Why Raising Resilient Kids Starts With Us with Dr Alex George

26:44We're kind of, especially with young boys saying, you know, man up and toughen up and trying to show the stereotypical idea of strength being like silence, really. And stoicism. Stoicism isn't necessarily bad, but I mean, in the sense of stoicism of silence, you know, when you look at it, that's where a lot of the issues come from, where we allow young boys to express sadness and happiness and anger and all these things and help them channel and understand how to deal with those things. They become very resilient to all sorts of challenges. Yeah. And I think everything that you're saying, I'm nodding because I too have spoken to some of the world leading psychologists and they say exactly the same thing, which is always encouraging because it's not always the way, is it?

27:20But I think what's fascinating is that it's a particular challenge of our generation, of us kind of millennial parents, because we really were taught in the 80s, late 70s, 80s, that resilience and strength was pushing through. And I know for me, and it'd be interesting to get your perspective, I've had to completely rewire and relearn that resilience is actually feeling my feelings. Resilience is being really messy. And only when I could do that for myself, could I then have the capacity to do that with my children. I remember when mine were little and they would tantrum, I couldn't handle it.

28:03And then I had this light bulb moment. The reason I couldn't handle it is because I couldn't handle my own emotions. How the hell was this? So I went away and I actually learned how to feel my feelings because no one had ever taught me that. And now, interestingly, I do exactly what, you know, you talk about in the book and what psychologists have told you where I can. My little girls can come home crying and I don't fix it. that sounds really sad it makes so much sense to mummy that you're sad I'd be sad if that happened to me yeah but it's so difficult to do that when our wiring is to don't be sad you know we'll fix it like you say or oh don't be silly it's just a friend in the playground it's not a big deal it's so easy to bat those things away what's your experience been like with processing and learning how to feel your feelings does that something that you have to learn how did you learn it and how would you coach your parents through learning that?

28:59Well, it's brilliant that you do that and it's kind of, yeah, I mean, your children are very fortunate to have someone that's a better mum that is kind of so introspective and able to kind of work on that stuff because ultimately, I don't know what the exact same, but the stuff that you don't work on, you just pass on to the next generation, right? So we've got to deal with our own stuff and even if it's not our fault necessarily, we've got to deal with it so that we don't pass it on, so we pass on the right stuff. So it's brilliant. And you're right. I mean, I like the resilience idea, kind of image I try and have is like, if you think of a storm coming through, if you've got a tree that's really stiff and rigid and the branches won't bend, the likelihood is that they might snap and break.

29:36Whereas when you look out the window and there's a tree that is able to kind of bend and flex in the wind, it survives fine, it returns to its normal shape afterwards. And that's what's important. We don't need to be rigid and stiff. We can allow and understand, hey, I'm under pressure, there's a storm happening. I can bend and flex, I can bring support and I can ask for help, I can talk about things. And by being movable, I guess, in that situation and flexible, we're able to return to our state. But yeah, I mean, look, we are wired as children. You know, so much of what we learn about how to face the world and our emotional intelligence is developed in our first kind of five years.

30:14I know the Princess of Wales does a lot of work on this early years stuff. It is huge. and then if you're kind of given and you've grown up with this way of seeing the world and dealing things then if you want to change it you have to like unwire and rewire it which is kind of what you talked about right and the fortunate thing is we have neuroplasticity which is this idea that our brain can adapt and change to different circumstances so if we decide that you know if I if I come home from work and I walk in the flat and the place is a mess and I kind of knock over my cup of tea and I forgot to buy stuff to cook dinner that night.

30:52If my wiring is just to get really annoyed and angry at the world, then that's like the natural loop. But then if you go, well, I'm going to come home and say, hey, it is what it is. Life, there's actually so much to be grateful for. It's been a brilliant day. 10 minutes, I can have this all in shape and actually be good for me to go out for a walk and grab what I need for dinner. You're changing that loop of response. And the more that you repeat that action, the more that you kind of respond in a certain way, it becomes hardwired. It's like the idea of like, if you've got snow on a mountain, the first people to climb the mountain create the paths and then everyone else probably just follows that, you know.

31:24And then if you want to create a new path, it's kind of hard work at first because you have to go off piece onto an uncharted territory. But eventually you can create that new path. And as there's new snow falls, it'll cover the old path over. And that's the kind of way that I kind of see it. But yeah, there's been many times in life where I guess that's been shown at me and I've gone, oh gosh, I need to look at how to deal with this. You know, a good example will be when my brother died. It was kind of like, I naturally went to this kind of way that Brits seem to deal with grief, which is to shut down, not talk about it, try and move on very quickly.

31:56Within days, I was like, I need to get back to work. And I didn't. But my brain was naturally wanting to try and do that. Whereas what I needed to do was kind of genuinely process what had happened, accept the state of shock and the sense of turbulence that I felt. And it took me a long time. It's taken me a long time to learn to grieve in a way that is more open to understand that you don't have to kind of be silent with it all. And it is hard. It is difficult, especially when you've grown up with a certain way and it's been affirmed in that way. And you see that's how lots of people react to things.

32:29It's not easy, but just because it's not easy doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. And that's what I try and see. So grief has been a big one for me, like how to process things. I've always been very open, I think, largely. So that hasn't been such a challenge, but certainly with the grief stuff, it has been more so. I can imagine that that grief comes in so many forms and waves. And, you know, I have had a loss similar to yours, so I do understand. And I'm wondering what that grief has taught you about life and how it's informed who you've become in the world, which is, you know, an incredible champion for so many.

33:11You're very kind. I'm perfectly imperfect like everyone else. I've definitely got my flaws as we all do. And I think actually that's one of the biggest things that's taught me is that we're all just human beings. No one's perfect. Everyone reacts differently. I'm sure lots of parents will say that there's been times that they have reacted in a way that they want to change or this idea of a perfect model parent that never gets upset with their children, that never reacts and the kids never get on their nerves and stuff. It's just absolutely like unreal and i'd love to meet any parent that's that's able to do that um it's not the real world and i think perhaps what i've learned some some in some sense from what has happened and losing my brother is that life is messy and we are messy too and we are not perfect and we are um human beings and even if you're someone with the best intentions you're going to make mistakes you get things right you'll get things wrong and being able to accept that as much as possible and just trying to live each day by your values and doing your best to improve, you know, trying your best to live life in the present as well is hugely important to me.

34:15And I, you know, I'm someone that struggles. I had a diagnosis of OCD not that long ago. I'm still very much working on that. It's not something that's a fixed issue. It's realizing that we do need to learn to enjoy life and exist despite our troubles. So I have this kind of feeling or at least in my experience of my life that nothing will ever be sorted there will always be something in your life that's messy so you know if you get your career in order then your relationship's a bit more tricky at that time your relationship with careers in order and all of a sudden a family member's unwell or whatever it is like there will never be nothing there's no i've never remembered a time in my life where there isn't some sort of challenge in some way that's troubling me so you have to learn if you're going to enjoy this time you've got on earth which i think largely very short then you have to learn to exist despite these challenges and i think that's that's a very difficult thing to do but very important one to try it's just like right you know this thing's going on but right now i'm here in the present and this present moment's all i got let's try and enjoy it's very easy to say very difficult to do but that should be what we strive for being more present i guess i don't know if that really answers your question but it does Yes, it does.

35:25I really heard you talking about perspective and presence. I think what you just described is probably the key to life, which is that things can be going on outside of you, and yet you can remain relatively grounded and calm. And that's what all the great spiritual traditions actually teach us how to do, right? If you look across the lenses. But what are some of the tools that you have learned or are learning to help you to do that more effectively, particularly ones that we might be able to pass on to our children? I think a great gift to teach young children, young people is the kind of art of mindfulness, meditation, if you like, being present.

36:08All the mindfulness actually means when you boil down to it is being as in the moment as you can be. That's the role of mindfulness. It is to not exist in the mind, to exist in the present, the breath, the body, the moment. We've got this, it's like the Eckhart Tolle idea of like, you've got your brain, which is kind of your hardware and the bit that's you, and then you have your kind of thoughts that conjured the kind of the mind and the mind being separate from you. And it's absolutely true because so often we don't identify with the mind. And if we did, and if the mind was truly us, and it was me that was the mind, why do we disagree with our thoughts so much?

36:40We would just agree with every stream of thought because it would be one with us. It listen, we have things pop to our mind, think, oh gosh, no, oh yes, or no. You argue with yourself, the fact that you have dialogue and arguments with yourself about it implies there's more than one person there. And so, you know, really all we're trying to do is come out of the thoughts and out of the head and into the kind of moment and into the body and into the heart and into the now. And that's what mindfulness is for. So whether you achieve that through swimming, whether you achieve it through walking, whether it's sitting, meditating, so doing breath work and so on, whether it's reading a book, whether it's playing the piano, whatever brings you into that moment is important.

37:17And in a way, you've got to see it as like your portal to the present. So it's finding something that does that for you. But if you can teach children, young people, the art of meditation, that's a brilliant skill to develop. And if you haven't meditated before as an adult, that's absolutely fine. It's seen as very inaccessible, but really all you need is just to have a sit down in any comfortable moment, hands on your lap, you can close your eyes or have them open, whatever you prefer. And you just concentrate on the breath. And a lot of people do breath counting. You can do box breathing four seconds in, hold for four, out for a hold, and then breathe again.

37:50There's lots of ways to do it. But essentially what it means is just bringing your focus to your breath. And as you do that, your thoughts race and you have lots of thoughts in your mind and you just allow them to exist. You just allow them to come and go like leaves on a stream passing you by. Don't pick the leaf out. You just leave it, go by. And eventually, it might be that day or might be several days later you'll find you achieve quietness some days you can meditate and achieve quietness quickly other days you don't achieve it at all but if you can practice that you know for five to ten minutes each morning with a child or in the evening a young person in your life you'll both benefit there's a huge compounding benefit for both of you for that and meditation has been shown to structurally change the brain so those who meditate when they've done scans on people's brains who meditated even i think it was like 12 of weeks, and it's quite a short, don't quote an exact time, but quite a short period of time, a very achievable period of time, their amygdalas, the fear center in their brains, shrank from meditating.

38:44So essentially that means is that part of your brain is in overdrive and worry and fear, gets smaller and the bit of the brain, the frontal cortex or prefrontal cortex becomes bigger. So the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls those emotions and says, hey, do you know what? I don't need to be anxious about this. I can deal with it. so meditating is a great gift but it doesn't have to be done sat there breathing it can be just going out for a walk or a swim whatever it is but as a practice breath work is a phenomenal skill to develop and actually you know i'd love to say i'm had to say i don't and i should do it more often myself so you know it's about finding the way to get it into the habit each day that's important yeah i'll tell you what's amazing is children before the age of five actually are naturally mindful they are naturally present that's why it's so difficult to rush a child because they want to look at every stone on the pavement and you're trying to get them to so i feel like that's actually an example of where we need to learn from them yeah what happens after the age of five then is of course some of the structure of the brain waves change and they start to be able to project forward into worry and i think that's where teaching children and what i've tried to teach my girls feeling feelings and resilience the other big thing is that your thoughts are just thoughts and you can have a thought and we don't need to make it real and reminding my children of that just helps me because I'm just reminding myself all the time but I think if you're not taught that certainly I wasn't I'm guessing you weren't you do start to think every every thought that you have you know I'm not liked that person didn't wave me in the playground or whatever it might be is reality and of course 99 % of the time it's not it's not and it doesn't and also this idea that every thought needs a response you don't need to rationalize every thought you don't have to you know it's like everyone has intrusive thoughts for example it's a good example at the extreme end every single person has intrusive thoughts of some type at at some point you don't need to rationalize them you just let them come and go it's no different whether it's a high energy thought or low energy thought or anything in between you just can you don't have to react to everything and that's something i've had have to continue to, and I certainly do have done in the past, struggle to do.

40:57I think it's very easy to get caught up with that dialogue all the time. When you enter that kind of dialogue with your thoughts, that is drawing you out of the present. And ultimately, it can be such a wasted life. And this is the cruelty of worry, is that you can waste an entire life worrying. There's plenty of times I've gone holiday where you're on holiday and you're in a beautiful sunny place. Everything's great around you, you're stuck in the mind. And the whole holiday goes by and you didn't really enjoy it because you're too busy worrying about next week or whatever it might be. So, you know, people say, well, Jessica, I'm so busy.

41:29Can I really work on the stuff? You know, have I got time to meditate? Well, this is like your life and you want to exist, you know, especially the parents and children grew up so fast. You want to be as present as you can with them, let alone getting them to do the same, be as present with them as you can. And anything that can draw you into that moment to genuinely be there and be present. It's got to be worth some time, I'd say. But I think the same meditation, it takes time. I think it really is. When I've been in good rhythm of it, it takes a few days, a few weeks to really get the rhythm and the benefit.

41:59But it is a huge benefit you get. It's usually 10 minutes a day. And if people say, well, I don't have time, if you go on your phone, look at your screen time and see how long you spend your phone each day, steal some of that time back and use it for meditation, it'd be well spent. Yeah, I remember listening to Oprah interview someone ages ago, maybe a decade ago, no idea who it was, but she said to this person, it would have been a mindfulness expert. She said, would you rather, so many people would rather go on holiday full of worry and fear, just as you described, or would you rather sit in a sort of empty room but be able to access complete peace?

42:36i'd never forgotten that because i thought we're so busy chasing these externals thinking that holiday that house that car that job then i'm finally gonna feel but actually it's all an internal job isn't it it's all if we can get that resilience and that sort of slight even slight sense of peace then the externals matter much less but if you're in the thoughts and you're stuck in also the dopamine chasing as well that that combination is is is very toxic really you know you're kind of you're stuck in thoughts and validation but also being fueled by this kind of need for dopamine through the phones they're buying things whatever that's how you end up in these kind of spirals or you spend your life chasing things or the wrong things because you are stuck in a deadly combination really living your thoughts and living in on dopamine yes gosh So true.

43:30And thinking about the book, what's your biggest hope for it? What does success mean to you these days? I think with Happy Habits, what I want to happen is just to give children and parents an understanding of what mental health and mental fitness really means. To give them some of the tools that they can take away and build each day so you can develop that resilience and that ability to enjoy life. I really think that it's important we reduce mental illness in this country. And that's obviously a very important part of it. And I hope that by doing these things, you'll reduce the chance of mental illness.

44:05But I also think we need to start focusing, as I said earlier, on building greater happiness and peace in young people. And ultimately, there are things that make a difference. And you can use science in your benefit. The whole book is packed with, I think, actionable science. It's not saying jump in an ice bath outside. It's stuff that you can do each day. and you know most of your most of the margins of gain that you'll achieve are in the little things not on the kind of high-end science stuff that you'll achieve it you know they're talking about level 100 versus level one like level one two three of exercise will get you 80 you're only getting fine margins of gain about doing HIIT exercises at altitude is gaining you 0.1 percent of health benefits versus doing a walk each day which will give you 40 percent 50 percent improvement So it's teaching these things of where the marginal gains are versus the big gains in your life and getting in there early because, you know, you can change bad habits, but it's great to build good ones.

45:02You know, it's kind of we wake up in the morning, you get up and you brush your teeth. You know, you don't really think about much. You just go and do it. And a lot of these things can become that level of habit where, you know, you walk home from school, you always have an apple in your bag and it triggers a habit reflex. So you've got the cue, you've got the response or your action plan, and then you've got a reward. So cue being, oh, I'm walking from home. Oh, I've got the apple in the bag. Of course, I have to always do. Eat your apple in that moment. It's your action. You feel good in the moment.

45:29You've eaten the apple in the long term. You'll feel better. And the more of these kind of habits that get cued, if you like, so habits that get triggered each day by a certain time of day or moment of the day that are positive, more than you have that are in your life, the better that you'll feel. And what we see is that positive actions of well-being are compounding. They don't act in isolation. So if you eat well, so if you eat a colorful plate of food and as a child you grew up and you understand the benefits of that and the reason that you do that, you eat colorful, healthy food, you have more energy and more positivity, more likely to exercise, you'll exercise better and you're more consistent.

46:05When you exercise, you sleep better. When you sleep better, you feel better the next day. Emotional resilience is better. all of it knocks on to each other and that's what's beauty you might get three or four percent benefit from each section individually but the compounding effect of that on your overall well-being is huge and i think that is what is really important and that is what we overlook we think ass nonsense is just well-being it's rubbish or how bad benefit can this stuff really be it can have a huge benefit it can change your life in many ways i think i totally agree with you and i think as parents as well it's really easy particularly when our children get to school age to kind of obsess on, you know, making time to do the homework, making time, you know, on the academics.

46:45And I think I was really struck by what you were saying just then about the power actually. And this is a personal opinion. I would rather develop those resilience, those healthy habits for life than the academics. Of course we can do both. But for me, that would be the priority because I can see how when you have that scaffolding and that foundation in your life, you can go on and achieve things. Absolutely. And this is what we need to look at, I think, as a wider conversation in this country about the structure of our education system, because it's very heavily academia focused. Interestingly, we don't perform particularly that well against the rest of Europe and the world in academia, even though we're very heavily academia focused.

47:27We do okay, we're not amazing at it. And so, you know, that which is interesting considering that's our main metric. But actually, if you look at it, if you do exactly as you said, and work on the life skills, teach about financial health at school, and give kids an understanding of how finances work, which would be a brilliant thing to leave and understand from school, build a lot of the skills we've kind of talked about, and the team working skills, and physical health and mental health, and all the kind of tools, if you like, that allow you to be successful. That would be so beneficial going out into the world, much more than the system is currently.

48:01Academia is important. I'm an academic. I studied medicine. I like learning. I still continuously learn and love reading, but research in a space and things. I am an academic, but I don't think that means it's not all or nothing. It's not one or the other. We can have a system that has academia. Perhaps some of it can be considered about its place and need in this modern world. It has changed a lot since a lot of the curriculums were made. But also, can we bring up and dial up this aspect of, okay, let's develop children that are resilient and well-rounded because that's ultimately the thing isn't it kids will leave school some will want to be lawyers others will want to be builders others will want to you know go and be a sports person someone else wants to start their own business give them the tools that no matter what they do that they'll have a good foundation yeah that's why i'm so grateful in a way you know we talked a lot about all the challenges of our generation raising children but there are also you know so many benefits because we are access to experts like you who writing books like you're writing and and I see it that my kids go to school I made that decision but I educate them at home on things like you know I will read them your book we use this little phone app called Go Henry where I we work through together I teach them about financial stuff I'm teaching them and I'm so grateful that we do live in this day and age where we have access to all that because our parents didn't it just wasn't it wasn't accessible so I really do see it that they They go to school, but then actually like so much of their education comes from us and at home.

49:33And I think, yeah, that's, you know, that feels good for me because I'm learning alongside them. The reality is we have to educate ourselves, like we certainly do as millennials, but I think we have to take it upon ourselves to kind of learn the stuff and teach the stuff because we can't assume that it's going to be taught elsewhere. And the financial health stuff's huge. You know, number one cause of worry in adults is money. It's financial worries. But yet we don't teach anything about what an ISA is at school, what's inflation, how do mortgages work, what are the different forms of taxes, how do you do a tax return, what does that even mean.

50:05We don't teach about budgeting investments. People think that investing money is this kind of thing for the super rich. You can invest with one pound. There's no empowerment or teaching about this at school at the moment, or very little. And so that's why I think it's so, as you said, it's so great. There is so much out there. obviously be careful, have credible advice, check where you're getting resources from. But there is so much out there that you can learn now. And that's what's positive about technology and even AI and things. When it's used well, it can be amazing. It has the potential to be an amazing tool.

50:37Yeah, I totally agree. What do you feel hopeful about for the future? You're thinking about the couple of generations under us. What excites you? What do you feel hopeful about? I'm excited that I think generations that are coming are way more in tune with the health than ever. If you look at, for example, the trends of drinking alcohol, under 25-year-olds, around 35 % to 40 % don't drink at all now. They abstain completely from alcohol. And that is actually part of a wider trend that I think younger people are seeing the importance of investing in your health and how much of an important commodity your health is, that they are really, really making decisions based on that.

51:19They're choosing happiness and health over other things. And I think that is a really positive thing. I think that will play out into the way that politics happens and it will play out into priorities at school. Things like mental health, as generations go on, it will just be so much more normalized. And I think it will become something that has genuine parity between that and physical health. So I do feel really positive about that. I think there is changes are happening and they're coming. and I think people are realizing that you know the most valuable thing you have in your life is your health and that is a good thing I'm hopeful of that improving and continuing thank you and I always ask the same question at the end which is if you could give just one gift to all the mothers in the world what would it be and why I think I'd say this and this is very important given my mum and what she's been through losing a son I would say compassion and I'd say that because you know um you do your very best as a parent and and sometimes things just happen in life that are so unfair and unjust and cruel and horrible and i think parents and mothers can be very very hard on themselves and mom has been very hard on herself given you know losing her youngest son to suicide in the way that he died i think that's obviously been very very difficult for her and you know i just i think she's getting a little bit better with it but i just wish she could be more compassionate to herself, you know, and to understand that we are all humans, we're all imperfect.

52:46Every mother listening to this is doing it for the first time, you know, okay, you might have several children, but you are existing as a mother for the first time. And you've got to understand that you are not going, even if you try your very best, you cannot be perfect. And if you're trying to be perfect, you're more likely to be unhappy. And, you know, it's better to accept that good enough is good enough, you do your best, and it's okay to get it wrong at times and some things are genuinely out of your control as well that's so beautiful and i'm going to send lots of compassion to your mom as well from my heart thank you the book's available now and is there anything else that you want to are you going are you doing any live events tell us where people can connect and engage more with you in the book and the book available now all kind of bookstores as well as amazon the usual kind of places and so on so yeah check it out if you've got a young person in your life.

53:38Obviously, a lot of mothers will listen to this, but it might be a nephew or niece or something that is the kind of age of 9 to 14, and it could be helpful. But otherwise, yeah, I'm on my social media, Dr. Alex George, and I've got my podcast and Stomcast as well. So yeah, you'll find me about talking about mental fitness in lots of different places, I guess. Oh, thank you, Alex. Such a joy to chat. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, Thank you to everyone that's stuck around and listened.