How to have a healthy mind

32:16And the rating exercise is something that I do with all groups, you know, and I do with all young people, and it's to teach them to learn to stand on their own two feet and to stop rating themselves and to stop allowing other people to rate. Because that's really where I believe for years and years and years the majority of our problems are coming from. We're allowing ourselves to rate ourselves and we're allowing other people to influence us in terms of rating. And of course, social media was built on the grounds of if I can make one person compare their lives to another person then I'm going to make a fortune and what's happened these guys have got richer and richer and richer and we are getting more and more and more distressed and the algorithm is feeding the stress of course it is because the algorithm actually loves the stress yes so basically the algorithm is perpetuating yes and self-fulfilling the stress the more stress it sees the more stress it's going to put on the more stress it's going to feed it so if we really are serious about mental health.

33:17And I really have to say I get tired of the term mental health. So do I. And if there's anything that drives me crackers, it's this, the person has a mental health problem. What in God's name is that? That's a bit like saying I've got a physical health problem. Well, is it a blood pressure? Is it diabetes? Is it arthritis? I've got a physical health problem. No, we never say actually that person has a physical health problem. No. But we do say all the time. and the reason why we say it is because we're terrified to use the word mental illness yes and we definitely do not want to talk about emotional distress because we don't recognise it and we don't understand it I must say I'm loving hearing this expression emotional distress but I I never I never knew that there was an aversion to talking about emotional distress I knew that there was an aversion to talking about mental illness the reason I think is that because in their vernacular, I think people assume that mental illness is a regressive term that would have only been used in the 80s or 90s.

34:22Whereas now we have moved on to the word mental health. It's like saying, do you remember when we were in school and a fellow would go, your man is a spastic. You can't say that. You talk about cerebral palsy now. Yes, exactly. So, but I, because I'm a GP, we don't have the luxury, our job is to diagnose something and try and help the person manage it. So if instead of saying you've got a physical health problem, I say, no, you've got blood pressure, you know what I mean? Or you've got diabetes or whatever. And my approach to mental health is very similar. If I think that you have a serious mental illness, my attitude is, I am not the person to deal with you.

34:59You need to go to a mental health team. Do you know what I mean? Negative, negative self-rating. Negative self-rating. Rating. Rating. Rating yourselves, rating others, the culture of rating, feeding the algorithm, feeding the beast of stress. mental health solution. You are a man of, you're a practical person. You are a GP. I'm a GP. What then, rather than talking about it together, what suggestions could you make at a, if I invited you as king of Ireland and I said, I want a court man and I want Harry Barry on my thing. I want to go, look, all these kids, I have nephews and they're all self-rating themselves.

35:37Harry Barry, what do we do? Okay. The first thing I would do is I would try to teach all children unconditional self-acceptance. I would teach them how to manage, by the way, let's start from the beginning. I would teach them their physical body. Nobody ever talks about their amygdala, their prefrontal cortex, adrenaline. In other words, I would teach them how my stress system works and what it's like when I feel panicky and what to do when I feel panicky and what a phobia is and what to do when I feel a phobia. So I would be teaching that to school. The second thing I would be teaching them, so that would eliminate a huge amount of anxiety, by the way.

36:17I would also teach them... It's very interesting, learning about your central nervous system. Learning about how you're stressed and stressed it and works, how hormones work, what adrenaline is, what cortisol is. Very good. Secondly, I would teach them something that funny enough, some principles like there, and a lot of principles if they're listening to this would really agree with me on this, you know what I mean, teach the mum condition and self-acceptance, which was a concept that was created by Albert Ellis, the father of CBT, the guy who created CBT. And he was asked one time, what are we going to do about this term self-esteem?

36:53And of course, I have no time for self-esteem. I think it's the greatest load of nonsense that has ever existed. I think, by the way, the American Psychological Association, because I wrote a book on this, self-acceptance, in the year 2000, actually said, we can't define it and we can't measure it. so I know let's talk about something we can't define self esteem but self esteem is a world term you know what I mean and I will be laughed out of the studio what is self esteem I know what it is but why do you think it's an amorphous term because if I said to you I remember having a row with an English professor or somebody somebody about this because we were talking about the term worthless is a classic example so I a lot of people come to me and they say I feel weak or I feel a failure or I feel worthless so I said to him well I'm from Ireland I'm very stupid would you explain to me now what does worthless mean and he says oh yeah it's all about your self worth and I said well self worth what does that mean and he says well how much you you know how much you measure yourself you know your value the value you put on yourself so I said is that in pounds of sterling yeah and he didn't really get it he didn't like that at all of course he wasn't happy with that at all but the point I'm trying to make if you're worth less then somebody else must be worth more can you tell me the grounds on which you make that assessment.

38:09And of course, what actually this is all about, that's why I give kids the rating access. That's why they love the rating access, by the way. And they got it, by the way. They got it 10 times quicker than the adults get it because they are so used to the world of rating because they live in a world of rating. And we live in, I mean, you know, you come into all these radio stations and they're all done on my ratings and my world. Everything is rating now. Go into Google, it's all rating. so rating is all about how we measure one thing versus another that's the concept of rate so esteem is an old English term for the word measurement okay a lot of people don't know that no actually when you were it was a way of measuring say the value of a painting or a value versus one painting versus another painting or one bit of porcelain versus another bit of an esteemed writer highly rated yes exactly but the whole problem then was then it became the norm.

39:06It was a myth. It was a myth that was created many, many years ago. And that myth has grown to become now a truth. And that's what happens myths. Myths become truths. Ask Mr. Trump that. He'll tell you all about it. Keep saying it enough. And eventually it becomes the truth to the average person. So the concept of the self... So if I said to you, can you give me the scale on which you can measure one human being over another, you start scratching your head. Because you say, yeah, but everybody's different. Of course they are. We're genetically different. We're environmentally different. Every, even triplets, and I've delivered triplets, by the way, each individual triplet will actually tell you, I am completely different from number two or number one.

39:52In other words, every human being on the planet is separate, individual, a wonderful, special, unique, lovely person. Is that okay? The problems come when we start merging our behavior with who we are that's what that's what ellis copped so in other words uh if if i'm doing very well at something then i think i'm great if i'm doing very bad at something i think i'm terrible so i played a racing game i'm going up and down the scale morning noon and night every sort of day if so if my social media feed is doing great i'm fantastic if my social media feed is not going well i feel terrible and of course the more anxious i become do you know what i mean the more i rate myself and the more my rating is going down the more anxious i'm becoming that i need to do something to improve it and i start catastrophizing how awful it'll be if everybody shuns me and then i really start getting into trouble and i get very distressed and that all that's happened is i'm playing the rating game so the rating game is all about this ridiculous idea that one human being can be rated over another so i i teach everybody comes to see me, unconditional self-acceptance.

41:02Learn to be comfortable with yourself. Learn to accept yourself. Learn to accept you're going to mess up, you're going to fail, you're going to make mistakes, but you can't be measured. One of the things, tell me if I'm right by saying this, one of the things you suggest is that we should embrace the feminine side within us a little more. First of all, tell me briefly what you mean by that and then I see that there are obvious problems with that in the world we're living in at the moment. Well, I've always believed that both men and women, do you know what I mean? So I think this is an important point, have both male attributes and female attributes.

41:35So in other words, we're not just homogenous, do you know what I mean? And, you know, some men will relate very easily to the very male attributes. For example, the rugby players, the soccer players, they might like going out with the lads, do you know what I mean, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but the male perspective is definitely it's a little bit harder at times do you know what I mean more problem solving so I would relate to that side of it but if I was asked for the who am I more comfortable I'm always being more comfortable talking to women because women are more empathetic they're really good at solving problems they listen better they're more nuanced do you know what I mean they're less likely to like if we had, I keep saying this if we had women in general in every position of politics and on our armed service we would have a lot less wars, we'd have a lot less rows, do you know what I mean I'm not saying that's always the case there are definitely some women who are psychopathic in nature, do you know what I mean who definitely will not fall into this group, but as a general rule of thumb, I have always found that I relate better to people with a sense of humour, with empathy, who listen, do you know what I mean?

43:02Who want to solve the problem, who don't want to rate themselves so much, do you know what I mean? Women get it. So when I'm chatting to women, they get it instantly, do you know what I mean? And I feel more comfortable doing it. But that doesn't say I've helped countless men, do you know what I mean? And what I love, actually, is when men come up to me and say, Can I just have a word with you? And to me, that's wonderful because that means we're getting there. Arm, is it a cliché? Because you hear it since I've been growing up. Men can't talk about our problems. I've met men in the last three, five years who've said to me, they think that's a little bit of a cliché.

43:45Yeah, I would agree with that cliché. I'll tell you what I do feel. it's not so much that men are not good at talking about their problems but they're very poor at identifying their emotions that's different yeah that's a different matter so when somebody comes to me I will often ask them how did that make you feel because that's the key if something's happening in your life how does it make you feel and the person might be really struggling so I might have to give them a menu I might have to say do you feel frustrated by it do you feel ashamed by it? Do you feel guilty by it? Do you feel down because of it?

44:21Do you feel hurt? Do you feel, you know, and very quickly the person will say, hurt or ashamed or very anxious. Do you know what I mean? Or, I've had people come to me who thought they were anxious and really the problem was frustration. The great undiscussed emotion in mental health, the one that causes so much distress and nobody ever talks about it. Yes, go on. What is it? Frustration? Frustration is... What is it? frustration is a thing called low frustration tolerance. And it goes like this. The thinking behind the person who struggles with this. Now, this is not somebody who just gets, we all get frustrated by situations, but this is somebody whose natural go-to emotion when things go wrong is frustration.

45:07So how we describe low frustration tolerance as, I want long-term gain, but I don't want short-term pain. I want the situation to change but don't want to change myself I want it now those are the characteristics of the person with frustration and how you'll identify it in yourself if you're honest is you're very quickly irritable things are not going your way you give out a lot about things if they're not going away if you're on the M1 or the M50 and this car comes screaming up behind you and flashes you to get out of the way welcome to LFT because people are very aggressive on the road. You're the kind of person who steamrolls through very little empathy, do you know what I mean?

45:51Maybe you're a boss, maybe you're working with a group of people. I can identify quickly in the business which managers are empathy people and which managers are LFT people. And it's a very important distinction because LFT means that I'm spending my life in a state of almost aggression rather than a state of anxiety. Do you know what I mean? So they're very different emotions. And I can recall people coming to me over the years whose lives were a total mess. Do you know what I mean? Because of LFT. So I would ask people to do an exercise for about two to three months. And they get three questions.

46:34And every time they're frustrated about anything, they have to answer the three questions on paper. Not in their head. What are they? Because remember, as I said in Sligo there recently, the most important mental health skill that we all should have is the ability to write things down. Because when we write something down, we get it out of our emotional mind and we put it down and we let our rational mind examine it. And when we let our rational mind examine it, it's amazing the changes that start to happen. So when somebody's working with me, they will always be asked to write things down as they go along.

47:09So they'll do the writing, by the way, not me. Were there three questions you wanted? Three questions. Question number one, what is my long-term objective in this particular situation? Yeah. Question number two, what short-term pain am I trying to avoid in this particular situation? And the third question is, what changes in my thinking and behavior do I need to make to achieve my objective in this particular situation? And those three questions sound very, very benign. but they are incredibly powerful questions and they are really challenging because i have people come away and but they've come back to me and said when i answered those properly i changed and suddenly i'm softer i'm listening more i'm more empathetic and not demanding things as much i'm changing what i can accepting what i can't change but changing what i can So, for example, if somebody comes to me and they're totally frustrated, a classic example of this is where somebody comes to you and I'm totally frustrated with my job.

48:17And I remember saying to one particular person, right, we're going to solve that tonight now. So I said, I want you to come and write a letter of resignation. And it was dead sentence. Because that wasn't what the person was expecting. So then they said, but what will I do tomorrow? I said, well, that's the worst problem. Do you know what I mean? You've asked me to sort the problem out today. Do you know what I mean? But how am I going to pay my mortgage? Well, that's another problem you're going to have to face. And how am I going to act on my family's health? Yeah, that's another problem you're going to have to face.

48:48But you didn't ask me to solve those problems. You asked me to solve your present problem, which was you're totally frustrated with your job. So I began to get them to see that actually there was a plus to the job they were doing. Okay. So they had to learn to accept to go with that, because they couldn't change it. What they were wanting was they wanted a boss to change, they wanted their workmates to change, they wanted the type of work to change, they wanted to be paid better. Somebody else's problem was they were being a victim. Exactly. So then what they did was, in other words, here's the change in thinking.

49:25The situation won't change because I want it to change. So the only person who can change is me. So if I change how I look to it in the moment, one, then no longer I'm frustrated about the job. And number two, what the person did was went off and did a post-grad course to upgrade and shifted to a different job. Now they're really happy, paid much better, doing what they wanted. My point is that we can all remain totally frustrated and give out and give out and give out and give out and give out, or we can try and do something about it. It's the toddler lashing out. Yes, but the trouble is that there's too many people who don't understand that they're getting stressed out of their heads all the time.

50:07And they don't understand that a lot of their stress is coming from their thinking about it. Yeah, people get overcome by stress and it inhibits their cognitive ability. So in other words, they become emotional creatures rather than thinking creatures because their fog of stress comes down. It's like the fog of anger or the red mist. Yeah, but the problem, and this is important, that when we are struggling with frustration, we're pumping out a lot of noradrenaline or a regression hormone and we're pumping out a lot of cortisol. So those two things are not good for our physical health, for our blood pressure, for our cardiomyopathy.

50:41So in other words, people don't understand this, there is a physical cost sometimes to not dealing with our emotional distress. 100%. One of my favorite lines that I get a person with social anxiety, by the way, to write down automatically is, you know, we get rid of our social anxiety when we realize we're not as important as we think we are. And actually, that is the secret to social anxiety when doing that. And actually, once you teach the person that by giving them exercises, they very quickly realize that's actually the truth. So if we're not as important as we think we are, then the quickest way to solve our boredom is to get off our backside and help somebody else.

51:26Start looking out for other people. start being empathetic towards it start listening more actively and in other words boredom means that I'm spending too much time focused on myself navel gazing instead of starting to move out and try to help other people if people understood let's say you're a 13 year old teenager who's just totally obsessed with brushing their hair they don't understand what's obvious and that is nobody cares and nobody's looking. No, no. But they think everybody's looking. But you see, social anxiety, for those who can read many of my books on this, but social anxiety is a false perception.

52:11And so the two secrets to social anxiety is that, number one, social anxiety is caused by perception versus reality. And the second thing is that people are self-obsessed. So once you understand that those two realities, so I have a false perception of what happens in a social situation. So once I learn what actually happens in a social situation, I very quickly get rid of a lot of my social anxiety. The second thing is that people are self-obsessed, that people are basically only interested in methane. They're only interested in themselves. They're only interested in what goes on in their own head.

52:50So, for example, the conversation exercise that I try to teach most people with social anxiety is based on the reality that, so part of my social anxiety is, I'm such a boring person. And the first thing you have to do is, well, you can't be a boring person. That's a form of rating. So a topic of conversation can be boring, but not the person. So that's because we'll have that part. So then the next question is, well, what's the only topic of conversation that people love to talk about? Is it the weather? is it politics is it religion is it sport is it GAA it's me so what you have is the illurial situation that the person with social anxiety is whipping themselves to death because they can't come up with a topic that everybody would be interested in when in reality the topic that is staring them in the face all they have to get to do is get the person to talk about themselves and they'll think I'm the most interesting person in the world and that is the secret to social anxiety Again sorry for the social I mean I know you're sick to death I'd say talking about social media but social media actually even more exacerbates than me.

53:51So, for example, you know, let's say our average person has 500 followers. I've seen this. I see this all the time. Somebody has 500 followers. Within those 500 followers, they are a superstar. They are. That's their bubble. So they are actually famous within that 500. The problem is that they think that that 500 is the world rather than just the 500. Well, also, you know, it goes back to this whole concept that I have great conversations about with many young people and it's the concept of what is a success so when suppose you're doing really well in your social media bubble or whatever nonsense comes on and the person says well I'm that's the person I want to be they're a real success so I say to them what happens next week if something goes wrong?

54:43Are they now a failure? So which are they? Are they a success? or the failure. So they're scratching their heads, of course, because they can't actually, they begin to realize that sometimes I'm a success in terms of it. So in reality, we can neither be a success or a failure as a person, but we can be successful at a particular task. So if my aim is to be the bee's knees for 500 people, well, then I'm successful at that task. But if you're asking me, do I reach 5 million people? No, but then I'm a failure at that task if that's my task. Do you know what I mean? but neither decides whether I'm a good or bad person.

55:19You know, if I'm comfortable with myself, I don't care whether I have 500 or 500 ,000, do you know what I mean? But if my world is going to be so constricted that that's what I believe it's all about, well, then we have failed totally as human beings to teach young people what really matters. But I actually think that young people are much smarter and much more on the ball than we think they are. I too as well. And I have been very, I suppose, heartened by the fact that when I go and chat to young people, they get it instantly and they know exactly what you're talking about. And I've had some young people say, I wish to God, social media never been invented.

56:02So in other words, we all believe that these kids are obsessed with their social media. They're only obsessed with their social media, just as if when you were a child, you know what I mean? Maybe you were into, I don't know whether you were into sports or not. Comic or something. Or comic or something like that. that was the bee's knee. So, and sadly, social media is now the comic of the time. But it's a very destructive comic. And it never turns off. And it never turns off because we, instead of making sure all families put their devices on central location, we have to end it. Your book is called Beneath the Surface and you've spent the entire interview talking about other people and dealing with people's problems and your clinical expertise.

56:46But this is all about you. Yeah. So finally, we talk about me. Yeah. Why did you have an issue in your mind deciding to do this? Well, it was very interesting because my wife kept asking me, you know, why are you writing this memoir? Particularly when she saw it, I got very emotional about it, got very distressed because I was... In the process of it. In the process of it, you know, because I was thinking back about times and people that I loved and cared about. I was thinking about really difficult periods of time in my life. I was thinking about lovely times in my life. There's a lovely poem called Moments.

57:22It was a love poem that I wrote for my wife. I talk about this wonderful, special moment when I met the person I love. And it's done from the night the lights went out. Do you know what I mean? in other words, in the great hall in Erdisford Terrace, where I wasn't even supposed to be there, do you know what I mean? One night there was a guy on, Jamie Stone, who kind of, I knew, so I said I'd go down and listen to her, and sure I wandered down, and I looked like something came down from the mountains, I think, and here was this beautiful girl, do you know what I mean? And I saw her, asked her out, and then the lights went out.

58:02And five or ten minutes later, when the lights came back on and she was gone. And I always talk about that was the moment. Because I could have said, my friend was pulling at me saying, come on, we'll go, it's time to go. And he said, no, there's something about that girl. And I went off around the place and I found her. It's like a sliding doors moment. Yeah, just one of those extraordinary moments. And we have, from that moment onwards, we've been inseparable. So this is a love story. So I'll read Moments anyway. This is the book, or this is the poem. Moments, wispy glances, soft and timeless, dreamy hours of time grown still, the gentle hush of a shadowy eve, and the loving softness of a woman's touch.

59:00the chorus of a thousand joy-filled hearts and the swirling magic of a ghost-like dew moments precious, wondrous gifts snatched from the clutching arms of time free from the numbing cares of life untouched by the ceaseless hum and the soulless, mindless chaos of a dreary, far-off world. Fleeting glimpses of elusive peace for the helpless victims of merciless fate. Drass of air for dying embers. Thank you for reading that. That's lovely. Yeah, I see it. Yeah, yeah. So that was, and I actually... It kind of makes, it kind of crystallizes the genius of moments. Yes. How moments are not just moments, they are these special things outside of our normal existence.

1:00:07And we can all relate to those moments. Yes, of course. So. One thing you said there that, of course, it resonates with what you've been talking about. And that is the word love, the word caring for other people.

1:00:25love and caring for other people, I've learned from some reading and maybe even through my own experiences in life, are actually part of the ways that humans actually do best. So a writer I like is a political philosopher called, a modern political philosopher called Rutger Bregman. I'm always talking about him on this podcast. He's done a lot of research on the whole idea, historical research on the whole idea that communities that help each other are happier communities, that people who help other people are happier people by the act of helping. And what he's saying is, it's actually hardwired in us, whether we know it or not.

1:01:05We're being told that we're hardwired to kill, to earn, to be greedy, and to demolish our opponent. Actually, the contrary is the truth, that actually humans do best by bringing the others up. Of course they do. I mean, the... And you also feel better. Yeah, of course we are. If, you know, the best way, I continuously talk about this, the best way for people to improve their mental health, apart from all the normal things that we talked about, is to get out there and start actively empathizing and listening to other people and helping where you can. Or just engaging. And like, Sister Ciarán taught me something.

1:01:46There's a wonderful scene in the book. It's probably the heart of the book, really, you know, and lots of people have picked it out as the heart of the book. And I was in Africa, and we were, it was horrific. There's no other words to, like, you know, people can romanticize as much as they want, but you have to be there to see what I saw and deal with how to deal with, you know. And I remember I was out there for about, you know, maybe six or eight months, and the children were two or three in bed, do you know what I mean? they were so sick we were only admitting the really ill ones the ones who had meningitis the ones who were dying from sickle anemia or malnutrition or pneumonia or whatever it happens to be and you know and the sooner would I clear the world the world and we were full that evening do you know what I mean it was like a non-stop conveyor belt of of difficulties and I remember after about eight or nine months being totally burnt out and Ciarán, who I loved greatly, kind of took me aside and she gave me the advice that I never forgot.

1:02:57It's really at the heart of the whole book, really. And she said, there will always be, you know, wars and problems and famines and difficulties and we didn't cause this problem. It's far too big for us to kind of do anything with. so if you don't understand that you're never going to be of any help to yourself or to anybody else so it was a real wake up call but she said the real secret and she asked me to do this which I've faithfully done for the rest of my life she said the one thing you can do is in that face to face interaction with that one person in front of you who's in trouble if you can help that person that's your job and i never forgot her words because it kind of does away with all the outside interference and negativity and silliness and rubbish and nonsense and it just says no cut out all the crap you're the person in front of me for that moment in time you're the person that i can help i'll do my best i'm not saying i can always help you but i'll certainly try i'll empathize with where you are and you know that is the secret to peace happiness and really to really understanding what love is really all about do you know what i mean it's not it's the romantic love is beautiful but this is is a different kind of love it's a kind of a being at peace with who you are and just how you relate to other people and because i'm able to kind of say, look, I mess up, I'm not perfect, if you're looking for perfection, you're in the wrong place here, do you know what I mean?

1:04:45I'm very happy to say that to people, do you know what I mean? So, it's trying to just learn to accept yourself as you are, do you know what I mean? This is who I am, I'm good in some areas, I'm not so good in other areas, I do my best, do you know what I mean? But I'm happy with who I am, and I will try and help each person that comes my way and I don't care what we talk about meaning at the back of the book I don't care what belief system you have or whether you believe in anything it doesn't make any difference the way to peace is this road so I think that thank you Dr Harry Barry thank you very much Beneath the Surface is a memoir an Irish doctor's journey of resilience, empathy and self-discovery.

1:05:35It's been a great pleasure talking to you. Okay, not at all. Thank you very much. Not at all. Pleasure. And my thanks to Dr. Harry Barry for coming in and talking to me about this fascinating subject. My thanks, of course, to On Ice, our sponsor, Ireland's premium ice skating experience. Get down there. Dundrum and Swords, Marina Market in Cork, as well as Waterford and Limerick. Enjoy Ireland's number one festive and family entertainment this Christmas. but mainly my thanks to you. And if you get a chance, tell one other person, if you can, that you enjoyed this podcast and maybe recommend it to them.

1:06:07Thanks, and I'll see you same time next week.