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Bella: So what do you think the role of psychological health is in maintaining physical health?

 

Dan: Oh, it's really important!

 

Bella: I see.

 

Dan: In fact your physical... um exercise is really important because um it stimulates your vital organs. It's been demonstrated and so if you don't get, you know, adequate exercise your vital organs, and I would assume when I say vital organs probably your brain too, but I know your heart and your lungs and stuff they actually um start to suffer physiologically if you're not stimulating your brain. Same thing with you, on the converse if you're getting plenty of exercise your organs are getting stimulated so it goes both ways

 

Bella: Do you think that staying like mentally happy, like staying positive doing a lot of mental care, do you think that can impact your physical health?

 

Dan: Oh, definitely yeah. It's what they call um balance or equilibrium or maybe i'm not using the right word but um like I see, a good example, I see these techy guys they're like having this euphoric brain thing where they're almost like having an orgasm like um they're doing this thing with the tech and they're totally charging and doing all this mental stuff but they're not doing physical stuff and like they're sleeping under their desk, they're eating junk food. And like classic example you know Rob, Jay's husband, he's like my age and he is so, he's had you know like 4 or 5 heart attacks he's got 14 stents in his heart and he-it's-it if he can walk to the bathroom it's a major big plus for him and if he like falls down he has to have several people come and help him up because he's like 350 pounds, he's so overweight.

 

Bella: Oh, wow.

 

Dan: And he is like walking around with one leg in the- in the grave. And he's same age as me and at one time he was a really healthy strapping guy. And so that's a good example if you just do one thing, you know just do all this mental stuff, and you neglect your body you know. And now he's got all this money and stuff but he's gonna die any month you know. Every day he's alive is a miracle. This guy’s on LOTS of drugs too just to stay alive.

 

Bella: Oh yeah, oh my god, and you can't get rid of those heart stents once they're in 

 

Dan: Oh god yeah

 

Bella: That's brutal, yeah, you gotta take care of yourself and kind of like the newer thoughts is that there's a really big connection between your mind and your body um and they inform each other and that's why you kind of really have to have both to-

 

Dan: Yeah, yeah! Totally. Exactly.

 

Bella: So, do you know what mental health is uh like what is mental health to you?

 

Dan: Mental health to me is equilibrium it's um it's it basically is all about balance and um one thing that I am doing right now is that I go to these meetings with ACA, adult children of alcoholics, and I see first hand what the effects of growing up in a traumatic environment um these people are damaged as children and they're going on in their lives and it's like they can't have good relationships with other partners or cohorts, or even in their workplace, there's always some conflict because they're still living their childhood they're carrying their trauma and their childhood into their adulthood. You see, you know, adults walking around with little children minds, or you know children that were stopped from developing because of the trauma. 

 

Bella: Yeah! That's a really interesting thought because I've heard a lot about like, there's theories about that, that certain people with um developmental issues, were, it was because they went through some type of trauma as a child when they were supposed to be developing. And that's why it's really bad when people start using caffeine and drugs when they're young because their brain is still developing and it causes the trauma

 

Bella: How important do you think having access to mental health care is like through like insurance or just kind of like availability

 

Dan: Well I think it depends on what you call mental health care, I've seen some people get really messed up with what they call mental health care you know they go to a doctor or psychiatrist and because the pharmaceutical companies have basically written all the the protocol of all the educational processes in the universities, you know you get these psychologists who just you know write a prescription for drugs. And now you got people put on drugs who got you know mental problems and they're just getting worse. And that's where like I've seen reevaluation counseling, they take people that were on that course and they start going to reevaluation counseling and they engage in talk therapy where they counsel each other and people like cured each other and it's been phenomenally successful so I think it depends on what you call health care.

 

Bella: Yeah like the quality of the mental health care, I think it's 

 

Dan: Or who who's who wrote the protocol, is it pharmaceutical corporations that say okay if you got... well one of the really scary things I think, i'm not sure what the initials are I think it's MDA it's like this group of, I think it's a group of psychologists or psychiatrists they get together every once in a while and they make up all these new diseases and they write it and then they prescribe uh drugs for them. So like it's a perfect business model for big pharma and for these guys, and they're writing all these prescriptions and putting all these people on drugs and it's just and there's like no science backed on any of the you know, they come up with this disease, there's no science about it, there's no like studies or clinical nothing it's all they just get together in the meeting and they just decide a new disease

 

Bella: It's surprising how little we know about a lot of like, especially mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. A lot of research is blocked, yeah like I learned in health psychology most clinical studies never get published, especially in the United States, because I mean they don't publish them especially when they didn't find what they want to find, when they find it's not effective or they find that it's dangerous and so like a lot of time drugs will be prescribed forever without people realizing that there were studies that found that it didn't work or was dangerous and people died from that happening!

 

Dan: That's right!

 

Bella: Have you seen any like evidence of antidepressants working like in your community of people. Have you ever like interacted with people who have like talked about antidepressants helping them?

 

Dan: No I haven't um I've heard horror stories of people taking antidepressants and killing themselves and stuff I haven't really come into contact since I'm not in that mode, I'm into like acupuncture and you know massage and meditation all this stuff so I don't really you know encounter that I know of that are taking antidepressants you know

 

Bella: I feel like the only way for stuff like that to work is like a combination [between medicine and other methods] and I think that a lot of doctors don't really consider that at all and they're like um medication, like you were saying, medication is the only way to like go and big pharma has a really big role in that in like that's the only like um real way to like treat disease and that goes for all diseases pretty much

 

Dan: Well the beauty of it is that the brain is very plastic and it it can and it will establish new neural pathways dependant upon what we do so we can retrain these neural pathways and we can make old neural pathways that are traumatic or you know different um negative aspects we can if we don't stimulate those, and that's where I found in my own experience, I used to be get angry really easily and now because of meditation and um different techniques that aren't related to drug or surgery or anything um I can when I feel uh a situation coming up where I start feeling anger, I can take the observer perspective and observe that and say oh I can feel the anger coming up and then I can choose not to get angry I can choose just to observe that and let that go by ok I feel angry, the situation is making me feel angry but I'm not gonna act on it. I can allow myself to feel it, oh I feel angry and I'm upset and stuff, but I'm not gonna act on it. So I'm not gonna regret my behavior later on and so that's very liberating.

 

Bella: I think it's hard though for some people though to break out of their default ways of thinking and like to make that choice to have a different perspective cause you know some people just get so like used to how they thought. Some people are 40 50 they went their whole lives thinking a certain way and it's hard for them to break out of that.

 

Dan: You know I'm 72 [Bella laughs] and I just broke out of it!

 

Bella: Well you've done a good job! Yeah, there's always a chance I think your brain, like I said, is always making new cells.

 

Dan: Yeah, it's very plastic!

 

Bella: Definitely I totally agree with that. Do you think that you personally have adequate access to mental health care? I know you were saying it depends on if you want it, depending on the [laughs] but for the care you want do you think that you have adequate access to it?

 

Dan: Yeah well I don't use the um conventional system, I don't use drugs I don't use people that you go and make an appointment with and they sit with a lab coat on I go to um um meditation uh classes I go to like I said reevaluation counseling, nonviolent communication, and I found them to be, in practicing them I found them to be highly effective and they don't cost anything

 

Bella: That's awesome! Yeah I've heard that too in my health psychology class that like stuff like that can be really effective. It's dangerous to disregard medicine just because it's not what you're used to, the biomedical system. The biomedical system is pretty one note, like oh medicine or surgery but there's a lot of other options!

 

Dan: When I hear medicine I cross out the word medicine and I write drugs [Bella laughs] because if you start using the word drugs like 'oh I'm gonna give you a medication!' 'well I'm gonna give you drugs' you know then you start to get another perspective because that's one of the tricks is that they use the word medicine when they're really meaning drugs

 

Bella: That's true, yeah and it's crazy how like strong of drugs that they'll be willing to prescribe people for like, like prescribe people like Xanax and things like that for

 

Dan: These kids in elementary school and they're giving them like

 

Bella: Adderall? No yeah Adderall literally for ADHD

 

Dan: Like cocaine pretty much 

 

Bella: Pretty much it's literally like crack 

 

Dan: Shows you how really insane and out of control it is

 

Bella: Yeah and then they're kind of dependent on it their whole life which is sad. So what conditions or situations do you think mental care is necessary for?

 

Dan: Uh, can you define mental health care

 

Bella: Hmm.. so mental health care would be kind of any like practice that you think improves your mental health so you were saying like meditation or um that definitely counts. Anything that you would consider that would be helpful in maintaining good mental health

 

Dan: Well I think it's just like anything else like diet, exercise you know it's this is a modality that you employ to you know to either maintain good mental health or to address different uh um things that you're having to deal with yeah so it's a whole spectrum you know you try. Well when I was a nurse, I remember uh head nurse when I was a student and I was talking with her and she said 'well my point of view is to always use the least invasive procedures first' you know, you try yoga, you try physical therapy you know you do all this other stuff, herbs, before you would use drugs and surgery 

 

Bella: Totally.

 

Dan: And that made a lot of sense to me!

 

Bella: That does make a lot of sense, and this question is getting at kind of severity of the situation and like whether you think it'd be necessary to kind of like seek out help for mental health care so this one says kind of would you recommend seeking care if you or someone else you knew was experiencing stress or a change in lifestyle? 

 

Dan: Yeah I think it's good to seek out um care I think it would be good like once again try the least invasive caregivers first the ones that aren't going to be prescribing drugs for you know like maybe meditation, massage, you know acupuncture you know reevaluation counseling, nonviolent communication you know try stuff like that first and see if you can resolve it cause you know like I said it's you know your brain is very powerful and it's very plastic and you can use it to problem-solve you know take care of your problems, that's a good exercise and that's what we should be doing you know if we're having to go to a so-called expert, and I've met some of the experts in my ACA class things and some of those people are therapists and they are really messed up so you might... I remember I had a girlfriend once and she asked me if I wanted to go with her to see her therapist and so we went over I said ok so I sitting there and she's telling this therapist about her issues and the guys sitting there smoking a cigarette

 

Bella: [laughs] that's ridiculous, so unprofessional!

 

Dan: Yeah I know and so after the session, I said 'Beth, I have a question for you' and she said what's that and I said 'Do you really think it's good to get so-called counseling from this guy who is smoking cigarettes basically destroying his body so he doesn't care about his body and do you think he's gonna care about you if he doesn't care about his body?' and you know this was when I was like your age and I was like you know I didn't have any training as a psychologist or anything but I could obviously see there is a problem there

 

Bella: Seems like a little bit of a cognitive dissonance there! How are you preaching about health like when you're doing something that's yeah, pretty unhealthy. [Dan laughs] Wow, that's interesting. 

 

Dan: Yeah I mean you're asking somebody to give you you know counseling on your choices or something and you're looking at his choice you know [Bella laughs] he's poisoning his body and you know 

 

Bella: Yeah this question is kind of getting at how bad somebody's situation for to for you to recommend them seeking care. So you think anyone would benefit from seeking care like that? 

 

Dan: Yeah well like try least invasive procedures first. Well, I had a friend who committed suicide and he was you know he was having a lot of trouble and so his friends got in and they were trying to help him and they were recommending that he go see a therapist and his girlfriend was like a healer and he you know had a doctor who was also my doctor and you know the entire community rose up to help him

 

Bella: But it doesn't always yeah, people don't always take your advice

 

Dan: And he had the whole gambit, you know he had alternative and conventional allopathic.

 

Bella: That's unfortunate. Do you think that you would be able to recognize a mental health or emotional problem in a friend or relative?

 

Dan: Oh, definitely [Both laugh] Well reevaluation counseling and uh nonviolent communication has helped me to identify dysfunction it's pretty clear when you start to go out into the world and you're encountering situations.

 

Bella: I imagine that you kind of answered this but, have you ever seen a mental health professional? Why or why not? um I know you were kind of saying you don't see traditional mental health professionals more like you know meditation and acupuncture but 

 

Dan: Well the only two uh mental health professionals I can say that I have ever seen was one with my girlfriend who was getting counseled and I've seen Tara Brach on uh YouTube. But I've never had the service of a mental health professional. 

 

Bella: Okay! Would you ever consider going to see a mental health professional? Why or why not? [Both laugh] 

 

Dan: I would have to really be in really bad shape to go see a mental health professional because I've seen some of them show up in my ACA class who are really messed up [laughs] and I think that taking responsibility for and learning, I mean I think that we can do so much for ourselves to cure ourselves to heal ourselves. I mean I've been doing that all my life you know I've been studying medicine, that's why I went to school and became a nurse, um and I have seen so much benefit from alternative therapies that [clears throat] well I do, I do see a mental health professional I see an acupuncturist. 

 

Bella: That counts!

 

Dan: Yeah

 

Bella: Well that's awesome. Um so who do you think needs mental health care, do you think that some people need it more than others?

 

Dan: Oh, definitely. Oh yeah, I think that the president of the United States

 

Bella: Oh goodness [laughs] 

 

Dan: Well I think that there's maybe 10% of the population that is psychopathic

 

Bella: Yeah there's a lot of people who need help and don't get it

 

Dan: And they all rise to the top and I think that's the problem with the world today is we have psychopaths that are in charge

 

Bella: Yeah, no empathy

 

Dan: Yeah

 

Bella: Why do you think that mental illness or issues with mental health occur, so for instance like a chemical imbalance on the brain, perspectives on life, or experiences with others?

 

Dan: [laughs and picks up my cellphone off the table] This is a microwave generator, like microwave oven, you put this next to your brain, like my brother did this for ten years he had uh melanoma on his brain on the side he used it and held his cellphone. So, you're gonna see a lot of people having mental issues because of that, putting that next to their brain.

 

Bella: Interesting. Unrelated to the electromagnetic waves, do you think that like use of technology like what goes on when you use it [contributes]?

 

Dan: Oh, definitely. Oh, well I mean there's studies I look at studies I do a lot of research every night and I come across studies all the time, the brain is shrinking in young children that have been putting the cellphone up to their head since they were 4 years old now they're getting atrophication of the brain like people with Alzheimer's. I mean, really??

 

Bella: Yeah, it a big topic of interest. 

 

Dan: It's not only the physiological part with the radiation, it's the social part where you're it's like this um produces dopamine in your brain, it's like the same effect on your brain as sex or drugs!

 

Bella: It's addictive yeah

 

Dan: And so you're seeing people getting addicted to these devices you know I mean when I see in fact my former wife and I, my first wife, we went out to dinner one night and there's like 4 young people sitting there and they're all texting each other they're not like talking like 'How you doing?' you know eye contact.

 

Bella: Wow [laughs] Anywho, do you think that age and mental health care are related in any way? Has your attitude about mental health changed with age?

 

Dan: Um, yeah of course yeah. The more I see the more I um the more my perspective changes

 

Bella: Just education, you think is more important than...yeah

 

Dan: Well also depends on what you call education because there's propaganda that they call education

 

Bella: That's true

 

Dan: You know, one thing I noticed when I was a student nurse is that um most of your businesses involved in healthcare are writing the curriculum for the educational institutions. So I think there's a conflict of interest there when you have drug companies that are funding you know educational institutions that are writing the curriculum. 

 

Bella: True, yeah, it's like big pharma. 

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