I have my friend 739 now
on your Sunday morning.
Of course, May is now mental
Health Awareness Month.
But as many of us know,
maintaining mental health is something
that really takes work year round.
So this morning we are joined by Doctor
Carl Clark with Mental Health Center
of Denver to really discuss how to
boost your own well being and better
safeguard your own mental health.
Doctor Clark.
Good morning to you.
Thank you so much for waking
up early with us.
Good morning. Happy to be here,
you know, Anoosha and I were
actually just talking about this
in the commercial break about how
it's really up to us to kind of.
Protect ourselves and make sure that
our mental health is getting what it
needs to withstand a lot of different
things that are beyond our control.
We understand, especially given
the past couple of years.
A lot of people are now struggling
with their mental health.
Is there a truth to this?
Yes, you know prior to the
pandemic one out of 10 adults
would report anxiety or depression
and it's three times that number.
Now it's been hard for young people,
so we see an alarming rise in youth,
mental health issues,
and it's pretty much across the board how
COVID has impacted our mental health.
Yeah, you know. Not just COVID.
But when you turn on the news,
we unfortunately have to talk about a lot
of things that are beyond our control.
Terrible things we're talking about.
Inflation right now, that's really
impacting everybody's everyday lives.
We're talking about the war in Ukraine.
There's a lot of heavy stuff here,
so with these things that
are beyond our control.
I mean, how do we go about
trying to improve our well being
in the face of so much stress?
Oh yes, the science is really good here.
There are things that we can do
to power our own well being.
We are deeply social creatures and
connecting with other people is one
of the best things that we can do.
There are things that we can do
with our bodies that will help.
Their minds being physically active and a
most important one is getting adequate sleep.
30% of adults in the US
don't get enough sleep.
Then there's this idea of looking for
the things that we're grateful for,
and practicing gratitude and taking
time to think about those things that
were grateful for the last thing is
that being in touch with our emotions,
sometimes we have this idea that
if we just bury our emotions,
sort of like a beach ball.
We're trying to hold under the
water that beach ball is going
to come up at one point,
and it's important to be in connection
with our emotions and unpack.
Why we're feeling the way we do,
and this is where some
people sometimes need help.
Yeah, that's a great picture that you
just painted there with that beach.
But I kind of want to expand
a little bit more on that.
I'm really excited about some of
the projects that we're doing here
at 9 news for this upcoming month.
A little bit of a teaser there,
but one thing that you had
mentioned was kind of being in
touch with your own feelings.
We just need people to even
recognize that maybe they are.
Struggling with anxiety, depression.
One something under the umbrella
of mental health in general.
In order to get them any kind of help, right?
Yes, you know it's very interesting.
Sometimes we think if we ignore
stress that we'll be better,
but at when we acknowledge stress,
it actually moves us from being reactive
to a proactive way of unpacking.
Why are we stress and
what can we do about it?
And you know, the mental
Health Center of Denver,
y'all are doing some really incredible
work to really highlight well being,
can you tell us a little bit about
some of the efforts you are doing?
Well, so one thing is that I
recommend the science of well.
Bing course, the most popular course
of all time at Yale University.
It's free. It's online.
It's a minimum time commitment.
It works and then our website does
have well being resources a whole
variety of things that you can connect
with everything from books to read
to other courses that you can take to
address what might be helpful to you.
And do you mind giving us your
website just really quickly for
anybody at home that would like
to go check that out? Yes, it's
mhcd.org. It's very easy and then
click on the well being resources page
alright perfect Doctor Clark.
Thank you so much for taking the
time this morning. We very much
appreciate your help. You bet
you know it's exactly what
you and I, I mean honest.
What we talk about every morning time,
I mean I what we're working on here
at 9 news I'm so excited about this is
just we had to have those those you know
what I call these come to Jesus moments.
It's like oh I'm actually struggling here.
This hit my stomach,
it's anxiety. It's not.
It's not just a you know something
that's going to go away here pretty soon.
Something I need to learn how to manage
right? And I think that what is
a really important conversation
that's happening right now?
Is how do you take that first
step and that it doesn't have
to be anything gigantic, right?
It can be feel really overwhelming to
try yeah and get the help and stuff,
but like hopefully we'll help people break
it down of what is something you can
do today that maybe it takes 5 minutes.
Who is someone you can reach out to.
You know all the things that are manageable
and listen, there's not a one
size fits all. It's not that easy.
You know what works for me,
not why not exactly for somebody
else. But the one thing that we all
have in common is that some point we
got to recognize what we are up against,
we have to recognize.
Ideal, I have severe anxiety that
I I manage every single day that I
have to get out of bed and I have to
learn how to manage this in the news.
We unfortunately have a lot of
things outside of our control that
we have to deal with.
You recently just had to
kind of discover your own
trouble. Yeah, you know.
I mean, mine was postpartum depression
after having the baby and it we I
hit rock bottom and I had to my
family sat me down actually and said
we need to get you to somebody to
get some help you know and and that
was that first step was just saying
OK you know let me hold your hand.
Get you get you to a place where
we can start working on this
and exactly I was gonna
say that's the important
part. The one last thing that
I'll say about all this is just
recognizing what you're up against.
That is the biggest piece for hope now
that we know this. Ohh there
are ways we can treat this.
There are ways we can learn to manage
this relief of saying and that is the
strongest community I have found is
actually everyone who's shared their
experiences and I have to say for me,
one of the biggest things has been exercised,
even if it's just a half hour.
And when keely? Comes on and talks
about having a pleasant day out there.
Yeah, no, it means so much because
sometimes the only exercise I
get is 1/2 hour walk out and with
the stroller and the baby right.
And so it makes a huge difference
in my day when we have a nice day.