- Hi, everyone.
Welcome to the Daily Homeroom Livestream
Sal here from Khan Academy.
For those of you who are wondering what this is,
this livestream is something we started
as soon as we saw schools starting
to get closed around the world because we saw,
we can support folks with all the content
and all the software that we we put out for free.
We started running parent teacher webinars,
and we said, look in a time of social distancing,
it would be pretty cool to have a place
where we can feel connected,
or we could talk about interesting topics,
some of them relevant to the crisis,
some of them may be allowing to get our minds
out of the crisis.
So that's what this is.
And I like to remind everyone, we are not for profit.
We can only do this work and everything else we do
because of philanthropic donations.
So if you're in a position to do so,
please think about making a donation
I do wanna give a special shout out
to several corporate partners who've stepped up
in the last few weeks,
especially when they saw our costs go up
because of the crisis,
Bank for America, Google.org, fastly, at&t and Novartis
and I also wanna thank the many other philanthropic
and corporate partners who allow Khan Academy
to do what it does.
With that said, we were running at a deficit
even before this crisis,
and we continue to run into deficit
because our costs have gone higher.
All that support has really helped.
But, we still need more.
So if you're in a position to do so,
please think about donating so that many many
millions of folks around the world can continue
to benefit from from this work.
With that said, I have a very exciting guest today.
We have Adam Brown is joining us from New York.
He's Associate Professor of Psychology
and director of trauma and global mental health lab
at The New School for Social Research.
So you can imagine what we might be talking about today.
So Adam, great to have you here.
- Thank you, Sal.
It's so nice to see you and to connect with you today.
- Yeah, and just to remind everyone,
I think you already get a sense of the topic
we're gonna be talking about mental health,
we're gonna be talking about resilience.
We're gonna be talking about neuroscience.
So if you have questions about any of those things
now or during our conversation,
please put them on the YouTube
or the Facebook message boards.
We have team members who are looking at those comments
and they'll surface them to myself and Adam.
But Adam, before we even jump into the questions,
I think we have a fun connection.
Between us, the famous Nadia that many people know
was the cousin that I started tutoring when I was 11
when she was 12 years old, I was in my 20s.
You have now taken over as her advisor.
(laughs)
- And have been so fortunate to have come into her world
and to be able to work with her
over the last couple of years.
I don't have to tell you how remarkable Nadia is.
But the fact that she,
has that connection to all of your work
is just really wonderful.
I had just hired Nadia as a research assistant when she,
she just graduated Sarah Lawrence.
And in the commencement address,
someone brought up your name,
and mentioned that a Sarah graduate
had been the first student of Khan Academy.
And I think that's Nadia, that's so great.
And she's and I'll talk about some of her research today.
But yeah, it's been great to be connected to her,
your family and now to be able to talk to you today.
- But one of the most common questions I get is
whatever happened to Nadia and I always call it
Nadia's like there's a lot riding on your success now
because if you're the first student,
(laughs)
you're the no, but I think that's a really fun connection.
As you mentioned, she is now working with you
and thinking about things like,
neuroscience and and mental health.
So let's, just jump into it.
A lot of, when I read your bio, you talk a lot about trauma
and post traumatic stress disorder,
before we even go into how do we deal
with these types of things or what might cause it,
what's a definition for these things?
We hear a lot that we hear the words thrown out.
But what does it mean in your sense?
- Yeah, that's a really timely question.
A lot of people have been asking me what is COVID-19?
Is this traumatic?
Is this just stressful?
It's hard to know, we're actually conducting
a survey right now with thousands of people
across the world, actually trying to answer that question
in terms of how much it disrupts people's lives,
how long is this gonna impact people?
To what degree is it going to impair people's ability
to focus to do their work to be caregivers?
And I think one of the things that we're seeing already
is no doubt a lot of people are feeling very stressed,
feeling overwhelmed.
But at the same time, people are being able
to maintain abilities to connect with one another,
to engage in their schoolwork,
to care give for family members into friends.
And in terms of definitions, one thing to think about,
different kinds of symptoms that we see different types
of changes in thinking and behavior and emotions
that somehow reflect the kinds of
adverse experiences people have.
And so, when we think about stress,
we tend to think about increases
in arousal people's fight or flight responses kicking in.
And when we think about trauma, we tend to think about
more long term lasting, negative changes,
people having memories that are really upsetting to them,
behaviors where people might not wanna think about,
talk about or revisit places that were really difficult
for them, and then maybe feeling really jumpy,
startled and easily agitated by reminders of that thing
that made them upset.
And one of the things to keep in mind is
we're in this really strange moment where it's,
COVID-19 continues to unfold.
So the whole notion of posts traumatic stress
is based on this idea of an event is over.
And then we kind of see how people adapt and respond to it.
And one of the, I think, uniquely interesting
and challenging things is that we need to find ways
to support each other throughout
the different phases of this.
And some of these phases, I think are gonna be stressful
in ways that other phases will feel challenging
in other ways.
And so yeah, I would argue that in many ways,
this is a sort of collective trauma,
it's gonna be harder for some people
than others no doubt.
But I think we'll also see a lot of people emerge
quite strong and resilient from it,
especially if we put into place certain support systems
and practices throughout this time.
- That's actually a fascinating definition.
Because I think in kind of I had always had
a colloquial sense of these words,
but I think that stress is something that physiologically
you feel it, you can even observe it
but it's as a short term phenomenon,
a year later you might not be able to detect either
in yourself or in someone else that they went through
that stress with trauma,
there'll be some manifestations of it.
- And what I like to tell people is that I mean,
the goal of life in general and the expectations is that
not to never feel stressed.
One of the most ancient hardwired things
and probably most universal thing we share in just about
every species is this fight flight or freeze response
that when we perceive threat or danger,
our body almost unconsciously prepares itself
to either runaway to attack or to camouflage itself.
And we share this mechanism, this is really evolved
to keep us safe for a long, long time.
The key is not to feel stressed.
What I love to see teachers and students and parents
and other community members doing is
thinking about ways we can support each other
to come down from that stress.
This is gonna be a moment where we hear
something on the news,
you'd have a conversation with someone
that ramps up that stress level, that's normal,
that's natural and it tends to be temporary.
But then, we need to have other practices in place
to help us come down from from that response.
And part of what Nadia actually has been working with me on
is actually to target certain parts of the brain
that kind of do that, there are inhibitory neurons
without getting too scientific too quickly,
that actually signal down to our fear centers of the brain
to say, you're right, that was pretty stressful.
That was really a fear provoking response.
Let's calm down from that now,
that's not an immediate threat that we need to deal with.
So that is one way that I like to think about
the difference between stress and fear,
and maybe something more long lasting, like trauma.
- And so what can you do to, what you just described
to fascinating that there are these inhibitory neurons,
how do you get them to inhibit the stress response?
And I guess a corollary question is how do you know
whether what's going on inside of you is,
a healthy stress that we all feel versus something
that's getting worse than that?
- That's really good.
I think to the second part your question,
to me would like to think about duration and intensity.
So all of us, I mean, everyone listening in today,
I mean, if you're anything like me, first of all,
you're going through a roller coaster of emotions
every single day right now, there's so many unknowns.
There's so much that's unpredictable.
And at some point in the day, you have that feeling of fear
or worry about what's happening in the world.
I think what we all wanna be paying attention to
is the frequency in which we experience
those kinds of emotions and the intensity,
how much are they disrupting our ability to concentrate
to get tasks done, to be a caregiver,
to take on the different roles that we assume,
if we start to notice that they're happening more often,
and that we're really unable to do the work
and play those roles in our lives that we need to,
that's when we might wanna start thinking about
where do we get additional support?
How do we get additional help right now
to take care of ourselves and others?
How do we engage those parts of our brain
to send those inhibitory neurons,
I think the nice thing is there's lots of ways to do it.
There's no one way.
But one of the things that we're learning
is that there's parts of our brain,
especially something called
the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the DLPFC,
if I could have a favorite part of the brain it's probably--
that's up there.
Because what we've found that it does is that
when we're looking at something really scary,
and we reinterpret that as something less threatening,
less dangerous, something we can contextualize and adapt to,
that seems to be the part of the brain that we recruit
and engage in it has those neurons that kind of
sent back down to parts of the brain called the amygdala.
There's a lot of ways to engage it.
We found a lot of good evidence that things like
mindfulness based practices are really good.
We also find that when people are engaged in things
that they're committed to that they're really focused on,
where they're really not thinking about the past
or the future, but they're really just involved
in that work.
We seem to really be able to tap into the prefrontal cortex
in really important ways.
And specifically the ways we've done this with Nadia
to bring her back, into this.
She'd done some really interesting studies
where we have people recalling memories.
Where they think about times they overcome challenges
and adversity, and then apply those lessons learned
to the current moment.
Now of course, COVID is unlike anything
we've ever experienced, but we've found that
when people recall memories of mastery,
and overcoming adversity, it's subsequently seems
to help people engage that part of the brain
when they're confronted with new challenges.
So that work is ongoing, but it seems like an exciting way
that we can deliberately target
that part of the brain right now.
- And what would you say is the common thread here?
I guess, maybe first, it might be useful for folks to just,
you mentioned mindfulness, that's a word that people
might have heard before.
What does that mean to y'all?
And I guess what aspect of that does mindfulness meditations
or whatever you think is doing the trick here?
- There's so many different ways to engage in mindfulness.
And for those who are less familiar with the concept.
We know that from various practices,
whether it's meditation, whether it's something called
progressive muscle relaxation techniques,
where you just kind of slowly tense up different muscles
and relax them.
Whether it's things like yoga,
whether it's even taking a long walk, slowly,
any practice in which you are deliberately engaging
in slow diaphragmatic breathing, belly breathing,
where you're really not thinking about the past,
you're not worrying about the future.
And importantly, you're not judging yourself
for how you're feeling.
You're just allowing yourself to recognize
whatever's going on in your mind, whatever is going on
in your body, and just allowing that to be
and kind of allowing that to pass.
What we've seen almost across the board is that people
who spend even as little as 15 minutes a day
engaging in these different kinds of practices
show quite a bit of reduction,
not only in terms of our perceived levels of stress,
but also have some really great
neurological benefits as well.
And mindfulness won't cure everything,
but in a moment where a lot of things
feel really unpredictable, and we might be pretty hard
on ourselves as students, as teachers, as family members,
this is certainly a practice I've been recommending
to people as we need to be very self-compassionate,
and kind of focused on the moments where the big picture
is so full of different variables.
- Just you describing that I started breathing
a little bit deeper, I started tensing
and relaxing some muscles and I started thinking about
the present and not caring.
(laughs)
- I want (mumbles) so that one's on me.
(laughs)
- Sounds, sounds good.
Yeah, there's something you touched on.
And there's a question here from Facebook,
which which is interesting.
Arsalan Ansari asks,
"Can stress be beneficial sometimes because you did mention
"that there might be aspects of this
"that make us more resilient?"
- Yes, in a couple of different ways,
and if we think about stress as a motivator,
there's certain kinds of stress that's particularly helpful.
What we wanna think about in terms of stressful experiences
are things that we find intellectually engaging.
So I think, thinking about the classroom,
what kinds of activities give our students
a sense of purpose, meaning and direction,
at the appropriate level.
So things that are challenging, but not boring
and not overwhelming, in which they feel like there are,
either teachers, parents, others who can scaffold
that experience for them.
But that really directs them towards inactivity
and towards problem solving.
That kind of stress is really good stress.
And the really cool thing about it,
is that we actually see neural benefits associated with it.
For example, we know that mildly stressful challenges
for young kids in the earliest stages of development
are critical for brain growth.
And similarly across the the lifespan,
when we look at older adults who take on new challenges
that are somewhat uncomfortable,
but they have to really stick with it,
like learning a new language,
maybe picking up an instrument, it's pretty difficult
at first, it can be a little stressful.
But that commitment to learning that new task actually
can support brain health in a lot of really important ways.
So the idea and I should also say,
there was a great study done by Dan Gilbert at Harvard
a number of years ago, where he would text people and say,
"What are you doing right now, and how happy are you?"
And frankly, when people weren't doing anything,
they weren't very happy.
When we're just mind wandering,
and we're not really paying attention to things.
We're not so happy.
But when we're engaged, when we're focused,
when we're challenged at the right level,
it's a little stressful, but it brings more meaning,
it brings greater levels of happiness,
and I think ultimately does make us more resilient.
- That's fascinating.
You mentioned for very young children,
that these mild stresses are actually essential
for brain growth.
What are examples of those miles stresses?
- I think about, a lot of the work that's gone
into social emotional learning with kids
where the idea isn't to tell the child exactly what to do
but you put them into more open-ended scenarios
where the child gets to explore on their own
the way they might use materials,
the ways that they might problem solve.
I'm thinking back now to my kids when they were
two and three and having their first classroom experiences,
and just watching them negotiate social relationships,
even at those very, very young ages.
Sometimes that's kind of messy,
and it's kind of a little difficult,
but through those interactions through them,
trying to really discover how to work with materials,
I'm sure with your kids as well.
You see this really wonderful mastery type thing
that happens when kids are challenged
and a little bit stressed where they might try
the same thing over and over again,
until they really get the hang of it,
like going down the slide
or being on some kind of equipment
that's kind of challenging at first.
We see kids really playing that out in a lot of scenarios
that ultimately, I think, in part why we see
that investing in early childhood education is so important,
is because kids are really getting to experience
the stress that comes along with that.
But then being able to resolve it
and ultimately overcome it.
In that practice that process again and again,
is so important for long-term well being
in good educational outcomes.
- That's very consistent with a lot of what we talked about
when we talk about mastery learning and students being
in their kind of zone, right at that learning edge
slightly out of their comfort zone,
but not too far out of it.
So it makes a lot of sense.
It's very much I think, for anyone who does exercise
or trains or weightless, there's a obviously
a very strong analogy with what happens with your muscles
when you when you stress them.
Obviously, you don't try to lift 500 pounds,
your arms might fall off, that's not good, that's trauma.
(laughs)
But if you lo--,
you're able to lift five, 10, maybe 20
maybe whatever your zone approximately
that actually can put some positive stress and you grow.
So it sounds like there's a very strong,
a lot of parts of our body work that way I guess
is one way to think about it.
So that we're getting a lot of questions here on well,
from YouTube, Wade asks,
"What are ways you can recommend to encourage someone
"suffering from depression to drop healthful habits
"at this time of remoteness?"
- That's such a good question.
One of the biggest things that I would like to emphasize
is that we've come a long way I think with even Sal,
even the fact that we have this space right now
to talk about mental health I think signals
that there's a greater openness to talking about
these issues in ways that a few decades ago.
We never would have been sharing in this way.
So that's already a great sign.
And we need to go even further, though,
I think to really destigmatize what it means
to be a person suffering with mental health issues.
One of the things that I would recommend is to really think
about talking to people about that mind body connection,
that when you We're feeling down when,
we're feeling depressed or really sad,
it's not only taking a toll on us mentally,
but we actually know there's quite a bit of brain science
to show that it's taking a toll on our bodies as well,
that our immune systems are neurological functioning,
all of this in some ways being impacted by depression.
And what's really interesting is that when we see
people getting help and getting support,
not only do we shorten the length of how people,
how long people are depressed, but we actually reduce
the number of times in their lifetime
that they also have more episodes of depression.
So I know there's a long standing feeling like depression
and mental health is something that's hard to talk about
with each other.
But to be honest, the sooner we can open up with each other
if we're struggling and the sooner we get support for it,
the shorter will be the less intense it will be
the reduction and impact on our bodies, ultimately see
and I think ultimately, those kinds folks
won't be showing fewer of those negative behaviors.
So we just maybe try to have those conversations
around both the physical and mental sometimes
that's a really good way in.
- And you mentioned these supports, obviously there's the,
you can get true support you can go to be able to get,
medical help go to a psychologist or psychiatrist.
A spectrum of other things, are there other activities
that someone could engage in that could help habits?
- Yeah, absolutely.
So what I like to think about mental health is
and if you look at the statistics,
almost everyone in the US, for example, at some point,
we'll either experience a mental health issue at some point
or know someone that does, it's about one in five adults,
it's roughly one in six kids.
The numbers are pretty staggering.
But that doesn't mean that everyone is experiencing
very severe mental health issues.
And there will be times when people do need
that more specialized care,
but I think there's a lot that we can do for each other,
especially right now to help us weather
some of these anxieties and depression that we might feel.
I mean, a couple of really basic things that people
can be thinking about are not even the mental health things,
but our brains crave routine.
To the extent that we can be structuring our days
in ways that mimic life pre-COVID would be really,
really helpful.
Making sure that you get enough sleep.
I mean, I can't tell you how many studies come out that say,
if there's one or two things you can do for yourself
around mental health is to get a good sleep habit.
Good sleep hygiene, not only reduces mental health issues
following trauma, but also helps people bounce back
even faster if they've been through some kind of upheaval.
Social support is probably one of the biggest I mean,
there's a lot of really interesting genetic studies,
for example, showing that people might be more
or less sensitive to different kinds of stressors.
But if they have good support systems,
not thousands of you know followers,
but even to people that they can reach out to to say,
hey, can Can I get some help with this right now?
Can we talk a little bit,
we see dramatic buffering of stressors in people's lives
if they've got a few people.
That's especially true with kids,
there's a long history of research to show that
children growing up in really difficult circumstances
if they have one adult, one caregiver in their life
that they can go to, they'll they tend to do significantly
better over time.
And then it was in the last thing is just having something
in your life that brings you a lot of joy,
a lot of meaning that you can really stay committed to
throughout whatever else is going on in your life.
So those are some of the common elements that we see
that can really support people even in addition to
or separate from therapy.
- That's super helpful.
I think people hear a lot about sleep
but I think what you just said super,
underlines it even more like don't think of it
as something that isn't nice to have,
it is a must have it and and having even that one person,
ideally more that you can just open up and support you.
That's very tangible, and I think doable
for hopefully a lot folks.
From YouTube Ng is asking,
"What do you recommend to help kids who are a bit negative
"in outlook especially when faced with a challenge
"even slightly out of their comfort zone?"
- That's a really great question.
And sometimes those kinds of thought processes
are a little bit hard to shift.
But they're I would get back to that idea
of mastery and experience.
And sometimes just having a conversation with an adult
or a child, you're not really going to convince them
that working on a task or taking something on
is gonna be good for them or fun or meaningful,
I think it has to come through experience
and thinking creatively about what kinds of activities
you can give them, even if they're skeptical
to try in through that process.
Come out of that with a feeling of accomplishment.
One thing that I want to emphasize there is
it's not only the experience of doing
but it's also the feedback that kids
and adults get after the experience.
And what I mean by that is we have seen
in several studies now, that when you reflect back
to someone, I noticed that you did that well
I saw that you stepped up in that particular way.
I was really impressed that you did that,
we actually find that that kind of social feedback
actually makes people more resilient,
better emotion regulators after the fact,
when they get that kind of social feedback.
So for everyone now, interacting with others,
whether you're living in close quarters,
or you're far away from each other,
just to be thinking about the words we use.
When we point out to each other, I noticed that,
you really handled that well,
I saw the way that you were taking that on,
that actually instills a sense of positivity
and resilience in others.
And so that might be another way to really help
with that negative outlook.
I think that combination of doing and social feedbacks
really critical.
- Now I take that feedback to heart I even think about
even in work, sometimes I get very task oriented
and I'll talk to a team members like, hey,
we're doing this by this afternoon, right?
What is and I think i need to take a step back
especially now but frankly all the ways and make sure
I'm appreciating the things that I am appreciating,
but I'm vocalizing it.
And something you just mentioned,
it even reminds me of some of my interactions
I've been having with my 11 year old lately
where it's actually the roles have been reversed.
We've been playing a lot of chess
and he's getting quite good.
(laughs)
Some of my fatherly ego is being and so sometimes when,
when he has an unusually good movie, I'm like, okay,
he is a piece advantage.
I feel like quitting and sometimes I just like,
okay, you got this game.
And then I've seen that he never quits.
He literally even if I have an advantage,
he will keep playing.
And I've said, okay, you've inspired me,
you've taught me because sometimes he actually comes back
and he's actually teaching me that but hopefully
by me praising his resilience is great,
that he's building that skill outside of the chessboard.
So it gets related to that Mohammed Ibrahim from Facebook
is asking, "how can we make students deal better
"with mistakes, when to tolerate them,
"how they benefit the best for making mistakes
"instead of losing their confidence?"
That's a good question.
We hear about growth mindset, mistakes and failures
but when you grow, but as a parent sometimes,
you knew that when they're gonna pour that milk
is gonna end up with a disaster.
(laughs)
- So I'd like to offer a slightly different
interpretation of that, or maybe suggestion
that maybe others wouldn't.
I would say, look to your parents, your teachers,
other relatives that might be in your life.
That kind of flexibility.
Coming back from mistakes is something that
we've all gone through.
And one of the things I don't think we do enough,
as much as we spend time with each other,
is to really share in those kinds of stories
and one of the things that I've personally found
to be unbelievably helpful, try to do this a little bit
with my kids certainly do with my students also,
is to actually ask them to go back into find stories
of our elders of our family members of our teachers
are role models We connect with,
and to find out from them, when they went through something
that was really hard, and maybe they made a mistake,
and they had to bounce back from,
to kind of think about that perfectionism
that a lot of us carry around.
How did other people manage those challenges?
And what we actually see for some research studies is,
the more we know those stories,
the more we're able to connect with the mistakes
and the successes of people in our lives,
the more we can kind of say to ourselves,
I'm connected to that person, I can't believe
they went through that I can't believe they overcame it.
That kind of helps to contextualize what I'm going through,
and kind of understand it and frame it
a little bit different.
There's the power of those intergenerational stories
are unbelievably helpful, I think,
in dealing with those kinds of mistakes that all of us
will experience at some time.
- Super profit advice.
And some of the hopefully the benefit of this livestream
we've had, some folks who are titans of industry
and it looks like they've just did
everything right in their life, but to have here
you ask them questions about times that they were really,
had made massive failures,
and a lot of us would have been really stressed
or even depressed in those circumstances.
Actually, I'll turn that on you, Adam,
you have anything to share, moments in your life
where you're just like?
- Well, I mean, two things in particular,
one, I tell my students in my lab,
and in my research methods class, every semester,
I hope your studies fail.
I want everyone to experience what it's like
to design a study and it for not to work out.
Because they think from those failures emerges,
often more creative ideas,
that we shouldn't be always looking to just succeed,
but it's really about learning from the process.
And so, to me that's app failure is just as important
as success so much of the time.
I think about my own career to my career
to being a psychologist was so non-linear.
I thought I'm definitely gonna do
something totally different as a career
and was so sure of it, and I was totally wrong.
And that you ultimately led me to something I think
I love even more.
But we have to go out with all of our energy
and our commitment, we have to take
those intellectual risks.
We have to take them with others, as communities in order
to ultimately discover the things that bring us
the greatest meaning and joy.
We won't discover it unless we take those chances.
We have to be, really not only okay
with making those stakes, but I think be prepared for them.
I see them as critical to this entire process.
- Super powerful actually had a conversation
with a close friend a couple of days ago,
and he was telling me he's a professional investor.
And he was saying that he had one of his first investments
few years ago, just completely wipe out, complete failure.
It was a disaster and a lot of levels
and a potential investor in his fund, he met that day
and he was so distraught, even though you
wouldn't normally tell an investor about this disaster
that happened.
He just opened up and how reflective
and that that when the investor heard it,
he's like now I'm ready to invest in you,
because I see how you deal with failure,
I see that you learn from your failure,
I see that you're reflective of it.
And so now I think you're ready to manage more.
So I think other people also see that in you when they see
how you can, when you cope and learn from and grow from
that failure.
Not to get too, I guess, dark here,
because this has been super valuable.
And we're running short on time.
But there's a lot of questions here.
And this one is pretty relevant from YouTube.
Susanna Garcia deMangas asks,
"what is the appropriate way to acknowledge the people
"who have passed due to COVID?
"Or maybe or even sick?
"I feel like the deaths are minimized due to statistics."
- Wow, I could not agree more with that person.
So thank you for bringing that question.
I mean, one of the things that I'm hoping for
and I've been kind of waiting for
are more regular moments of mourning
and acknowledgement of all of the people that have been lost
is something I think a lot of us are doing very privately
throughout our days, but we really haven't had
a sort of national or even state or city level, moments.
There's been a lot of celebration and recognition
of the heroism and bravery, which is really wonderful
to see, especially in New York.
But I agree, I think we need to find ways to acknowledge
and mark all of the loss and suffering
that's been taking place.
And just I don't have a great answer,
but just to say to that person that you're concern is,
among the top three or four things that I've heard
from people at the WHO, for example, around mental health
is, how are we gonna help people engage in rituals
and traditions that are almost always social in nature,
that are so hard to do right now?
So just to say that I hear you,
this is a really big question.
And even the experts don't have great answers.
But for all those on the call or watch this,
just to say, we kind of need all of you to really think
about new ways that we can come together
and support one another in these really, really dark times.
I don't think the answers are gonna come from psychologists
and psychiatrists alone, I think it's really gonna take
a lot of thoughtful, smart and especially young people
to come up with new solutions to how do we grieve?
How do we mourn all of this loss and trauma right now.
So thank you for bringing that up.
- So Adam, we're already over time
these conversations go faster than I ever expect.
There's so much good here.
But this has been really valuable.
I think a lot of very tangible things for folks.
I mean, number one, sleep.
Number two, make sure you have some type of support,
find people be open with them.
And and I guess a corollary to that is
make yourself open to other people
be there for other people who might be
whatever they're going through, who knows,
you won't even know unless you make yourself open.
And then some of these techniques you mentioned,
whether it's mindfulness and other things,
they could be a preventative just So to give you
a little bit more resilient or especially if you start
to feel like your behavior your thinking is getting
a little awry, seek help but also try to build
some more of these habits is what I took away.
Anything I missed?
- Just to be really self-compassionate
and forgiving right now.
I mean, these are really unknown times
that are unlike anything else we've ever experienced.
And I know so many of us whether we're students or teachers,
or parents, we walk around with these models in our head of,
we have to be doing everything just right.
And we need to try our hardest.
That's, of course, but we also need to recognize
that this is a new normal every single day,
and we are working and living and caring in ways
that we've never could have imagined a few months ago.
So please, during these times, please be good to yourself,
be kind to yourself and others.
A lot of this is gonna be temporary.
And a lot of this will be things that we continue
to talk about, well into the future.
But I do think we need to be extra kind
and extra supportive of ourselves right now.
- Well, thanks so much, Adam.
That was super, super valuable.
And thanks for everyone else for joining this session.
As you see, there's just a lot of interesting conversation.
Thank you everyone for your questions.
And thanks for being part of this livestream
and we will see everyone tomorrow at the same time.