I get everyone. Shit, I'm excited to be here. It's four minutes past three, It's Monday. The good doc Mark Cross is here. Tiffany and Cook, who is the Coqueen of typ is here, just battening down the hatches and steering, trying to keep Mark and Iron line. Basically, how are you, tiv It's.
A big job, Harps. It is a big job.
Is it raining where you are?
No?
But it looks pretty dark. It was raining earlier, happy summertime.
It's pelting down over here in the very tropical confines of Bloody Hampton. But anyway, we do what we can. It's Monday, first day of the week. We're sliding like piss blokes in a bar towards Christmas. Thirteen days to go, Oh my god, thirteen days. It's the twelfth. Well, as we're recording this, it's the twelfth. Are you Are you going home to step back in time, back to lawn Seston.
No, I guess no, it's not lawn Sestin for a start.
Good shout out tout my tazzy friends. I really love you. I used to live there. Going it is a bit of a time warped though, God bless.
This year and next year. This is my plan. I'm going to go back in February each year. Have a guess why. I don't know if I've told you, I told.
You, uh, February each year. I know I've got my thing.
My very elite grandfather turns ninety nine this February, so I'm pushing Christmas out ninety nine.
Not many humans, not many men.
Do you know? Only seventeen percent of men, seventeen percent of people that reach one hundred and men.
Yeah, that it was elite. Well, we burn ourselves out because we're dickheads, and we're just we just we just run a Mark I tell you who, I tell you he's not a dickhead, and he's probably going to live to one hundred and twenty, especially because he's sipping on twenty seven dollars sparkling water. So fucking fancy, Mark Cross, you paid too much.
I'm trying to work out when I'm supposed to not to say here, I've got a plotty mouth. I think you've just beaten me in.
No. Yeah, well let's see. I want you to step up to the plate. But it is funny because I do have, as you say, quite a good diagnosis, Doc, I do have a potty mouth. And but what's funny is there's something mystical that happens when people, when really proper refined. Often academics come on the you project. About
halfway through they stumble through the swearing door themselves. So people who would never in a million years say fuck or shit or bum or bugger or bitch or whatever on an interview of any kind, they start swearing, don't they tiff?
Yeah, look what you've done to me?
Yeah? I know you used to be quite respectable anyway, Doctor Mark Cross, let me read some of your bio. Does doctoring differently? The first openly gay man twin Father of the Year, Marcus also lived experience of one of the conditions he treats. He's been anxious since he was for I loved it when I read that. His empathy humor making one of Australia's most life psychiatrists. He's a
psych with clinical experience spanning three decades. He graduated as a doctor in Cape Down Yeah bro Shame, specializing in the UK, and has worked in as a specialist in Sydney since two thousand and five. There's lots more, but we'll hear about it from him, Doctor Mark officially, Welcome to the You project, sir.
Thank you so much. It's just funny that you just said all that. I swear a lot, but I've just mentioned before it has been back to South Africa after three years, you know, COVID all that sort of stuff, to see my parents. My father just burst into tears when you huge me. Oh, it's lovely and you talk about posh, you know, water whatever. I'm a boy from the Burbs and it's like it's always it's always going good,
going back to your roots. Right. So I'm doing a documentary with Allison you talk to her, my manager and best friend. You documentary at my school next year. I'm forty years out of high school. Wow, lovely school, and it's we're going to look at we got to go on from Mardi Gras and growing up gay in the seventies and eighties. Obviously it wasn't that much fun. And now at the school they got the first genine you, toul toilets and trans students going to the metric ball
and it's pretty amazing. So we're going to do it then and now. But of course I go to the school, right and all of a sudden, I realized I'm a person of high net worth to myself. When you talking about I go w TAF in my head. Every single time they're looking at me, and we'll be doing very serious conversations or whatever. I'm going. I rode my bicycle from the birds to school every day.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like I'm just an older version of you? I know you think I'm special and all that bullshit and clever, but I'm not. I'm just you in a different time.
It's a weird thing looking at past cells and now, because it's always part of you, right. My problem is with the anxiety and the constant need to overcompensate for all of that. It's a constant sort of thing in my head. My head never stops, you know, and I'm going, I really should be doing Benny here, I'm going to do this perfectly perfection traits and all that sort of stuff, and then you sit back and go, you know what, there are some advantages to getting old, and this is
part of it. So now it's sort of like, hey, I'm getting a little bit more chilled in my approach to when I see people, and I don't have to constantly think, oh, I'm going to prove something to them that there is that, especially when you go back to your past. Yeah, have to prove something even though you left it.
And it's funny. In some places, Doc, I feel quite competent and confident, not over the top, you know. But and then in other situations, circumstance, environment, people, I can feel like the biggest fuck with ever, you know. So for me, it's contextual. It depends who I'm with, where I'm at, what I'm doing. Like when I started my HD three and a bit years ago, I felt like I definitely shouldn't be there. I'm not smart enough, I'm too old, I'm like every reason to undermine myself, to
self sabotage, to fuck it up. That's all I could think of. For the first six months. I felt like a complete fraud.
Yeah, but you know that imposter syndrome that I am keen sort of you know, board member of committee. It does come out right, But I think that makes you a bit of You're a better person if you have that, rather than being too overconfident, cocky in an arshole. I mean, you know that's.
Are they clinical terms. I'm just I'm taking notes.
It's in the DSM six that's still.
That's hilarious. And so when you when you're reflecting on you in the seventies and you in the eighties as a an overthinking, you know, self conscious gay kid trying to navigate life. When you went back to your school, did stuff come up for you?
I think the first yeares because actually I left. It was so funny because I'm prenny with Osha Gunsberg, right, and I love him. We were on the board of Saying together and during the Schizophrenia Week two years ago, he said, hey, come let me chat to you about you know, schizophrenia and your work as a psychiatrist and blah blah blah, and you start the podcast and like you, he just turned to me and went, so tell me what was it like growing up fucking gay in South Africa?
That's I said, was supposed to be talking about schizophrenia. Now, thanks very much, chat about I did not go back to my school or the environment for thirty four years, and then seven years ago I got in touch with my ex biology teacher. I used her notes in my first year at medical school. That's how good she was, you know, survivgy on that all and she is an amazing woman because she's quite religious. And I thought when I wrote to her that it was all my own stuff.
You know, you got your own stuff from when you're younger. And I took John with me to dinner and she opened the door, gave me a big hug, and there was her gay friends from Amsterdam, who part of a charity that she's also involved with for years. She goes, Mike, I've always been pretty gay friendly and open, and but you don't see that when you're younger and looking inward and worrying about your own stuff all the time. It
was amazing. So yeah, so I've reconnected with my school, which I never thought I would.
How How I mean, I'm sure you've been asked this a thousand times, but as ever, as long or brief as you want, But what was school like for you?
High school? You know, I was a prefect, I did well and was but it was it was completely hidden. I didn't want to acknowledge that I was gay. I knew it, you know, in some level. And when I was fifteen, in my year ten equivalent, I was bullied a bit and it was difficulty at school and I actually i wasn't in the top three for the first time. That might sound a bit weird to people, but it was the only year in the form, and I thought, well,
I did no one pick this up? Right? But I also in looking back, I was quite a strong personality kid too. And and to shows you how young our teachers were out forty years on, four of them are still teaching at my school, and one of them is a school counselor. And I'm going to talk to him on the documentary next time. He's saying, Mark, I didn't think you had any issues. You looked you always looked
so suave and fine at school and you were in control. Meanwhile, inside I was going, what the hell I need help? But nobody picked it up.
Yeah. Yeah, but I think we become and whether or not it's we're trying to hide our sexuality or or something else, you know, whether or not it's you know, anxiety, we're trying to pretend we're confident or or we feel inadequate or imposter syndrome. I feel like there's the persona. There's the the work persona, the school persona, the public kind of thing, and then there's the person underneath it. And opening that door and being vulnerable. You know, that's the challenge, isn't it.
It is a huge challenge and one that I've accepted because you know, go, what do I want to do when I get older? I want to be the real me. I want to be open about who I am. I want to about who I am to the people I treat. And I've had various levels of me saying about that or advice that I shouldn't do that. We got taught at medical school in the eighties to be stiff upper lip doctors. No, bess, don't show anything of yourself. I've just ignored that most of my life, but I haven't
really come out. If somebody asked me, it was it's only women who are menic that ever asked me out right. It's so funny in my work, and then of course I say, yeah, I am. I'm not going to lie. But there was that pressure not to be open, certainly in the eighties and nineties as a psychiatrist. So's it's quite liberating in one level. But I gave a speech about it a couple of years ago and the professor I'm not friendly with you came up to me and he said, Mark you very brave, and I go, well,
why I'm just being myself. That's not bravery, that's that's maybe it is part I don't know's how are we supposed to help others with their emotional journey or mental health journey if you can't be open about who you are and what you are and so many people, most of the people I treat, it's trauma, trauma, trauma, traumaun and because society doesn't accept them whatever was. Of course, I think that's leading away in a way, but because it doesn't make it less anxiety provoking.
But yeah, I agree with you, and I think that if you're the best in inverted commas, whatever that means, you're the best clinician, the best psychiatrist, the best doctor, You've got the highest IQ, you've got the best marks, you've got the most knowledge, but you're an unapproachable prick and I don't get any warmth from you, and you don't seem to care about me, and you've got the emotional intelligence of a fucking stamp, and like, it's one
thing to be brilliant and to understand human behavior and all of that, but we as patients, what we want from you is we want you to give a fuck like I actually want to like you. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are. If I'm not comfortable with you, if I don't think you care, if I don't think you're genuine, I'm not coming back or I'm definitely not trusting you. Even if I have to come.
Back, I agree, I've got and add to that, I could just only openly agree. And I've had to close my books because I'm so busy. So being open hasn't hurt me professionally in any way, or hasn't hurt my career at all, and in fact, it's made it stronger and more meaningful. And you know, I want to be treated. I treat people like my family, or I think would my family if this is a member of my family, this is my son, would I want the doctor or
the team to react in this way. That's why I've always practiced right, and it's and I tell my patients if you're seeing a psychologist or somebody or even a psychotriage, don't have to stay with me, and so we don't gel. That's fine.
Yeah, at the end of the day, if you don't.
Jail with someone, then it's your right to go. This isn't working for me. I don't find someone else. The problem is sometimes you can't find someone else.
That's true. And the thing is, and I've said this before and on this show, you know, like I said to you before we press the go, but not done. How We've done over a thousand shows, and I've got lots of bullshit and lots of issues self doubt and insecurity and overthinking and you know, and it goes in waves of where I feel better or worse about myself and ego and bullshit. And I want you to love me because I'm an only child and I was a
fat kid, and I was all these things. But the more that you know without being too self indulgent or boring people to death with your own bullshit. But for me, the more honest you are and authentic, the more people relate to you. It's like, yes, you're a doctor, Yes you understand the mind, and yes you understand the brain and human behavior, and yes you're well trained and qualified, but also you get them like you get them on a personal level, and they get you because you're kind
of like them, you know. And I think that it's ironic that they say, correct me if I fuck this up, Doc, But they kind of say to you, be a bit of a closed book, don't open up, don't be vulnerable with your patients, don't let them really know anything about you or your personal life. And that's a directive which I think actually produces the opposite of what's required for great session.
And it leads to so many issues in members of my profession. You know, surprise, we've got high drug alcohol rates, divorce rates, especially in the females, and our professional highest suicide rates than the average population. But you still don't It's still considered a weakness. You come for help if you've got mental health issues, which of course I'm trying to break down. Those barriers go back to how we're supposed to interact with someone. Yes, you've got to be open,
and I think COVID showing that right. So look at us now chatting. Melbourne's having a great.
Now I didn't.
I hadn't heard of zoom before. The guy who invented zoom or whatever sold it just before COVID sounds like a lovely guy. When do these things happen? But you know, we all know what it is now, right, and this
is how we can can actually interact. I saw all my regular patients and consumers on my service in their homes for the first time, so you know, they talk about the cats and the dogs and the kids, and couple were smoking in front of me, going hey, doctor, and I can smoke in front of you now I'm in my house, showing me that there was even more of a connection. I think this medium and what am
I supposed to do? A couple of times I was in my gym jams, I was cold and I'm not bloody, changing laugh together and going, well, you know, we don't have to focus on that. We're having a nice chat. How are you doing. Let's just work out how you stay well or we can maintain wellness during this really difficult time. But being open with each other and showing us I was because you still have to have boundaries people,
that's very important. You've got to have boundaries, of course, but they don't have to be rigid, and they don't have to be one sided, you know, one on one. Don't have sex with your patients. I think that's quite a good one too. You go by you.
I stick by that, yeah, I reckon. Personal trainers need to know that. One to doc, because that doesn't end well.
Well, trust if I haven't worked in the gym industry for many years.
So I'll tell you what. There's a whole lot of the dance with no pants that goes on between trainers and clients. Don't worry about that. Oh what, no, fuck off? That doesn't. Yeah, anyway, moving on, So I want to ask you, doctor Mark, if if anxiety is on a scale from say one to ten, could you describe one and could you describe ten? And I know this is a bullshit scale that I just hypothetically created for this conversation,
but if there's a obviously it's not. It's not the same earth intensity or volume or experience for everyone, and somebody's one might be someone else's for I get that, but in general terms, what does a one or two look like? So what does a nine or ten look like?
Yeah? Sure, no, that's I ask people to do that all the time. So one is you're starting to feel that sort of fight or flight sort of heart rate going a bit stem, to feel a bit anxious, sweaty thinking about something that's about to transpire or thinking about something that's not going to transpire. Because that's generalized anxiety.
It's sort and you're starting to overthink. But then you can go, you know what, I'm using my skills and I'm going to go and ground myself and go for a walk and all those sort of things at work, and so it doesn't really affect your functioning because it's always a mixture of symptoms and then functioning, right, so
you're coping. It's affecting you about nothing as sort of grounding mindful technique won't sort of help with TO ten, which is panic attack, and that is where you are so worked up that your heart's and your mouth going one hundred and forty miles an hour, your chests constricting your pupils, dilating you in that really I'm just about to jump the fence with no external danger sort of
you feel you're dying from a heart attack. And then often where people present to the emergency development right because they think they're dying, they're about to faint from all this horrible stuff going in their bodies and their minds, and you cannot talk yourself out of it or use your grunting. That's out of the window, and you're then walking in an increasingly loop wormhole. You're gotting down. That's where I put ten.
Yeah, and I guess when you're up around that nine ten, and then you get overwhelmed by what's going on physiologically in a heart rate, adrenaline, all of those things, sympathetic, nervous system, dad that are and you then you start to think you're going to die. That just as you said, that exacerbates. So what's the circuit breaker or is there not one? Is it just time? Is it just yeah? Rather than I offer answers, why don't you just help us?
No? No, no, it is are you I mean you talked about exercise physiology earlier. I'm really a fan of that now. I mean I think in terms of you learn some preventative measures, so you cut it off at the past before it gets to that point. But then you've got measures in place, skills that you've learned. And this is for people who've had it before. When first when it first comes on, sometimes you're not prepared for it, and then it's bloody awful, right, and then the circuit breaker
often there is getting help. Hopefully you've got somebody around who can talk you down and help you, or you end up in the emergency department. So the circuit breaker is those sort of grounding techniques that we've talk including exercise, and maybe one simple way of saying this is I said to people, you've got the emotional mind, you've got an emotional response, cognition and thinking about things and talking through who comes later. At that moment, you have to
do something physical. And part of grounding techniques is that you know, you go barefoot into the mud or sand outside, you hold it the ice. You've got to do something physical, shock yourself out what's happening to you in your body at the time, and then you go, oh, okay, now I'm thinking, oh that's right. Mindful techniques or exercise, Let me go for a little walk around the block, go kill some tree, bark things like that, that real sort
of physicality that's important, and then come back. Then I can look at some of my more intellectual exercises and start the positive self talk that be useful.
Yes, I make yeah, one hundred percent. And also I guess like even things like so I'm writing notes as you're as you're talking, which is a very bad habit for a host of a show, but fuck, could everyone live on the edge. I'm taking notes because I'm learning
because I'm a student. But also things like box breathing right as well, if you can manage that or just you know that kind of controlled in hold out slow like some of that which kind of can hopefully turn on the parasympathetic nervous system a little bit.
Yes, you're looking at by feedback the stuff that really is useful. Breathing is amazing. So if you look at when I trained, you know, I talked about the relaxation techniques and the needs to have relaxation groups. Yeah, it looked exactly at this a muscle tensing breathing whilst you in that sort of heightened mode. Now I suppose now we talk more about the grounding techniques and it's similar sort of stuff. Right, So breathing is incredible. So I'm a breath holder, so then you even now so I'm
holding my breath while I'm talking to you. Yeah, and there's certain techniques like the holding breath both inhaling and ex Yeah, that's a really useful technique, right, absolutely, like you just mentioned.
All right, can I ask you a personal question, it's not too personal based on our scale that we did before, zero being no anxiety just out of curiosity. What's your number right now?
It's just it's quite low. But it's interesting just to add a little bit of a caveat to that scale. We're talking about the scales of anxiety. So you go from anxiety to panic. Yes, my sort of anxiety, though
it's slightly different. It's that sort of disconnected anxiety, so that de realization, depersonalization where you disconnect but looking incredibly calm, also unfocused because everything's going internal, which leads to the worst bit of that is that dissociation that people have heard about more now, So that's quite I don't associate, but I sometimes feel very disconnected and sort of head with the head going inwards. I'm not eating that at
all at the moment. So let's all users scale. But no, you've really you've put me at ease. But I hope you well make sense of water melon.
Well, you're really good at this, so and that's not me trying to make you feel good. So I want to I want to run a few things that I think can relate to or have an impact on anxiety. And I'm just going to say some words, and you're going to tell me about that thing and anxiety. The relationship if any Is that all right?
Sure?
Right here we go Number one, Sleep and anxiety.
Big, big, big, sleep and mood pivotal. You have to sleep. You have to get good grounded's mindful sleep. You have to have your circadian rhythms in check. You have to have a routine for sleep, early sleep, early wake, and keep this saying routine even if you're doing various other things. Are going out for another that's sure, wake up the same time in the morning, do something. You can go back to bed then, But it's that sleep wake cycle that's really important.
Perfect exercise and anxiety or movement.
Again pivotal. So I look at the lifestyle stuff in every single one of my sessions with my patients. Diet, sleep, exercise. Sorry, maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but in terms of sleep and exercise, not only does exercise help your heart rate and your energy levels and your fitness, it absolutely releases in doorphins, which is part of that lovely chain of events, cascades in the neurotransmitters neurochemicals in the
brain that bring down your anxiety. So that's part of it as well, which is also the sort of triggering for meditation. And yoga.
I feel like exercises itself an antidepressant and anti axiotic.
It absolutely, it's great for any mood. And you know even when you feel I see an exercise physologist altho. I've taken a break now, but over Christmas. And every time you go, like anything, you know with anxiety, you feel anxious beforehand, or you just don't feel like it, or who wants to get out of bed in a cold day? Right the hell? And then you there and doing something, And that's a bit like anxiety itself. It's
always it feels worse than when you actually do something. Anticipation, yes, and then you're there and chatting and stretching and doing something, and when you're feeling not so great at the time because it's actually pushing even the your meaning like Ellen getting I don't wanted any cordivescul exercise today, and then the whole day afterwards, you're buzzing and you interacting better and you're feeling great, and you go exercise does thing to work?
Well? It changes you buy a chemistry, doesn't it. It's like doc, when you you get in trouble at school and you get sent to the principal's office, and you've got to sit outside. You've got to sit on a chair outside. This may or may not have happened to me thirteen times where you've got to sit outside and you're shitting yourself because you're about to get expelled or suspended or your parents are going to you know, and it's horrendous. And then two hours later the principal walks
out and says, go back to your classroom. Because the punishment was the two hours sitting there, right, he didn't need to say anything. The anticipation of the anxiety, the overthinking, the visualizing of all the shit that was going to happen, Like I punished myself for two hours.
Yes, but also you're also exposing yourself at the time to these so then you realize it's getting wor it's getting worse, and then you go, well, fuck it. Whatever's going to happen now is going to happen. It's part of the exposure, which is which is interesting, right, But yeah, so you're building yourself up. But again that's an external event. So that's the one thing I'll say with stress and anxiety, we've got an external event that's causing an anxiety response.
And when that goes, things go down, right, If you've got an anxiety condition, sometimes that doesn't work and you don't have the external response, so you getting this horrible response and it's not linked to anything. Yeah, that's the worst bit because you can just like free float for a long time and you have to work on skills sets and whatever you're going to do to that for for a while longer.
Is one of the I don't know if is this is the right term, but exposure therapy. Like one of the quests I did a lot of corporate speaking. One of the questions I get asked a lot or a lot over the years anyway, is how do I overcome my fear of public speaking? In my answer is by public speaking? Right, Like, you can't you can't get good at what you're not doing. You can't overcome a fear you won't confront, you know, and obviously how you do that?
You know there are levels and there are sizes of audiences, and there are different situations. But is that, you know, like just something that creates anxiety, which might be ten X, we call that that stimulus, that anxiety producing stimulus ten X. If we just open the door on one X, is that a good way to start Or is that complete psychobabble from a bloke who doesn't know what he's talking about.
No, it's very clearly know exactly what you're talking about. It's you just hit the nail on the head. Yeah, the thing about public speaking, but think about anxiety. So I actually perform quite well so and I fun acknowledge that. So it's a lead up to it that then gets so bad for some people that they're and they can't go on. It's not actually the event itself, it's that things have built up so much at that point that they're getting panic and then they just can't do it.
A lot of people, myself included. When you finally there, and that's part of the exposure, you realize, actually if you expose yourself and you rank it so you don't do the biggest one first, the lowest one first.
Progressive overload. We call it an exercise physiology.
And it's similar, and so you rank and you do hierarchical sort of exposure, and so you realize as you're doing it, oh, this isn't as bad as my you know, prefront, all my other parts of my brain that are going into overdrive led me to believe. The problem then is people don't quite understand or except you've got anxiety to go well, and everyone gets anxious before we talk or whatever.
As I said, no, it's the pre people don't witness that often you go talk to my husband and the post because then you become a flaky mess afterwards because going, oh my god, what did I think I'll talk too long when I talked to Craig And maybe I didn't swear enough and I'm not part of the and it's like, you know, it's all that stuff that happens afterwards at two in the morning when you're not able to sleep.
So you've got to look at all those things, but absolutely expose, expose, expose because and the Yerx Dodson curve is a lot of name to it. All the slots in medicine have been taken. Unfortunately, there's nothing going to be named after me. So as you know, you were going to do quite well when something's named after you, and this is curve. It's exposure over time and actually the anxiety comes down.
Right, yeah, it's longer. What about doc the So I'm just holding up everyone a candle, right, just because I know this is not visual for most of you. So I'm holding up this and I go, oh, this, which is just a thing. This stresses me, this causes this makes me anxious. Right. But there's the thing that we say makes us anxious. The stimulus, the external thing. It could be having to talk, It could be seeing a spider, it could be it could be sitting in for a
job interview. Right, whatever the thing, the trigger, the stimulus, the event, the object, whatever that is, there's that which is meaningless and to we're involved, then we give it meaning. Right. So what's the space between the thing and then my story about the thing? In other words, am I creating stress? Or is it creating stress? Is that my stress response to an inert thing?
Again, who knows where it comes from? Right? And it's not logical, that's our point. It's illogical. We used to call anxiety conditions the neurotic conditions versus like as we lose touch with reality. Right. The crap thing about having anxiety is that you know it's logical. You know it's your own thoughts. You know that all the stuff going through your head, all the fears and worries linked to the candle, linked to that, are really.
Quite yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that when you're in the middle of it, all of that cognition and insight doesn't take away the fucking terror or the anxiety.
Like you might understand what's happening, but you still can't turn it off.
No, it's craps. I'll give you a you know, I've got a sleep disorder from the edge of four, I've had night terrors, and yes, in the South African context, you know, there's not it's not without its own issues of crime and whatever. But I'm lying in my house in a very safe part of Sydney and I can't sleep, and I'm hearing noises of the wind and the roof and I know I'm lying there going don't be ridiculous.
This is not it's not harmful. Maybe I shouldn't watch Game of Thrones before I went to bed, hey, or Stranger Things straight to all those things that I love watching A big surprise when coming back to sleep, and when you don't watch TV or whatever before the night, you sleep better. So I've got to listen to myself.
Sometimes you're lying there and you're getting more and more worked up and you can't sleep because all these irrational fears are going through your head, and then you wonder why I actually, maybe you do have anxiety and you're not a fake after all saying these things because you concept you can't scept that is the issue. And of course you know there's there's a link. You've got to try and unlink it in the various techniques I suppose, but some things are pretty hard to unlink.
Yeah, I didn't finish my list. Okay, so we did sleep, we did exercise. Are you kind of opened the door a bit on food? Is there any kind of intersection between relationship between food and anxiety.
I'm really into gut health Nation. My passions are rolling the eyes of me because that's all I'm talking about at the moment.
I love that you said that I was gonna say gut health and microbiome, and I thought you might say, shut the fuck up. But we've we had a prof on last week who did two episodes and we basically talked about everything from gut health to fecal transplants, and he's coming back. It's so fucking interesting. Yep, really really interesting.
And so when I was doing the research in my book, you know, trying to overcompensate for my academic condensing and all that sort of stuff.
Shut up, it's wonderful, you know.
You know, it's a more practical type person. And sugar and gluten really really interesting in terms of mood generally. Yeah, sugar really bad and inflammatory path and so even if you look at the new sort of search on the depression even anxiety, they're really looking at it as an
inflammatory response. There's this really interesting guy called Bretison in the States looking at He looked at this for dementia and he's gone, no, it's not the neurofobulary tangles that we should be looking at in the brain of somebody with dementia. That's the body's inflammtry response to what they're eating.
And that's twenty six leaky holes he talks about in the gut, including sugar and cutting down meat and not smoking and cutting down alcohol and looking at the gut microbiome, but also looking at your vitamins, minerals and trace elements and looking at pill vitamins that actually get absorbed by the body that we don't just p out. And if we look if we even look at what doctors do now that we didn't do forty years ago, three years ago, we didn't do vitamins as part of an a usual
work up for people. We do that all the time. Now. It's part and parcel of what people then go to see their doctors for and come to absolutely expect. The next thing, of course, is a gut microbiome. I think, Okay, we know that we're going to look after ourselves, look at the diet, make sure we get proper vitamins, minerals and that sort of stuff. But now criticism our gut. I love that that need to be fed properly, and actually the food is not that bad most of the
time and we can cope. Yeah, why I say is roll my eyes. I was. I'm also about balance and come on, I just had pizza, wine and chips with my kids in front, and they didn't drink the wine. But that's a thing of joy, and I think you've got to also let yourself just be yourself in Christmas, right, we've got to suspend. We've got to suspend all this stuff every now and then think go, okay, January, I'll
go back on the microbiome and wagon. How old are your kids, by the way, nearly ten and twelve and the twelve year olds already told them in not that that takes much and full puberty and young man studying high school next to a camp believe it goes so quickly, right.
No time for liies? Hey everyone, just in case you wanted to listen to those after you listen to Doctor Mark. Of course, those episodes were Oney and eleven and one thy twelve with doctor Bill Sullivan. The title is Pooh, transplants, antibiotics, microbiome and bacteria, so Oney and eleven and twelve? What about the relationship? And then I'll shut up about the relationships unless we want to talk about tiff because there's just a fucking oh Pandora's box of bullshit going on there, Doc.
If we want to open that, let's talk about genetics and anxiety. Is some people I imagine genetically predisposed to anxiety and depression?
Again, you know, you're talking about cause and effect, and we're talking that age ol. Well, ever, since I was a medical school before, the sort of nature versus nurture? Right, how much how much is it in our genes? How much is it in terms of when we're talking about a history, like when I talk about family history, so I've got a very strong family history of various things,
including anxiety and bipolar and depression. And so the more modern way of looking at that is that you have there's a genetic sort of predisposition or the genetic markers for certain things, including anxiety and depression, and they are switched on. Now, they can be switched on in certain circumstances.
That's when nurture plays a role. And so you know, you go through a horrible experience like being a refugee, and that's why they have a higher one of the various reasons why they have a higher sort of a lord of mental health issues. And so that's one of the hypotheses that I find quite interesting now. But yes, especially with the mood effective illness runs in families.
Just this is a red herring. Do you know a lady called Dr Jody Richardson.
I know the name, Yes, Dr Jody.
We have on a bunch. She has a podcast called well Hello Anxiety, and like you, Doc talks about her. We had out we had the U Project conference a couple of months ago and Jody was one of our speakers. And what I love about her, she's like you, She's just real she's down to earth. And I said to her after she spoke, and she killed it. She did a great job. She was amazing. And I chatted with her on stage and I said, what was your anxiety
level going in? Like and I think she said like nine or something like So honest, seven hundred people in a room, you know, but just killed it and just managed it. And like you just says, well, you know, I kind of live with with it and manage it. And do you think that mental health, which is a very big term, do you think that there are more people with mental health issues now than forty thirty years ago, or just more information and more awareness, I.
Have to say, so, I just say I'm managing it a bit better. My husband wants me to take more things to manage it easier because he has the brunt of it. So shout out to cares when we're talking about these sort of things. Yeah, and sometimes I don't feel I'm managing it. Well. I suppose with experience, you get there and it's so I don't want to minimize, you know. Just that's why I leave everything quite to
the last minute, even talking to you guys. I don't want to look too much because then you build yourself up. So I've learned the uniques, right, that's what that's what you're really talking about in a way. With the rates of mentally onnes no, I don't. Yes, there's more now because I think we're talking about it more right, acknowledging
it more so. My mother even I took me to write my first book for her to finally talk about her brother has BiPOL and my uncle and two of her cousins are suicided and one I think was because he was gay. That's another long story that's never been unearthed. You know, families don't talk about these things, talk about these things. And of course you just had COVID. So twenty twenty University of Queensland led research seventy six million
people worldwide developed anxiety, fifty three million depression. That's a twenty six percent increase from twenty nineteen measure twenty twenty one. Yet twenty two wasn't such a great year, was it. So rates are increasing and you talked about the genetics. I think there are other factors involved in that society. Look at our young you know you're talking about their kids, and have you got kids?
I don't know now I've got too many issues. Thank God I didn't produce any kids, so I.
Wasn't going to look sort of further.
And now it's a fair assumption.
But don't look at me as a gay man. Now I've got to worry about that. The school. So I never thought i'd have to worry about things like that, right, So at least I can go to dinnapology and talk about the same ship. But going back.
To the question, you know, I would love to see you doing fucking kin to drop off and kin to pick up. That would have I would have laughed my ass off.
No, to know what, We've got four parents, right, so the two mothers and the two days. Right, I changed and happiest twice. I will just acknowledge.
That on you need to try harder.
Thank god, my husband decided he was maternal and he was going to do all this sort of stuff. So I put them to bed and I take them to school by So, no, it is wonderful. I don't wonder I don't want to minimize that. It is the most wonderful thing being a parent. To pretend that I'm mister perfect, I'm certainly not. But you know the difference now and I know this isn't quite what you are. So we're
talking about parenting. It's being able to say sorry and that you're wrong and letting your kids tell you when you're wrong. I mean, we would never do that in the seventies eighties. We were just got a backhand, an absolute backhand. And I even mention that to my parents that just love said yes, it was a different time, no shit, but it is lovely cuddling your sons and going yeah, I was a bit grumpy earlier, and hey,
let's debrief about it. And I love that aspect of parenting, even if I didn't want to change nappies.
I think it just means you're you know, you're a bit more evolved, and it's like, this is a this is probably a selfish question, but fuck it, I've got you. Why Why? And I know it's generational and there's no I'm not trying on any level to be critical. I'm more curious, like, why can't some you know, older people, they seem not to be able to tell their kids. I mean, you know, it's like my mum tells me
she loves me regularly. My dad never those words have never come out of his mouth, despite the fact that he clearly loves me, clearly proud of me, loves me. What do you think that's? And I will say, like I spoke to them last night. We're talking about plans for Christmas. They're both still around, thankfully they're both eighty three. And I said, anyway, I see Christmas day, blah blah blah. Mom's like love you and I go love you both, and Ron's just in the background. It's like silent. What
do you reckon? That's about that inability to say to someone that you love I love you? What is that block?
It's it is an older generation, you know. That's that Philip Blake and Pome. You know your parents fuck you up. That don't mean to, but ever fucked up in that time by people wearing frock coats. You know that it's that really difficult thing when they would and I don't lot of them. I don't know if your dad was a vet, all those things. You know that these guys come back from the wall weren't even acknowledged. It wasn't acknowledged that they had issues. And in terms of that disconnection,
I think that really that really didn't help. Plus the whole masculinity stuff, you know, sports, you go out, do you have to, you know, be the breadwinner for the family. Men don't talk, you know, we just have beers and then go back to how you know they're the old family scenario. It's a sign of weakness. It's so sad that being emotional is still seen as a sign of
weakness in us. Men. And a friend of mine runs this guy, this organization called mister Perfect actually Victoria and New South Wales Terry and he he was called mister perfectcause he's a good looking at his lovely wife and mass car house kids, you know, the Australian dream. He was with these mates in the bar one night, four of them, and they were just chatting an event. He just said something clicked on my head and I went, guys, I can't do this anymore. Last week I was suicidal
and I've I'm on medication. And the one guy goes, I've meanting a psychologist for three years. The other guy goes, I've been medication as well for three years. They never talked about this stuff. Wow, this stuff and again, but coming to the emotional it's men are so emotionally disconnected because they weren't taught. They were taught that it's wrong to It's like makes you vulnerable. And that's so sad, isn't it. It's a real.
Yeah, And it's hard when you've been programmed with that, and not only is not only you're not encouraged to talk about your feelings or but you're you're literally discouraged. And it's it's analogous, as you said, to weakness, like it is a bad thing, and then you wake up one day and you're eighty three. You're not going to change, right.
It's interesting among dad's eighty five, and he would have thought, like the whole gay thing, they just did not It was just not even discussed, right, Yeah. And in fact I remember him saying when I was eleven, any gay men masturbator something? I don't know that put my masturbation.
Okay, super guy. Then it was like, oh my god, who say shit like that?
Right?
So who says that to an eleven year old? Firstly, who says that? But then who says that to an eleven year old?
I get hurt? Fine, I mean it was a Although we were quite open about nudity at home, it was like the sex thing. You just could not talk about it, and I.
Don't don't talk about pooing, don't talk about masturbation, yeah, not all.
Those icky things. So it was and he and this is the man. So I finally came out. Oh my god, I wrote them in a letter when I moved to London. That's why.
How old were you at this stage in sex?
Oh?
Wow? You wait?
And they wrote back this letter and I'm going to cry, so you know. And he my mom wrote, and now you're going to get AIDS and I'm worrying about you will He was there in the early nineties, right, And what you wrote it the side was I don't care. I love you, You're my son.
Oh I love that, and I love that over in.
Nineteen ninety four. So I was like, what twenty nine? And I took them everywhere we were on the tube. I'll never forget this, and my father nudges me, go huh, he goes, look, goes with the he goes, look look, look, okay, what I think that guy is eyeing you out?
So here was your wingman. He was trying to find you some action.
I said, God's sake, he is thanks anyway, I noticed him five minutes ago. But thanks for thanks for that. I just thought that was such a like we never really discussed anything, but he was. I love him to be. He's just this guy who changed and now he does. Like Derby and Joan, they live in this little cottage in their their you know, retirement village, and he's just washing up in the lawn round there is the white
South African god. I mean, you know, in terms of man, he didn't even make his own bed and now so there is there is capacity to change. And the way you talk about your dad now he's in the background. He's not minimizing it is then showing more and love is an action. Actually, I quite like that term. He can say things, but I think it's also good showing things and emotions as actions are easier to deal with. And I'll bet you if you give him my hug over Christmas, he'll hug you back. Right.
Oh yeah, I hug him. I hug him. I have to chase him around, but you know, I just pin him. I'm like a fucking gorilla. I just bring him in, but he doesn't.
It was stopped the don't do you know?
My dad? Actually, I think loves deeply, but he can't express you know, my dad is proud of me. Mum says, he's always talking to his friends about me and other people and all of that stuff. Not that I think there's lots to talk about, but he does. And you know, he's I don't think he even understands what a PhD is, but he's quite chuffed that I'm going to become a doctor of something. He thinks that's I don't think he gets what it means. But anyway, Hey, you're a ripper doc.
I love chatting with you. So your most recent book is called I Love This. Everyone listening to this title anxiety expert advice from a neurotic shrink who's lived with anxiety all his life. Fucking best title. How has it gone? The book? I know it's a couple of years now, How has it gone? Has it been well received?
It's great? You know it came out as it literally came out as COVID hit. I was asked the GP conference. I was talking at the stupiest setup. I thought it was joking, but he said, did you wait until the pandemic started?
Yeah?
Well, you said, you know, I know some things, but I don't know when a global pandemic is going to hit our shawes.
I'm not a profit.
It just happened, so that did help. I have to say, some people buy books and anxiety when the world's burning and plaguing, right, So it has done quite well. Thank you for asking. And I'm serously writing my next one now. But I'm managing to avoid it as usual. So we're talking about avoidance and all those sort of things that I'm not very good and I could even avoid talking about it another going definitely. I have to say I haven't met someone who I thought could beat me for
imposter syndrome. But bloody old Craig is doing very well.
I do my very best. I do my best. If there's a scale, if there's a if there's a winner, I'm winning. Hey, how do people find you? Follow you, connect with you? Doc?
So yeah, I do this podcast. It's not a podcast, that's not a direct competition with you guys. So it's it's a Thursday night. We do a live half an hour chat on Facebook. It's also on then it goes onto YouTube and I'm via LinkedIn. I do various things and that's a nice one. It is a nice way to stay in touch. And I do community stuff and
this is a community. A lot of my patients come on family and during COVID, I think we read something like a million people and it was it was incredible because it was obviously struck a chord with people going through anxious times and just a big thing for me. A big thing for me is connection and staying connected with people. That's the people. Sometimes what can I do? How can I how can I stay well? In some way? You have to be connected. We are connected people as humans.
So that's that's one way of doing it.
Love it anxiety expert advice from neurotic shrink who's lived with anxiety all his life. And also, you've only written two books, haven't you? Yeah, and your first book is the doc's first book is Changing Minds, the go to guide, the go to god to mental health for family and friends. So go and buy ten of each of those everyone, if you would. Because Chrissy is coming and the doc's
got a plant. You know, he's got some expenses coming up, so fuck it, live on the edge, stay on the call, Doc, But we'll say goodbye officially here and say goodbye off here in a moment. We appreciate you being on the new project. You're a superstar, great communicator, great teacher, and up duper believable and we fucking love you. Guts, thanks for everyone, Thanks for being had, Thanks Steve, Thanks guys,