thinking that steps in And so what I remind people is that you automatically thought of stopping, but it's slowing down.

1:05:46And slowing down looks like this. Slowing down looks like practicing that tool in my book called the 5-4-3-2-1 method, where you're literally focusing on one thing in the moment. So I'll give you an example of it. For 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you'll hold on to like a beverage and then you're like, okay, I'm going to list five things I can see. Okay, I see the color of the coffee. I see the ice floating in there. I see the striped straw. I see the plastic cup. I see my hands. You know, like, okay, so that's five things. Four things that I can feel. Well, I feel the temperature of the coffee. It's cool. I feel the cup.

1:06:27I feel my fingers on each other. I feel my nails. Three things I can hear. Well, it's New York City, so I hear some buzzing outside. I hear the noise machine. I hear the sound of my voice. Sometimes you could hear the shaking of the eyes. two things I can smell. I smell the coffee. I smell the fragrance on me. One thing I could taste, it's oaty. It's yummy. So when I'm doing that, I'm slowing down. I'm staying present in one thing. And it only took me a minute to do that. But what it shows me is that nothing bad happened when I slowed down, that I was able to focus on one thing. I was able to shelve whatever I was worrying about because I was staying present in the moment.

1:07:10So we'll do these somatic things together and we'll train ourselves that we can slow down and nothing bad happens and if you're able to build on that practice over time that can be really helpful as you start to collect those points of joy throughout your day because as you add up these points you develop this idea that adding up the points matter because they're making you happier over time i love that you said that over time because i think you said something really relevant a second ago which is healing doesn't feel like you're healing in the moment and I can relate to that from my last year but you kind of there is a moment where you go wow all this work has worked all this stuff has had a massive effect and you don't kind of notice it until you're through it and that's the time but it's really interesting that you know you're sat here now written this book on high functioning not only from the research perspective and the psychiatrist perspective but from a lived full experience of a woman who has gone through this unaware during all of your training which I also want to say makes this feel so much more deeply human because I think a lot of the time when like experts can talk or maybe I'll talk about something it can feel like we've had it all figured out and I think a lot of the times like no one has and you were kind of in the epicenter of it and kind of didn't realize that you were suffering with something when you were in it and you kind of come out of it now and you've done this incredible book which I knew as soon as I was going to ask you that question like how many people have related to you on this book who are high performers and you're like everyone and so I think it's about like reducing the stigma and you know allowing people to connect with with this terminology in a maybe in a different way as coping mechanisms are sometimes shown in all different shapes and sizes and connecting to work and pressure and performance and all of those things and I think now more than ever before and I don't know if you feel this but more than ever before I see on Instagram especially within the world of podcasts and information and science and health you know health is such a dominated industry now more than ever before it's all about how much more can we do to feel better to look better to succeed better to have better longevity to have better biomarkers so it just kind of is alluding to more performance and especially for people that you know are high achievers it can end up actually being more detrimental to the health so i think like this is such a timely conversation and book because a lot of those ways that we are we are overachieving can actually be underachieving in our health.

1:09:55And so I think that's such an important recognition, especially when it comes to mental health. So Judith, thank you for kind of putting the word out there for being vulnerable at the same time as being scientific. It's a hard thing to do. And I have a question that I ask all of my guests as the final question, which is what does live well, be well mean to you live well be well means understanding the science of your happiness and really understanding where you're losing your joy so that you can be strategic about reclaiming your joy in those areas and that's what that means to me i love that you use the word joy joy and mental health to kind of like pull this whole thing together is the best because it can be a heavy topic to talk about and you have just made it incredibly joyful so judah thank you so much for coming on to Live Well, Be Well, and I recommend everyone to go and buy your book, High Functioning.

1:10:48And it's an amazing read. So thank you so much for bringing it to our attention. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.