Hello and welcome to this edition of The Thoughtful Counselor Podcast. I'm Raissa Miller talking today with Jurie Rossouw. Jurie is the CEO and director of Driven, an Australian based company that specializes in resilience skill building. Jurie and his team developed the Driven app, a virtual resilience coaching platform, and created a new neuroscience informed resilience skill assessment tool called the PR6. They have also designed high quality resilience trainings for professionals that can lead to various certifications. The team has continued to innovate in the face of COVID-19, with new programs available for workers with extreme stress occupations, and for individuals who want to help build resilience and others. So Jurie is the author of executive resilience, Neuroscience for the business of disruption, and has published peer reviewed scholarships related to the PR6, which is the predictive six factor resilience scale, and the virtual coaching platform driven. Well, that's a lot. Jurie, thank you for joining me today.
Fantastic, good to be here.
All right. Well, I think the best way to get us started is just to learn a little bit more about you and your background. What kind of what was your journey to being interested in this intersection of neuroscience and resilience?
Yeah, no, it's a good question. Because it's been a fairly long journey for me, I suppose. Because it kind of started with me in my teenage years already. And going through all kinds of you know, things as you go through as a teenager and then trying to figure out more how can I improve my own mindset? How can I be more prepared for all the different type of things that you know that you face, you know, as a kid and, and all that growing up? So it was basically when I went out into the out of school, then going into studies and all that then I started looking more into you know, what can I what can I learn? And what can I study to learn more about these type of things. And so I actually had a bit of a family that was also in psychology so my my dad was a psychiatrist and stepmother was a psychologist and and of course, you know, them knowing so much about psychology then I didn't want to ask any of them about it, I just wanted to learn more of my story.
And I, I had a very, very much a scientific focus I was really interested like, what does the science actually say? Rather than just you know, coming up with all kinds of random ideas is like what what's what is there evidence around so then I ended up going into University started a couple of different things ended up in organizational psychology as well and did a whole lot of research both on the physical health side and then also on the mental health side, because I was really interested in both of those didn't how they come together. So I spent a whole lot of time basically doing a lot of research for myself until I basically got to a point where I felt like like I'm doing really well now and I'm and the the resilience work and all those type of things were really helping me with, you know, work and all these other types of areas that I was in. And eventually I basically got to a point where I thought that you know, I've done so much work on all this and I've done so much research on this and in the meantime, I did some neuroscience studies and all that as well. And I thought maybe I can put a put this stuff together in a program and make it available to other people. Partly because I felt like I spent way too much time having to research and put these things together it would have been nice if someone else just created a program that made it really easy for me to learn. So maybe I could do that for other people and that's basically what that got me into this this whole journey of then starting to publish research started to write books around this and creating more programs that are more easily available for other people to to learn.
I appreciate that motivation initially you're like I I just need to develop more resilience myself. And then that journey eventually taking you to sharing that learning with others. And you're right. You know, resilience is kind of a catchphrase these days. And in certainly my understanding is that the research and practice practices around that have grown a lot in the last decade. And yet, there's not always a clear consensus of what the definition is or what the scientific support behind it is. And, and I do think that's something that your work has to offer. So maybe we can jump to that. So you, you really do add these neuroscience based explanations, you know, you could say, I guess, or for building resilience for what resilience is, in our bodies, kind of from a brain based perspective. How do you define I guess, resilience from a neuroscience lens from the lens from which you've spent so much time studying and kind of shaping the programs you have?
Yeah, it's, it is one of those challenges that we have, where resilience is very much this kind of nebulous idea, and everyone has their own little definitions or ideas of what it what it might be. So that was one of the first things that I wanted to define as well is what what is resilience, actually? And how can we conceptualize it. So in the basically, the way that the very short definition that we use is, is essentially to advance despite adversity. So what that means is that we're constantly moving towards something, we're moving towards that, which gives us a sense of hope and motivation for the future, or something that gives us a sense of meaning and purpose. And we do that, despite all the challenges that we face. And even regardless of challenges, maybe we don't even have that many challenges. But therefore we can be proactive, and we can prepare for what challenges might come. And in that way, we prepare the mind as well. And we prepare the brain for what might happen. And we feel more confident when we face challenges. So that is that idea of it of resilience being both reactive, when we need it in the moment, but also proactive so that we can be prepared. And we can potentially even avoid things by you know, learning from other people and learning about what what can we do to basically to have that confidence for the future. So essentially, what underpins all of that. And what enables it is then the six factors of resilience, which is vision, which is your sense of meaning and purpose, composure, which is more about emotion regulation, stress management, so on, there's reasoning, which is the the more the proactive side. So being thoughtful, being proactive, being an understanding how you can use different resources to overcome challenges. There's health, which is the physical side. So sleep, nutrition, exercise, and actually looking after yourself physically, and how that supports the brain, and tenacity, which is more about persistence and motivation. And then finally, very importantly, collaboration, which is connection with other people, which is one that we see a lot during COVID, especially is that people see relationships with others as a big source of support in in resilience?
Absolutely. Well, since you mentioned the domains, we might have to come back in a minute to some of the neuro principles underlying what you've developed. But I want to follow your lead here with the domains. So the PR6 that I mentioned in the introduction is an assessment tool that includes those six domains or assessment of those six domains, as well as maybe some other components, too. But can you talk a little more about that, you know, how, how did you know that a new assessment tool was needed? How did you come up with like, six domains? There could be 20, potentially out there, right? Or 100? Like, how did you settle on these six? What's, what's the history there? How was that developed?
Yeah, so and this was when originally I was starting to develop the driven Resilience Training Program and all of that, and I and I, my original thought was, I want to use one of the existing existing assessments. And you know, just so I don't have to develop anything that would make my life a lot easier. And then I started looking at all the different assessments and all I had elements that were useful, but none of them covered everything that that I wanted to cover. And this comes from starting to look at, you know, what all the different areas of the brain and things like that, that that underpin all these areas of resilience. So that was essentially where the PR6 is built on a whole lot of other research. And that was actually the first paper that we published in 2016, where we looked at all these different resilience assessments that were big, kind of the the biggest stablished ones, what all the things that they covered, and most of them covered about five of the domains that that we wanted to cover, so they tended to agree on those, but none of them had health as a factor. Though at the time there have been so much research building up about How physical health support mental health. So that was one of the big things that we wanted to look into. And in the first paper where we started to do all the validation research was when we saw that health does actually fit very strongly with all the other domains of resilience. And it has a very strong correlation. And we can include it as essentially the sixth domain of resilience. So that was something that, you know, work together with quite a few other psychologists on as well. And we looked at a whole range of questions, I think we had about 100 or so items that we that we tested, and we can go to down to about 50 questions in one questionnaire. And then we also looked at, you know, the the 16 questions, and we saw that the accuracy from 50 questions, going down to 16 questions, is very similar. And which was, which was important to me as well, because it just makes it a bit easier for people as well, when it's not like a really big long assessment. But it's something that you can do fairly quickly, and you still get a high accuracy result out of that. So So that's essentially where the PR six came together, and then gives us our posting pre and post measurement that we use for a lot of things now.
Yes, yeah. Well, I love that you got it down to 16 questions, because I agree, I mean, even 50, but certainly 100, it's just no one has the time, right to sit and do all that 16 is manageable. And okay, so there's some other good assessments out there. But none of them did include health, which, as you pointed out, is has been highly correlated with what we would consider wellness or mental health components of resilience. So it include what what do you measure with health? Like, how do you what's included in health? Yeah, it's
the the key things that we look for are around, basically, the health hygiene factors like how's your sleep going, how are you is sticking to regular exercise and nutrition habits as well. And also your overall perception of your health because in maybe you're sleeping, and you're eating fine, and all of that, but you have some chronic health issues and things like that, that, that impact you otherwise. So it's, it's basically those four are the key things that we look for. And it's actually interesting, because they're also very strongly correlated with things like depression, where if if someone has more depressive symptoms, then they're more likely to to sleep well, there are more less likely to sleep well, less likely to eat well. And exercise is also more difficult. So there's other things that we see that becomes correlated with with the assessment as well, but which is actually quite interesting because it through using more machine learning algorithms, we can use the 16 questions that people answer on the PR6, and we can start to predict all these other types of factors as well. So that's some new research that we want to publish in the near future.
Okay. Well, it can be very helpful to be able to predict or or kind of anticipate some of the other concerns just from like you said, 116, item question assessment? Well, I think absolutely the PR six, I'm familiar with it as well and have used it with with in our training clinic here at Boise State and know kind of firsthand the practicality and usefulness of it in those settings. Before we because part of the pier six, it's integrated with this virtual platform I mentioned. And I think once we start talking about that, it's going to open up a whole lot more questions and information to share. So before we move too far along that road, let can we backtrack a little bit you've mentioned before that there's these neural correlates, so to speak, or like these, this, these things happening in the brain that are kind of consistent with someone that might be resilient or consistent with someone who maybe has lower levels of resilience? When you did all that research? What functions of the brain or aspects of the brain and neuroscience Did you find were most important to understanding resilience?
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. And, and one of the big challenges, of course, with neuroscience is that it's basically the most complicated thing that we we are aware of in the universe. So it's always helps to kind of simplify it a little bit when we want to talk about it, you know, in these kinds of contexts make it a bit more understandable. So I think one of the one of the things about the brain when it comes to resilience is that it's, I think it'd be hard to just, you know, look at the brain itself, like an autopsy and see that this person was resilient and that person was not just because I think that the variation between the brains would, there's a lot of variation inherent, maybe the hippocampus is a bit bigger and things like that. But I think more aware, we can start to see in the brain, what a resilient person looks like versus the less resilient person is the activation of the brain which areas activate, and which areas activate less. So for example, the in a less resilient person, the limbic brain might activate quite a bit more, there might be less activate activation in the frontal cortex and other areas that might help with, you know, dealing effectively with the situation that they're in. Whereas a more resilient person might have more frontal cortex activation, more activation of the areas that that that allows for a sense of confidence allows force for a sense of broad thinking that can help them figure out like, oh, actually, I can deal with this situation by using all of these kinds of things being very creative, in terms of problem solving. And and even when someone might be more resilient, maybe there's is still limbic brain activation, along with frontal cortex activation. And the difference is more in the sense of what the person experiences. So it's a difference between I want to avoid this situation, versus I want to explore the situation. And having that, that concept of Yeah, okay, this this is this is unfamiliar, or this is new, but I want to think about what can I do here, so that that really is more the, you know, those type of frontal cortex activations and, and other areas of the association core disease, it's that around the brain, so it's more of a whole brain activation almost. So that's one of the things I think we should be able to even explore in something like a diffusion study where you can scan someone's brain and you can read a scenario to them. And you can see what kind of activation happens. And I think you should see a lot more activation in different areas, versus someone who might be less resilient. And so it's more primitive areas of the brain that activates less activation in the other areas. So there's an that's one of the things we go through in the course, where we look at all these different parts of the brains and where they come in with their six domains of resilience. But that that's one part of it is the activation. The other part is more the long term development of the brain. And that's more where plasticity comes in. How do we support neuroplasticity, so things like brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is enhanced by good sleep, and regular exercise and good nutrition, which the more BDNF there is in the brain, the easier it is for the brain to learn and to adapt and to make new connections. Because that's, that's really what a lot of life is about is something new happens, you know, it's COVID, things are changing, I need to adapt to this, I need to think in a healthy way about this. And if we can have those neurons connect more effectively, given the type of change that happens, then we can integrate more healthy behavioral patterns for the situation. So that's, that's almost were very, go ahead.
I was like I, you're saying so much good stuff here, I just have to pause a minute, because something you just said, I think has a lot of relevance for the audience of this podcast, which anyone can listen to this podcast. But I think most of the people listening to it are mental health professionals in some capacity. School counselors, addiction, behavioral health counselors, mental health counselors. And what you just said was relating to how important supporting positive health behaviors, sleep movement, nutrition is to how the brain changes, and most counselors, perhaps would not say it this way. But we help clients change their brains in a positive direction. And so what you're saying is, in order to kind of support the brain changing in positive ways to make that neuro plastic process go more efficiently. They need to, or attention to health behaviors could be really critical. And I just want to slow down to point that out. Because although it's some people do pay a lot of attention to it. I don't know that everyone in the field has caught up to that to understanding how important helping clients engaged in those core health behaviors is to the work they're wanting to the larger work they're wanting to do and counseling.
Yeah, exactly. And that so that's one of the big things that we pointed out in our 2016 paper on the PR6 was Why is health important that why is it important to look at that domain? Because it's not it's something that a lot of people just think about, like oh, it's more about you know, physical appearance and all that but it's not doesn't really matter about that stuff. It's about what environment do you create for the brain that then support healthy adaptation, healthy skills integration and And thereby supporting all of the other domains of resilience that allow us to be essentially protected against mental illness and or to build that sense of protection against that over time. So So yeah, it's it's really fascinating once you look at how the neurons actually connect, and how the synapses forum and how BDNF and all these things come in. So So yeah, that's I'm sure you've you've we've gone through that a bit of the training there with, you know, looking at neuroplasticity, and all that works is the kind of stuff that I love to
do. Yeah. And actually, I mean, just a plug for that. The training that I did, which was the certified resilience coach training through through your program, you do you go into kind of the what's behind neuroplasticity in the brain in a way that a lot of other trainings I've done, because I've been studying this stuff for over a decade to in different ways, the neuroscience and how it relates to change in process and things. But you do explain those components in ways that they're, they still honor the complexity of brain that you mentioned earlier. Like, we have to be careful to, to note that there's a lot of variation between individuals and histories of individuals and ages and so forth. And yet there are some universal trends that occur around how to create change neuroplasticity, you know, and I think you do a really good job of that. One of the things I remember from that training and you might can speak to it more related to neuroplasticity is when it comes to to supporting it. This idea of micro task, can you share a little bit more about how you and your team kind of narrowed in on this concept as critical for building resilience?
Yeah, it's, it's more about, you know, how does learning actually happen in the brain itself. And what is what's more, a more efficient way of learning, that's where, you know, a few and a lot of people have experiences in the real life as well, when you if you go to a seminar, you sit there for for seven hours or something. And then after a while, you know, the information just kind of washes over you. And the amount that you actually remember by the end of it is not necessarily that much, where whereas when we look at how neurons actually connect and how neurons actually make a physical change in the strength of their connection, it's really bad repeated exposure, and repeated activation of that neural connection. So there's a limited amount of that repeated activation that you can do during a single session. Because as you do that BDNF runs out and as BDNF runs out, then it becomes harder for the neurons to create a strong, stronger connection to replenish their BDNF. That's when you need to get some sleep, you need to eat healthy, and you need to do some exercise those type of things, then the next day, then you're more prepared again. And then brain is basically ready again to do some do more integration and more learning. So that's where if we take that same training, rather than doing it all in one day, if we can spread that out over more sessions in a longer period, then you get more of that repeated activation, there's more BDNF available to support the connection. And thereby, we really strengthen those pathways, which, which is really important when it comes to mental health, because you want those pathways to feel fairly natural. When something happens, and you need to use that skill that you've learned, the more natural that that skill is to activate, the more likely it is that someone would use it and they would actually have a better response to the situation that they're in. So that's where that kind of ongoing microtasks training, it's a bit like physical training as well, because you can just do, you know, eight hours of gym and cool now you're done for the year, you need to do it on an ongoing basis if you really want to strengthen your muscles and it's the same type of way that the brain functions as well. So that's where the the kind of micro task approach ends up being more efficient in building those skills for the longer term. And that's where essentially with the app as well, we've designed it to to use these neuroscience principles and make it practical.
Yes, well, let's, let's talk more about that in just a second. I wanted to throw in as you were talking, I had this personal connection. When I was in college, I wanted to learn Spanish it's you know, foreign language you have to take it in university anyway. And I was struggling you know, doing it on campus. So I decided to do the Spanish Immersion program in Mexico so you know, I went to Mexico I supposed to be there for three months. And I went to class every day everything was taught in Spanish the family I lived with spoke Spanish, you know, it's immersion, right, which is also good. I mean, let you know to enter the story. I did learn Spanish, but to your micro task point, and how we don't have an unlimited capacity to to take in new learning. I can remember starting each day at this little big university there in Mexico. Ready to take in? And I would like start. I remember having a history of Mexico in Spanish. And I could like follow it first, you know, like, okay, yeah that the Incas did this, the Aztecs did that you know, and like following tracking, tracking. But man, by the time that bell rang at two and we were going to go home, my head literally hurt. And I couldn't think of how to respond in Spanish if my life depended on it, I was so my brain was so worn out and exactly that I would take a walk outside, I would go take a siesta because I love that about their culture. We all napped at two o'clock every day, and it was glorious. And then like later that evening, or the next day, I felt refreshed and ready, ready to learn again, but I just, you know, I think about that now, I didn't know that them but that's probably why my head her and I couldn't think about how to speak a single word of Spanish after a six hour dose of this whole new, completely new way of learning and speaking and communicate. Yeah, yeah, I'm always gonna think about that. It was not it was not quite the the idea of micro tasking, it was, it was pretty hardcore. And it definitely wore out my brain. So okay, so that was a little aside. But maybe it related to someone listening out there, they can relate. I will say that another unique contribution that your group is added to the resilience world, in addition to the assessment with the health domain, is you have developed a virtual coaching platform to reach individuals and this Mike, you know, with this microtasks kind of structure and framework. Can you please talk about this really novel? And really, really amazing virtual coaching platform driven? How does VR six and resilience?
Exactly, yeah, so basically, the the idea there is that it starts with the PR6, so that for an individual, they can get a bit of insight into where they are. And that's something that just as a starting point, we see as a very important because it gives people that initial insight of, you know, what are my strengths? And where do I have some opportunities for for growth, and that just having that as the initial insight is often what drives more personal motivation to then actually do something about it. So that's where the the app comes in as a virtual coaching platform, which is essentially, essentially through these micro tasks. So basically, like five minutes a day, let's focus on the skills that are the most valuable for you wherever you are based on the assessment, and thereby start to learn those skills or certain bits of psychoeducation. But also practicing those skills more in more of a strength based way as well. So that it teaches people what can you do that can help in all kinds of different situations, teaches them to learn more about themselves, and do it in mostly a chat based format. So you're essentially chatting with the driven AI, which, which gives a bit more of an interactive experience as well. So that if you want to ask some questions, or if you want to take a different route, then you can based on what you're interested in, and thereby it's more personal, it's more interactive for the individual and, and it can also be more reactive as well. So if you're actually not doing that, well, you're not really in a learning mood, you just want to chat and get something out of your head because the coffee shop or your favorite coffee shop is closed because of COVID. And, and it's really annoying you or you know, or something, you know, much worse happened, then you can take that time as well to chat with the app as well. And just get those thoughts out in a more structured way. So, of course, driven is not a full psychologist all by itself, it's just a bot. So it doesn't necessarily replace psychology, luckily for all of us, but it is useful as a tool for personal reflection, getting thoughts out and starting to think through things. And as you do that, then the AI starts to look for what's the mood that you're in? What are you talking about? Is there something that it can recommend in that moment, that might be useful to basically just get you get you back on track, and get you to a healthier state of mind. So and that's where in counseling, it's often a useful tool that a lot of psychologists use as something that people can use in between sessions, so that it's not a case of something bad happened. Now I'm going to stew on it for the next couple of weeks until I've got my next session. But rather, I can now start now talk to the virtual coach instead, and already start to come back to a bit of a healthier state and then talk about that, you know, eventually in but probably in a more positive way because you've got more of a story about how you helped yourself rather than, you know, having to wait for your next counseling session. So So yeah, that's basically a whole big component. program is all kinds of different courses that we have in there. Even things like high adversity, resilience, which is used by responders and soldiers, people like that. And all types of different resilience programs, it's very comprehensive app that people can use from a virtual coaching perspective.
Yeah, and you keep adding to it, every time I go to your website, there's like a new, a new focus or a new kind of added on module. Well, and so back to kind of as an as something that counselors could use, along with their weekly sessions, or bi weekly sessions, whatever the framework is, I do think it's probably really useful for clients when they're distressed, but also from that skill building perspective. And back to the whole idea of micro task, you know, if you're only meeting with a counselor for one hour, or 50 minutes a week, there's only so much skills that can be built during that time, you know, if it go if but if they're able to do five minutes of something a day, like a mindfulness exercise or something, like that's just going to make the whole process of change that that much quicker or that much deeper, I guess you could say.
Yeah, and that's, that's always the thing is, I guess, as a counselor, like, it'd be great if you can just spend like, a couple of days with every client and just really learn and get take the time to learn all these skills properly. But, you know, when do you ever get that, that 10? So it's, it's like, we know, what can you do on a little bit of time, and thereby then using these things to then you know, start learning those individual skills more as a way to enhance coaching and enhance counseling. So that's one of the big ideas of this is it's not that, you know, driven is there to replace counseling, it's more how can we enhance those services and achieve greater outcomes, and it becomes much more likely that you you see your client the next time, and they actually have some positive stories to share and some some wins, or they're made in the meantime, because they've learned these things, and by themselves and have more of that sense of agency, within themselves as well.
And yeah, it's a good direction to go and when when they need you last, right as a as a mental health professional. Well, I and two, I think there's a lot of apps, there's probably even a lot of full blown virtual training programs out in the world that that say they address mental health in some way. But in so it can be hard to weed through them and to know which ones are worth it or helpful. And I think that the the scholarly peer reviewed publications, you all have add some credibility in that process of being able to say, Okay, I mean, yes, this app isn't for everyone, no one, no, everyone doesn't love the same thing, or one thing isn't helpful for everyone. But I think that it's worth considering in the sense that you all have done research to back up these ideas that you're sharing and the program you're doing, you know, there's there's some credibility behind
it. Yeah, that's, that's one of the things that's very important for me as well is that we constantly publish research. And because it's basically for me as well, because I want to know that what I'm doing is actually making a difference. And it's, I think, really where the research comes in. And then yeah, just actually sets it apart from everything else as well. So yeah, exactly.
So let's unpack a little bit because, you know, it's, the app is really, really cool and useful. But I want to give people a taste of kind of both within the app, and just in general, what are some of those kind of neuroscience informed activities that promote resilience in each of these domains. So if you could just kind of give us a taste like if we're talking about the vision domain, what might be some things that people could do to build resilience towards having greater vision?
Yeah, so on the vision side is very much about that sense of meaning and purpose. So one of the things that we go through there is developing and helping a person develop a sense of resilient, like a resilient vision, which is more around a sense of purpose that can't really be taken away from you by in a circumstance or something changing, because for many people in what what gives them a sense of meaning in life is attached to something more physical, it might be attached to a person, it might be attached to a job, and something could happen, and then suddenly, you lose your sense of purpose. And it's in a big sense of turmoil. One of the big examples there actually is one we're working on more recently, which is firefighters, when a firefighter generally have a very strong connection to the job themselves. That's really what gives them a sense of purpose. And then it's when they retire, that is the highest risk of suicide because they they basically lose that sense of purpose because what are they now and they've been so connected to that. So one of the activities we do there is to essentially shift that sense of purpose towards something that is more resilient in a sense, which is rather than my purpose is to be a firefighter. My purpose To help people or to protect people, and that is something that I can do in all kinds of different ways. So I don't do that job anymore. Now I do it in some kind of other way. Maybe I do volunteering in the community, or if that's some other way that, that I can do that. And from that, then we can start to look at, you know, what are the more kind of tactical type of things like what are the goals that I have more the short term things, what am I actually going to do, which then connects to that sense of purpose. And we can start to create a sense of congruence as well. So that all the different things that you do, in some kind of way connects to the sense of purpose, so that all the things that you do gives you this the sense of flow that yeah, I'm, and it comes back to the definition as well, like advancing despite adversity, so maybe you have a setback in some other area of your life. But the other things that you do, is still moving, moving towards what gives you that sense of purpose. So there thereby there's all these little activities that we do to get people to look at the sense of purpose, what are things that that they can look at, in terms of their goals? How can they structure things? How can they? How can they even cut other things out of their lives, to make things simpler, make them more decisive, make them more confident in all kinds of situations, because they have more sense of clarity in their mind about what is really important, and what isn't. And that's one of the things that on the neural level, that's really important. Because if you have that clarity, there is less activation in the limbic brain, when you face some kind of difficult situation or, or so on, because, you know, really what's important, and you can more easily figure out what's the right path for me to take here. And then you have more confidence in that situation, or in that scenario. So yeah, a little bit around the vision.
Know that actually, that helps me even understand it in a deeper way. And you mentioned neuro like the neural reactivity, when you're facing a challenge. It's almost like having clear vision around this area preventatively or ahead of challenges, kind of like cuts out all the noise, you know, you don't have to worry about some things because your end goal is clear. So related, I know all these are related, and it's hard to talk about them individually. But And yet, there is some uniqueness each one. The next one I have written down is composure. Now, admittedly, this is when I did appear six, this is where I scored the lowest. And I don't know if I'm alone on this, because composure, when I think of poker, I think of emotion regulation, like when you're challenged when you're stressed. How, you know, how do you maintain a sense of steadiness and groundedness and responding in a way that's not too reactive? And that's hard. That is hard. So what are the activities that during that the driven platform has or resilience in general, your Resilience Program has in general to support composure?
Yeah, now, that's a good one, because composure, actually, because we've been looking at the charts throughout this whole COVID period. And composure as a single domain has been the most impacted out of all the domains like it's taken this big dive during this whole pandemic. And since everything started, so And yes, composure is really about how do we regulate limbic brain activation, so that emotional and fight or flight response that we tend to have, you know, when we face all these different situations, so with with with composure, so some of the big things that we look at is more emotional understanding more emotional granularity, so that and for some people, they have two emotions, and I feel good, or I feel bad. But you know, can we get a little bit more granular there and understand these are the different types of emotions, there is usefulness within all the emotions, all the emotions that we feel, tell us something and starting to appreciate that more in terms of taking the time to think about okay, this is making me feel like this, why is this the case and basically opening the gate to start to explore your own beliefs? And and start to question is this useful? Is this is this emotion helping me to achieve my sense of meaning and purpose? So because all of these things connect together, of course, and and then beyond that learning more techniques about how can we reappraise that emotion? Can we look at it in a in a slightly different way? And that's, you know, the classic example around. I'm feeling anxious about this meeting coming up. Maybe I can reappraise that as feeling excited about it. Because the emotion intensity is very similar. The physical sensations is very similar unity might be a little bit jittery, which is the same when you're feeling excited about something. And if you make that kind of shift from something that's a bit more negative to something that's a bit more positive, than it actually changes how your brain activates, it actually changes The ending your arteries and all that because with, with a more panic type of situation, then the arteries might might widen more. And you might have a stronger heart rate and all those type of things. But if you shift the emotion, then it changes your breathing, it changes how you think about it. And you actually start to behave and perform better in these different situations just by kind of consciously shifting your emotions a bit. But it does require a bit more understanding of emotions, and an acceptance of it as well. So those are the kind of strategies that we explore in in the app as well and get people to actually practice that in the moment as well.
Yes, yeah. And I think that's where some from my memory because of course, that's what the app activities gave me to work on first, was with some around some, yeah, I love how you say emotional understanding, because I do think that I mean, it's not like it's taught in most schools, or at least not in a way that students remember. So understanding how our emotions work, and, and then ways that we can, can shift them. I like that word shift, not necessarily reject or change, but just kind of helps shift them to be more useful for us in the moment, just a little bit. Mindfulness comes to mind, like being able to accept be curious about just kind of distance yourself a little bit from them enough to, to know what you want to do with them. And I think that's an important idea. Certainly. Okay.
It's like developing that sense of curiosity about your own mind.
Yes, yes. And it's can be very hard to do. And that's why I think this preventative aspect of resilience is really important, too. You know, it's like if you've built some of this ahead of time, but you can still do it in the moment. It's not that you can't, you know, but certainly value to doing it ahead of time. Okay, third domain reasoning, what kinds of activities support reasoning?
Yeah, so reasoning is one of those interesting ones, because it's one that not a lot of people think about when they think about resilience, because reasoning is much more being proactive. It's, you know, what can you do on a preventative level, it's also more the, the higher brain thinking to, to explore your own mind more in challenging your own beliefs. So in many ways, the composure domain is the gate opener for the reasoning domain, because reasoning is very much the frontal cortex, activation, but to activate the frontal cortex, we need to kind of calm down first. And, and that's, that's one of the big mistakes we tend to make when you know, when you know, we've got a partner who's, you know, feeling pretty unhappy, we tend to go in with the reasoning solutions, but you should actually focus on the composer's solutions, which is, let's work on the emotion first, let's calm down first, and then once we're in a calmer state, now we can activate the frontal cortex and talk about the reasoning solutions, which is actually the more practical kind of kind of things that we need to do to actually, you know, physically solve the problem, but, what we talked about in the Okay,
I was, well, I was just gonna say, it makes me think our I don't know if you're familiar with Bruce Perry, the neurosequential model here in the United States, he's, well, him and Oprah actually just published a big book on what happened to you, but he developed this, this framework of regulate, relate, and then reason. And so when work with children, I mean, this is specifically for children, but it's exactly what you just said is its reasoning, reasoning. And reflecting is third, when we're talking about being in a state of distress, first, just kind of get in there, use some composure techniques to regulate, connect, which I guess we'll get to when we talk about collaboration, but and then you can reason so it's not that it's not important, it just you have to think about a sequence, so to speak, in terms of engaging when someone is is already activated or distress, so but when you can, when you are at a place to reason, what does that look like to have skills in an area or to build the skills in that area?
Yeah, so So two that that I'll mention there. So one of them is actually about investing in resourcefulness. And in building our own ability to be resourceful. So resourcefulness of course, is you know, being able to use what you have access to, to solve in whatever challenge that you're facing. And and I think a lot of us don't necessarily realize how many resources are available to us these days, when it comes to you know, connecting to different people or finding things online and learning about things and learning about other people's experiences with you know, the kind of challenges that we face. So it's one of the things that we can actually develop by just starting to, to build our own resourcefulness and do more research. And then we have more of those ideas in the back of our mind, so that when something comes up, we can remember like I write about this thing, and actually, I can solve this in this kind of way, which gives us more confidence as well in everyday life, that whatever comes up, we'll be able to deal with it. The other one that I'll mention as well is, is a little bit of a stoic type of technique, which is negative visualization. So not usually visualization is more around, you know, picture something going right. And you know how amazing that would be. This is kind of the opposite of that worry, actually picture something going wrong. And you notice, what's the mental impact of that? Is this going to be a big thing is it's going to be hard to deal with? Is it going to be all kinds of big impact? Because of this thing happening? Like, you know, like losing your phone? That's one of the easy examples? And what's all the impact of that? And then thinking about if this is going to be a difficult thing to deal with, what can I do now already to reduce the impact of that or to mitigate it? Or to even accept the the consequences of that? So you know, can I make sure all my contacts are backed up? Can I, you know, have a backup phone, they're like, my old phone, I'll keep it around instead of throwing it away. And, and doing little things like that. So that in for all these type of things that you start to think about, then you just have more of a sense of confidence at the Enter, generally, life is sorted, and whatever happens, I'll be okay with it. The caveat there is that it's not about us worrying more about more things. It's more about how can we develop that sense of confidence that I'm generally on top of things in my life, and thereby also developing confidence in your ability to deal with whatever thing happens, like even if it's something that you haven't thought about, then you start to realize that well, there's always a way to deal with, you know, things that happen. And there are always options, there are always things for me to explore. And thereby you just generally feel more confident was was was the life and challenges and all of that. And that's, that's part of what comes through that thinking ahead. Idea of reasoning.
Yes, yeah. Well, no. And that's, that's is important, like you said, not to ruminate on everything that could happen. But if I think especially if you find yourself worrying about a particular thing, or to just spend some time thinking, are there ways that are there things? Are there steps I could take right now, that would, as you say, mitigate maybe some of that impact. I know, for me, I don't have great vision. So these glasses are, like, very important to me. And so I wrote, like, in my glasses case, I wrote, If this is found, you know, contact this phone number and email it to you know, because I want to make sure if that glass case falls out of my purse when I'm at the gym or out in, you know, like, I need to get these glasses back. And it's so funny, ever since I did that I've relaxed a lot. So I think, yeah, there's 1,000,001 things, you don't want to spend all it wouldn't be healthy to spend all your time, like coming up with contingency plans for every possible bad thing that could happen. But I get your point, like for a few things, that would be particularly bad for you. Are there things you could do now? To help?
Yeah, and it's, it's yes, it's kind of funny, even with with all this COVID stuff, because one of the, one of the habits that I have, and it's almost kind of out of laziness, as well, that I buy food, like a couple of weeks in advance, so that you know, I don't have to worry too much that if something isn't there at the shop, then you know, at least I've still got the food for for that for the next while. So then when COVID came around, and all the panic buying started, I was like, oh, you know, all these things I've been doing for last 10 years, you know, no matter
how adaptive your little your behavior was. Wow. Yeah, yeah, no, here, do you know, the I don't know in Australia, but here the toilet paper thing was really big. And I'm on like, auto subscribe for the toilet paper. And I had kind of gotten ahead where I had like a couple extra cases in the garage. So we became like, you know, the local like spot to get extra toilet paper because I like had this unintentional back order. Who knew that was gonna become so useful last, you know, or March or April of 2020. Okay, so fun to talk about these personal quirks because they do all fitted right to our own way of expressing Yeah, expressing resilience. Okay, another one. Now, I had not seen this word used to describe a component of resilience as much and these other models exist, tenacity, how, how, what kind of skills go into building tenacity, what does that look like?
So tenacity is really about the sense of persistence and motivation. And I think it's kind of the one that a lot of people in a way associated with resilience because they think about bouncing back. And which is part of that that idea of tenacity, which is like, you know, I have a setback but you know, I'll keep going and I'll, or I'll find the motivation to keep working through it. So tenacity here then with the that ability to be persistent is really what and support you know, the other domains as well, where You know, we have a sense of vision. And we've spent, you know, the time on reasoning to think about how am I going to achieve that vision? And what am I going to do around that? Then there's all the setbacks that come along the way. And we need composure to kind of manage our emotions around that. And then, you know, activate tenacity to say, Okay, let's try again. And let's, let's keep working on it. So tenacity there then has all kinds of different skills that come into it. For example, being able to manage criticism that we might get from other people. That's, you know, because it's one of those things that can, you know, suck away motivation? Because it will someone else's saying that they disagree with how we're doing things. So then how do you manage that type of thing? So thereby, we, we, for example, look at what's a way that you can manage criticism and look at it more in a way that is more constructive? In terms of evaluating like, is this is what this person is saying, helpful to me? And is it something that I actually want to consider? Is it something that I'm already working on? And going, almost going through a bit of a checklist in terms of thinking, is this something that I need to take on board or, or not? And thereby, as you think through it, then there's less reason to become an almost less reason to become reactive to that. And it's more just to think of thing of like, Yeah, is this useful to me or not? If not fine? If it is useful to me, then actually, there are some ideas that I can take on board, and I can use it, but there's no real reason to get upset about it. And there's no real reason to, to reduce motivation through it. So there's all kinds of little skills like that we'll look at even things like time management skills, like how can we effectively use our time, which again, is more of a practical kind of application of resilience, where it's not just a mindset, it's very much about what do we do practically as well? And little things like, can we say no, to more things? Can we learn little skills to procrastinate less and, and also give ourselves more breaks and understand more? How do we, how do I function best? And how can I work with that? So a lot of it is that individuals learning about themselves too, because we all have our own different ways in which we function well, and, and what doesn't really work for us. So as we can learn those type of skills, then we can use it all to build this broader sense of persistence and motivation. And we understand more, how can we re motivate ourselves when motivation might go down through being stuck at home for a long time? Or something like that?
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I routines disrupted for who knows how long? Well, that's your right. Bouncing back is a component of or the very definition a lot of people use to describe resilience. But do we always know what skills contribute to that? And I, and I think you just described a few very practical items that individuals could work on, in order to not just say I want resilience, but I this is, you know, how, how to grab that aspect? Or how to develop that aspect of density? Well, another domain you have is collaboration. What are some skill building ideas for increasing collaboration?
Yeah, this is a big one, of course, because it's all about human relationships, and connecting with people building support networks. And an interesting thing there is that, when it comes to, to support networks, particularly, there is the actual support that we have available, you know, maybe there's a bunch of people who are ready to support us. And there is our perception of support, like do we realize that there are people there who will support us, and it's really the perception of support that is the big contributor to our own sense of well being because quite often we won't realize or we don't think about the type of support that is available, and therefore we feel very alone. And, and that reduces your sense of well being. So one of the exercises, even that we go through is just a very practical type of review and kind of cataloguing like, who is actually available and going from, you know, family and friends and all that even, you know, into an internet groups and meetups and support networks and pets and things like that, where all of these type of things provide some kind of support for us, and then starting to reset our own understanding and our own perceptions. That then gives us a new sense that actually I am a lot more connected to people than what I have realized before. And and then of course, we go into all kinds of other things like communication skills, how do we talk to people? How do we build relationships? How do we keep relationships going? And and now Don't try to avoid us slowly becoming more isolated, especially with technology, which is a big challenge these days where we have a lot of connections and people that we're connected to on social networks and things like that. But not necessarily that many people that can actually share the deeper things in our lives about anymore. So it's like the number of connections increase, but the depth of the connections decrease. So how can we try and avoid that so that we can keep investing in those meaningful relationships? So that's, of course, one of the big things we're doing recently with, like resilience first aid, which is a new course we're launching there, which is really teaching people how do you have those connections? How can you even talk, you know, using all these different resilience domains, and and really support resilience within each other? Because it's, it's that concept of connected resilience, which is not just resilience for the individual, but it is about how do we connect together and create resilience within each other through the support that we can have, and through the language that we use? So that's one of the things that we're, I think, really need these days.
Yes, absolutely. And I mean, when you think you've mentioned at the beginning, like, we all know how important relationships are. And I think too, about narrowly, a lot of times we hear the brain referred to as a social organ. And I don't know how anatomically correct that is. But that's always kind of stuck with me in the sense that our brains function most efficiently and effectively, when we are interconnected with others to meet the demands of life. And especially in clinical settings, it's no doubt that we could tell someone that a relationship, you know, having good relationships is important, but usually why they're coming to counseling is in some way related to not having good relationships, and relationship skills. So I really like that your domain emphasizes this and that your program is able to not just say, Hey, by the way, relationships are important, but also give you the skills to engage in those relationships in in healthy ways, and in ways that are, you know, constructive. So, yeah. So important. And then last but not least, and I only save this for last, because we've already talked a little bit about it. But you might could argue it should be first is the health domain. How do you help individuals? Or like, what are some examples of activities you have people do to build this domain of resilience?
Yeah, well, and in a way, it's the simplest one. And in a way, it's also the hardest one. It's, it's about how do you stick to healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy habits. And that because there are there practical things asleep is one of the biggest ones that are a big challenge to a lot of people. And sometimes it's it's easier in terms of improving sleep quality, that's one of the big things were asleep is not just about the quantity of sleep, but it's actually about the quality as well. And there are little practical things, again, that you can look at, like you know how much light is coming into the room, there's even a small amount of light in the room during the night that can already reduce sleep quality. And, and the flow on effects are so big from those type of things. Because if you're waking up kind of tired ish every morning, and it affects you know, how you react during the day, there's more reactivity in the limbic brain so that everything is not really as nice as it could be. So there are a whole bunch of little things like that, that we look at even in terms of how early before bed to take caffeine, can we limit that so caffeine is more on the early half of the day, so that the effects of adware off and you can get better quality sleep, because if you have caffeine in about six hours prior to bed, essentially reduces your sleep quality by about one hour. So and similar for alcohol as well, like a lot of people drink alcohol to get to sleep. But it also reduces sleep quality, even though it helps you get to sleep faster, you sleep worse, and you don't wake up feeling as good. So there's a whole bunch of little things like that, that we can look at. And and then exercise as well. It's also changing a little bit. How do people think about exercise for a lot of people exercise and it feels more like punishment, and they don't necessarily want to do these big gym sessions. So can we frame it more about how this is important for your mind and important for the brain? And can we do something that you can do consistently like even if it's just going for a walk every day? Something really simple because it's much more important to do exercise consistently, versus doing something really big that you would only do for a couple of times, but it's too hard and you don't want to do it. So and that's it's it's almost a reframing for people, how do they think about exercise and nutrition as well and doing little things to improve sleep quality and it's just making those little incremental changes that can then get people to start to experience that physically and see the benefits from it, and then get more buy in to say that yeah. Okay, you know, I'll keep doing this. This is not too bad and it's doable.
Okay. Well, and like you mentioned earlier in our discussion of health, those types of incremental behaviors in a positive direction, support any other change you're wanting to make in the brain because it really helps increase BDNF and, and other kind of activation related neural components. So I think, I think there is value in pointing that out, because it isn't, as you mentioned earlier, just about how you look. And in fact, that can often be demotivating. For people, they don't want to focus on that, or they don't want to feel like they're doing these things for other people that by focusing on what those behaviors, how they impact your nervous system and your brain, like, that's a whole different emphasis.
Yeah, exactly. And just get people to understand more, what's the importance of this and, and, and if they can see that the the investment in it is not that hard. And there are so many other things that they can benefit from, because it supports all the other domains of resilience and how you reinforce that in the brain. And all the benefits that come from that, then it just becomes more likely that people will say, Yep, cool.
Yes, I get that, get that buy in. Okay, well, we are coming up at an hour. And I know that you have many things to do today for you. So I don't want to talk too much longer and take up too much of your time. But I will just kind of end this by by saying that you have referenced a few things about how COVID-19 this pandemic that we're all living through right now has impacted resilience challenging, as you mentioned, particularly the composure domain, perhaps because of that chronic extra stress that wears us down day to day, as well as the impacting our relationships and collaboration. So I can imagine, people have had to rethink like how to connect with others in a meaningful way to maintain resilience, and even related to vision, I mean, how to how to rethink what your purpose or might be, in what you're doing, because you've had to step back from things you've done before. So yeah, I think if if, if ever, there was a time to talk about resilience, and intentionally build resilience, it would be during the times that we're all living through right now. You have developed many programs, you've mentioned the ones and working with firemen or medical personnel, you've mentioned in the first aid. Where can people find out more about what you're doing and get access to these trainings and materials? Where should they go?
Yeah, so they can go to our website, hellodriven.com, where we have put on resilience, first aid as well. So they can also go to resilience first aid.com, as well, we'll go straight to that section, which is really the the program that we've developed throughout COVID, as well. And essentially, as something that a lot of people have realized is that they see their friend struggling, they see family struggling, they see their colleagues struggling, and managers seeing staff struggling as well. How can we have more conversations about this? How can we learn how to talk about the six domains for of resilience, and look at the highs and lows and understand what they are, and have more of that language that we can use, also more in a proactive way, so that we can have more everyday conversations about these things. That is, I think, is really important now, because rather than us waiting for someone to be depressed before we finally talk to them about it, how can we start to have more conversations now that builds relationships that builds understanding and support and thereby we can start to build this protective mindset that protects us against that mental illness uniforming down the track. So that's really what we do with resilience first aid as as a certification courses entry. That's a you know, two day course that people can attend. And thereby learn more about how can we talk about it? How can we have really, really positive conversations and more fun conversations about this as well, which is one of the things that we're trying to change is it's not about these really difficult mental illness conversations. It's more about strengths and things that we aspire to, that actually helps us to really understand each other and support each other. And and that's part of where we're creating these resilience first aid kits as well that people can get with more physical materials as well to get some of these mental ideas into the physical world. Like the fridge magnets that that I've got, which is all these resilient skill tiles that you can build out. This this map of resilience, like where some of the the organizations that we're working with or getting this to put up on the the fridges like the fire stations or putting it on the fridges there and other organizations and it just makes things more visible, it makes it easier to talk about it. And, and since he keeps these ideas alive in people's minds, that I think is really important because it's essentially, exactly as we talked about earlier, those kind of micro task approach, which is, you know, ongoing activation of those areas of the brain that builds those skills, embeds it and it makes it more natural for people to activate those, those resilience skills in the longer term. So a whole lot of interesting things like that that's on the website, or Hello, driven.com. Yeah, so happy to chat to anyone who wants to go into it in a bit more detail as well. So we've got some information sessions and things like that, that we run as well that always happy to do get people on board and see, and how can we build more resilience and more people, because I think that's one of the big changes that we can make to really reduce mental illness around the world.
Absolutely well, and we will include all of that information, like the links in the show notes. So if you're listening to this now, and you found this conversation through the thoughtful counselor website, or one of those, you can go there as well to find some links to the hellodriven.com and the resilience First Aid website. So hopefully, this conversation has sparked individual's interest in resilience, I think a couple summarizing statements that I've taken away from learning about this resilience model is one, resilience can be built, it's not something that you either have or don't have. And I think that's not everyone's aware of that, you know, some people think you're just born with that tendency or not, but to know, hey, there's actually things you can do very specific things that can shift the brain in ways that promote what we call resilience, the other piece of it is just going through something hard does not necessarily equate to resilience. You know, in the sense that that's, that's called survival, and people go through terrible, awful things and survive. But they don't all go through terrible, awful things and come out on the other side, as your definition advancing, despite diversity, they might be treading water, they, you know, again, might be surviving, but they're really not living a full life that is, you know, full of some of the things that were mentioned today around the domains of purpose and connection and, and health. And, and so, yeah, I think that's really important to point out. So I'll let you have the last word, any other thing that you wanted to share with our listeners about? Resilience, neuro resilience, all of that kind of fun stuff?
Yeah, no, thanks. I think that the one thing that we're focusing on these days is to, for all of us to essentially be more aware in terms of how we connect to people and how we can support each other as well. And I think that's one of the one of the things that we can, as individuals do is to become more of a source of hope and support for all the people around us. And start to think about it from that perspective, as well as about how can we support resilience in others? And how can we use language that that actually supports that and creates a bit more of a sense of hope and optimism for the future that is a bit hard to find these days. So how can we just become that and thereby start to build that more in a community resilience and connected resilience? So that's it for me.
Well, we will leave on that really hopeful and inspiring note, it's not just about the individual it's about our society and our world and and both creating resilience within ourselves but within within our interconnected systems and communities. So well thank you again for joining us today and I hope that that listeners are really taking away that sense of there something we can do to promote resilience.
The Thoughtful Counselor is, Désa Daniel, Raissa Miller, Aaron Smith, Jessica Tyler, Stacey Diane Arañez Litam, and me, Megan Speciale. Find us online at concept.paloaltou.edu. Our funding is provided by Palo Alto University’s Division of Continuing and Professional Studies. Learn more about them at concept.paloaltou.edu. The views and opinions expressed on The Thoughtful Counselor are those of the individual authors and contributors and don’t necessarily represent the views of other authors and contributors or of our sponsor Palo Alto University. So, if you have an idea for an episode, general feedback about the podcast, or just want to reach out to us, please drop us a line at thethoughtfulcounselor@gmail.com. Thanks for tuning in and we hope to hear from you soon.
