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Education is more than the accumulation of knowledge. It’s the growth we experience when digging deep into the topics, systems, and ways of thinking that give flavor to life. Enlighten Me is dedicated to bringing listeners into the world of the unknown and providing meaningful insights into issues that affect us all. In each episode, we bring in researchers and experts from a wide range of fields to discuss a topic and how it relates to their industry.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
Eddie Sanchez (00:08):
This is Eddie Sanchez.
Rodney Crouther (00:09):
This is Rodney Crouther.
Eddie Sanchez (00:10):
And you are now listening to Enlighten Me. So Rodney, here we are, January, start of the new year.
Rodney Crouther (00:16):
2024, here we go.
Eddie Sanchez (00:17):
How's your new year going?
Rodney Crouther (00:20):
It's a busy new year here at Texas State. Definitely, I think we all know that, and celebrate, yay, first year since I've been here that we're celebrating a bowl win to start the new year, so hey.
Eddie Sanchez (00:30):
Lots of historical events going on this year for sure.
Rodney Crouther (00:33):
Absolutely.
Eddie Sanchez (00:34):
Of course, with the start of the new year, we always have resolutions and we always, as individuals, we always want to make changes in our lives. So I'm just curious, is there anything big that you decided on for this year?
Rodney Crouther (00:45):
No, man, I don't really do New Year's resolutions. I think I did 'em back in my 20s. It seemed like a thing you were supposed to do, and I think I quickly realized like, oh, this is just setting yourself up for frustration.
Eddie Sanchez (00:58):
Well, I mean I think I definitely set resolutions, there might be a little vague and not very, very specific, but I feel like a lot of people do in general have these resolutions.
Rodney Crouther (01:09):
Yeah, I think I try to think of it more, it's like I try to set some goals for myself, but I just don't tie it to a specific day, like a birthday or a new year or anything, just like, you know what, I should exercise more.
Eddie Sanchez (01:18):
Yeah, exactly. I think that's kind of the perspective I take. It's an intention. It's kind of a bigger goal that I worked through throughout the year. And so with all that being said, that was what I wanted to talk about for this episode of Enlightened Me. OK. I kind of wanted to combine the mental aspect, the physical aspect, and the slash emotional spiritual aspect of the new year and how we can improve on ourselves throughout the upcoming 12 months, 11 months now.
Rodney Crouther (01:49):
Oh, cool. That's fascinating. I think a lot of us do, whether they do it on the new year or the way we were talking about, I think a lot of people do the exact same thing.
Eddie Sanchez (01:57):
Yeah, exactly. And so I reached out to a couple of different faculty members who kind of represent each of these different facets and I had a chance to have some really interesting conversations with them.
Rodney Crouther (02:05):
Oh great. So who are we talking to first?
Eddie Sanchez (02:07):
So the very first person I spoke with was Dr. Ty Schepis.
Ty Schepis (02:10):
I am Ty Schepis, I am a professor in the department of psychology, and my area of research broadly is in substance use.
Eddie Sanchez (02:19):
And his focus is on addiction.
Rodney Crouther (02:21):
What kind of addiction does he study?
Ty Schepis (02:23):
More specifically prescription drug misuse, especially things like opioid medications or stimulant medications in ways that can be concerning and lead to problems.
Rodney Crouther (02:32):
Oh, certainly can't wait to hear what he has to say.
Eddie Sanchez (02:39):
What got you interested in this area of study?
Ty Schepis (02:41):
So I'm always interested in things that don't make immediate sense to me, I suppose would be the best way to put it. And substance use is complicated because a lot of people use substances. The majority of adults drink alcohol from time to time. I had coffee this morning, caffeine is a substance even if people don't think about it that way. But people who use substances in a way that leads to a lot of consequences, that causes them a lot of problems. That's a pretty foreign concept to me. So that was something I was really interested in is understanding who does that, why they do that, and potentially if there are things we can do to help prevent that or make it less harmful
Eddie Sanchez (03:26):
Or is there anything new that you've been focused on or I guess could you kind of talk about some of the results of your most recent research?
Ty Schepis (03:32):
So I'm part of a group that is funded by the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, and we are looking at stimulant medications that are typically prescribed for ADHD and how people who are on those medications do long-term, trying to tease out a little bit of whether there are risks to those medications or whether the risks really come in when people misuse the medication as opposed to taking it appropriately. So we've been looking at that from a number of different angles, looking at data from people who are high school seniors and then they're sort of followed forward into adulthood to figure out when they start taking ADHD stimulant medications, stuff like Ritalin or Adderall and what their long-term outlook is. If someone starts the medication and takes it appropriately, they really seem to be pretty limited or no risks in terms of other substance use. There's a concern I think among some clinicians and researchers that taking a prescription stimulant medication at a young age could predispose someone to use a drug like cocaine later, and we're not really seeing that in that kind of research. It really is about the people who are engaging in misuse, not the people who are using it appropriately.
Rodney Crouther (04:57):
I think that's a very important point he just made that kids being prescribed the stimulant like Adderall doesn't automatically turn into a gateway drug or set them up to be more likely to misuse or abuse drugs later down the road.
Eddie Sanchez (05:12):
Yeah, I know he said that proper use is beneficial to individuals who are prescribed these particular types of medications and yeah, definitely understand that.
Rodney Crouther (05:20):
Yeah, and I think that's a concern a lot of parents have with young kids being prescribed things like that, that is this safe for my child to start at this age. So I'm really glad he brought that point up.
Eddie Sanchez (05:31):
One term that I saw consistently pop out in the research was misuse, which I just associated, I figured it meant addiction. Am I correct in that assumption?
Ty Schepis (05:41):
So misuse is a term that we use to capture with prescription drugs. It's different when we talk about other drugs, and I'll get to that in a second, but when we talk about prescription drugs, it's taking it without a prescription or taking it in ways the clinician didn't intend, but also taking it without a prescription regardless of whether you're taking it for the reason that the drug is usually prescribed. So if somebody falls, sprains their ankle and is in a lot of pain and they're given an opioid by a friend, that's prescription misuse, it wasn't prescribed for them, they don't know the dose is safe for them, but it doesn't equate to addiction. A lot of folks who engage in prescription drug misuse do so once, twice, three times a year, maybe not even that often. They might do it a few times in their entire lifetime.
(06:30):
It doesn't necessarily cause them problems, and those folks are obviously different than the folks who engage in, for instance, prescription opioid misuse and then go on to use illicit opioids like heroin and fentanyl. We're much more concerned about that second group. For other drugs, for alcohol or for any other illicit drug, perhaps misuse is kind of a less well-defined term, and people will use it to mean more than just low levels of use, and it really depends on the person who's doing the defining sometimes, but we want to make sure that we're not reducing people to their substance use, that we're not stigmatizing them. So there's a little bit of a debate about misuse as a broader term, but in terms of prescription drugs, it has a narrower definition even though there's some debate about whether we should continue to use it in that way, but there's a very specific definition there.
Rodney Crouther (07:30):
Yeah. When does regular use turn into misuse?
Eddie Sanchez (07:34):
So Dr. Schepis has explained that little process, and this is what he had to say.
Ty Schepis (07:39):
A lot of times when we say use, we do mean appropriate use. Sometimes we'll use the phrase medical use to make sure that we're being clear that you're using it in the way it's intended to be prescribed, that it's treating the condition it's supposed to treat, all of those kinds of things for misuse. It really is without a prescription or in ways the clinician didn't intend. When people talk about addiction, that's a tougher term to sometimes translate because I think people have different standards. Laypeople have different standards than clinicians do, than researchers do. Typically when I think of an addiction, I'm thinking of a diagnosable substance use disorder, and there are standards for what a substance use disorder is. You have to meet a certain number of behavioral checkpoints, criteria out of a certain number to have a substance use disorder. Alcohol is probably the best example. "Use" could be, hey, I had a beer with friends this weekend, watching a football game. Misuse, a lot of folks I think would equate to something more like binge alcohol use, "I drink a lot, I drink to get drunk." And then again, an addiction is probably a use disorder, alcohol use disorder in this case, but it really does for other drugs, depend a little bit on who's doing the defining.
Rodney Crouther (09:00):
That's a good part of the discussion. I think we certainly see working at a college, being in the Austin area in general, you see college students are known for having —
Eddie Sanchez (09:11):
Enjoying themselves a bit.
Rodney Crouther (09:12):
Enjoying themselves a bit. It's that age. You're experimenting and everybody goes through it, but the last generations have been exposed to a lot more research and discussion about substance abuse and binge drinking and things. Did Dr. Schepis say that people are, with that knowledge, is that actually having an effect on behavior or people making better choices or does every generation just have to go through it?
Eddie Sanchez (09:34):
Yeah, he made some really interesting points. I think it was a bit of a paradoxical answer because even though there's this awareness, that doesn't always equate to them acting to individuals acting on that knowledge. So he should be the one to explain it.
Ty Schepis (09:48):
That's a tough question to answer, and the reason that it's tough is that it's actually yes in some ways to both, which is the evidence from across the population is that actually adolescents and folks who are now young adults are using alcohol less frequently than older peers, older generations I should say used it. So I'm a younger Gen X member and Gen X folks have higher rates of alcohol use than Gen Z and millennials and those folks and baby boomers have even higher rates than Gen X in many cases and higher rates of binge alcohol use too. It's not just alcohol use. At the same time we see this increase in overdoses. So it seems like there's two parallel tracks where the majority of folks, maybe as you're getting at more aware of the risks of substance use, especially for something like alcohol where rates have really gone down and more wary of using alcohol versus the small, but high risk folks who are still willing to use methamphetamine and opioids and unknown drugs they get from a dealer that could or could not contain fentanyl. So that group is probably a relatively small group overall, but it's certainly a group that needs a lot of attention and a lot of care and a lot of intervention. The good news is at the same time, there are a lot of folks, the vast majority of the population is probably slightly reducing use and being more mindful about use.
Eddie Sanchez (11:42):
As we move into January, a lot of people want to focus on their health and they want to focus on improving their health, be it physical, emotional, mental. What are some tips aside from abstinence that you might recommend? We have our college students here and maybe they're listening to the podcast and maybe they just don't know how to approach this issue. What would you recommend they do?
Ty Schepis (12:01):
Well, one of my first tips you said besides abstinence, I in a lot of cases, wouldn't recommend that folks try to fully quit substance use. I think, and again, this ties back to the idea of harm reduction, reducing use is a victory in a lot of cases, and someone who goes from — I'll use alcohol as the example because it's so easy to quantify — using, drinking five or six beers Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and not really using Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. If they cut out one of those days or if they took two of those days and made it three beers, that would still be an improvement. I think a parallel here is exercise. I think sometimes people think, well, I need to go run. If you just get off your couch and walk three days a week, that's an improvement. That's a great step. And then you may build on that and the same thing can be true for substance use where maybe the first step isn't quitting, the first step is reducing, and then you may decide to reduce further.
(13:08):
I think having friends who help you be accountable, I think having friends who maybe are part of that change with you who also commit to maybe changing their behavior is really helpful. And again, I think of exercise with this. I think a lot of folks do a lot better with something like exercise when they have a buddy to help them be accountable. If you're thinking, I don't want to get up this morning, but I committed to meet my friend at the gym at 7, they're going to be mad if I don't come. It makes you a lot more likely to go. And so if you have a buddy where you say, "Hey, we're both going to go to the bar tonight, we normally would go to the bar, but we would normally get pretty tipsy. Let's go, let's have a couple and then let's go do something else."
(13:57):
Or, "Let's hang out around the house or the apartment for a couple hours and go later and stay less time so that we drink less." That can be really helpful. I think having partners to do that and then to try and find other things to do. And here I am thinking somewhat of college students, a lot of college activities can revolve around alcohol use or other substance use. Try to find activities you can do that don't involve substances, that can't involve substances. If you go out and you do something in public, alcohol is a little tougher here. You can certainly go drink at a bar, but you can go do things where alcohol isn't acceptable. You can go hang out at the river and the river can have alcohol, but maybe it's more of a pain to cart it there, and you really don't want to litter in the river, and you don't want to bring cans down or you can't bring bottles down and things like that. Trying to find ways just to make it harder. But I think for most folks that it's the first step is just to reduce use, to try and find ways to cut back, not necessarily to quit. If that person's goal is to quit, take it in steps. I don't think it's something that anyone needs to do all at once. I think a lot of people will try and do something like a Dry January or whatever month it is, and that may be a great goal, but maybe a better, more sustainable goal would just be reducing.
Eddie Sanchez (15:26):
Are there any resources that you could point to? Are there anything on campus? What would you recommend resource-wise?
Ty Schepis (15:34):
So depending on the person, there are a number of different things that they could do. If it's, "I'm drinking a little too much, but I don't know that I necessarily need treatment," there are still support groups and communities on campus that I think would welcome that person in again to give them alternative activities to do. There are certainly sober living folks who would be very open to having them. So there may be some folks who truly need to go to the Counseling Center or need to go to the Student Health Center and seek more intensive help. And for those folks, those resources are available, but for a lot of college students, it may just be more about seeking out alternative friend groups. Not that you're going to get rid of the friends who you've previously used substances with, but you just want to diversify your friend groups so you have some alternatives to go out and do things to be social without using substances.
(16:41):
And so getting involved in campus activities, getting involved in groups where substance use isn't part of what goes on. There are a lot of different campus organizations and a lot of different student groups and there are lots of different things that people can do to diversify their activities and their friend groups. But then again, if someone does think, "You know what, I probably have a more serious problem and I probably need more outside help than just friends and getting involved in some new activities," I think the best places to start are the Counseling Center and Student Health.
Rodney Crouther (17:24):
Wow. That was a great discussion with Dr. Schepis. I learned a few things, which is always great, and I really appreciate him calling out resources, especially for our students that are maybe struggling with substance use or just want to get a handle on it. And it's nice to remember that we do have a lot of great health services on campus.
Eddie Sanchez (17:43):
Yeah, I am very grateful that he mentioned the counseling service and all these other resources available to students. And one thing that he didn't mention though was there's actually resources for us, for staff and that's WellCats. I actually started doing WellCats last year I believe, and that's really been a great experience.
Rodney Crouther (17:58):
Oh, right. I remember you started that weightlifting class, right?
Eddie Sanchez (18:00):
Yeah, exactly. I actually have been attending that for a little bit, and Dr. Stacey Bender has been one of the lead instructors there.
Rodney Crouther (18:06):
Oh great. What's her specialty?
Stacey Bender (18:07):
I do a lot. I have a lot of hats over there. So besides being the physical fitness and wellness coordinator, I also teach in our exercise and sports science undergraduate classes, graduate classes. I also teach social and behavioral aspects of physical fitness and wellness.
Eddie Sanchez (18:24):
What drew you into this field? Why sports science? Why human and health performance?
Stacey Bender (18:29):
Originally I started in biomedical science, which I found out real quick that wasn't for me. I moved to kinesiology, so in my undergraduate I majored in kinesiology, specifically motor behavior, and really started to get into the exercise and sports science realm and just kept going from there. I kind of wanted to go physical therapy route, when I came here to Texas State, I got my master's here, and I started teaching fitness classes, all different things from aerobics to softball to racket ball to lifetime fitness and wellness. And that kind of really, I realized it was something that I wanted to keep doing.
Eddie Sanchez (19:10):
You had mentioned, again, the social and behavioral aspects of physical activity. Was there anything in particular that kind of drew you into that arena?
Stacey Bender (19:17):
Absolutely. I also did towards a minor in psychology at Texas A&M, I had about 14 to 16 hours with my undergraduate degree that I had to do in psychology. And so I realized there was a way, A&M didn't really have sports psychology back then. We had some sport management and got to take some classes like that. And then coming here I started getting into more adapted classes and kind of specializing to where I could pull some of that psychology aspect. And then I did my doctorate in University of North Carolina Greensboro and I got to study under Dr. Diane Gill, who was The Woman of psychosocial science when it comes to physical activity and wellness. And so I kind of specialized my doctorate in looking at physical activity behaviors, which was really interesting because it's the perfect mix of psychology and sociology and looking at everybody's behaviors and seeing how we have all of these external and internal kind of forces and motivations and what gets us to be active.
Eddie Sanchez (20:29):
So just to get a foundational understanding of this all, what does social and behavioral aspects of physical activity even mean?
Stacey Bender (20:35):
Basically what I'm looking at or I have you look at or students is kind of really evaluate what is either keeping you from being active or having healthy behaviors. And it's not always physical. It could be your mental health, it could be if you're looking at your moods, your finances, there's a whole wellness wheel that we look at. And so basically we're trying to understand what the positives are, what the negatives are, what we call intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. So when we look at these social behavioral aspects is not only are you looking at how you are going to be physically active, but then you're also looking at too of society, these other external factors of obviously my students love and we talk about social media and I even talk about advertisements. It's how marketing, how y'all get us and we see all of these aspects of what is going to motivate me to eat that, drink that, do that workout or do this diet or anything like that.
Eddie Sanchez (21:40):
What are some of the social aspects of physical activity?
Stacey Bender (21:42):
Oh yeah. So social aspects, I mean we go anywhere from looking at your socioeconomic status. So some of the things that we talk about then there is what it looks like for high income versus low income. So if you have somebody who grew up in a low income environment and trying to understand that certain barriers, we talk about the built environment, certain barriers just going through of having lack of resources, having lack of understanding, lack of education. But then you have the other social aspect of is we find out that some people are more motivated to have an accountability partner, which is great, you know Strength 101, we do it together, and trying to have people to motivate you and have a partner to come in. So the social aspects take on a ton. We look at, like I said, the outside forces of maybe what's going on with your environment or what's going on in your social networks.
(22:39):
And so we've seen, there's been a lot of studies and findings of the group of people that you hang out with. It is usually if you are with a group that is more active, you're more likely to be more active. And that comes down to how we eat, what we eat, when we're working out. And so a lot of the freshmen here when they're in dorms and we talk about their roommates, well, what are some of these positive or negatives? If you have that roommate that likes to go to the rec, that likes to eat healthier, then you pick up those habits.
Eddie Sanchez (23:11):
Hey, Rodney, one thing that I thought was really interesting is that there's definitely a mental aspect to physical activity. There's a correlation, it's a mind body connection, and oftentimes we don't always consider that.
Rodney Crouther (23:23):
Oh yeah, that's a good point. I think, yeah, when you're talking about physical activity, your motivation and your attitude that you bring to it is a huge part of whether or not you actually go through with it.
Eddie Sanchez (23:33):
Yeah, exactly. And Dr. Bender kind of dug into that a little bit.
Stacey Bender (23:36):
We use a lot of the social cognitive theory when we look at that, and this is when I always tell my students, we kind of go, this feels like group therapy because we reflect on our childhood, you reflect on who you grew up in your household with. Were sports important, physical activity important with your family members, whether it was siblings, parents, guardians, did you have an aspect of we get together on holidays or family reunions and we play activities, games and sports? Or I'm a second child, and I have an older brother, when we have older siblings where you forced to follow this line of sports? And so there's a lot of modeling, there's a lot of observation, and then there's these aspects of as you grow up, you either keep it and love it or you hate it. Where we were just talking about sports specialization with my colleagues earlier is if you grow up doing football or peewee football and little league and baseball all the way through high school and you sports specialize, either maybe you get a scholarship and go on or some students as we grow up, we hate it.
(24:46):
Those behavioral aspects is, I don't think people understand that. And you get that aha moment of the light bulb goes off of, well, I was forced to do ballet and gymnastics and that was kind of the gender normative. My brother got to do soccer and do all these, I wanted to play soccer, but I was thrown in ballet and tap and jazz and dance and I'm a Zumba instructor. I still do love to dance, but I've never played soccer my entire life still. So it's those kind of behavioral aspects of they can go positive or negative, and it can go with eating. I love to talk about the behaviors of asking when you grew up before, if you had family dinners, could you leave the table before if you still had food on your plate? And so when we look at that too, is anywhere that you grew up those kind of norms in your household of finishing your food or maybe going to practices and sports, what kind of came first? Did academics come first? Did sports, if you grew up in a household that maybe parents or guardians were used to be athletes and they kind of reiterate that into children or other family members.
Eddie Sanchez (26:01):
We always hear how important physical activity is for stress, for depression. What is the truth from your studies, from what you're aware of? I mean is there actual correlation or is this, I guess how does that actually function?
Stacey Bender (26:15):
There's a good line. There's a good line. Physical activity is great for your mental health, especially depression, anxiety. And there is that social aspect. So especially when we think about the pandemic and COVID and being isolated is trying to, like I said, getting out and getting in groups. And that's why sometimes group exercise works for some people and then one-on-one personal training works for some, but you look at your cortisol levels, those stress hormones and those stress levels. And so when we talk about this is yes, it is great, but for some people if they are already extreme high anxiety and they're already at this high level of cortisol, if I said, "Hey, you're having this high level of stress and anxiety, go do an extremely vigorous and strenuous workout," that can kind of backfire. But you have to find that kind of medium point of, if I just need a break, I need stress. Everybody we talk about walking — don't ever knock on walking. It's great just to be able to get outside, is looking at, and everything's different for everybody else how they do it.
Eddie Sanchez (27:23):
What are small things that you think we could do to just improve our well-being?
Stacey Bender (27:26):
15 minutes, start 5, start 10, start 15 minutes. Our physical activity guidelines want you to get 150 minutes of — and I think people too is, I keep saying physical activity. People I think have a hard time understanding that physical activity and exercise are completely different. People use them interchangeably, but a lot of people think "I'm sedentary because I'm not exercising," but they forget about other things that they're doing that does count towards those minutes of physical activity. Here at Texas State, campus is crazy. Just walking from building to building. Yes, yes, you're getting physical activity, mopping your floors, vacuuming, your chores, lawn work, all of that stuff counts. And some of it's, some of it's leisure, some of it's just incidental, swimming here, going to the river, people are hard on themselves because they think "I'm not exercising," but realistically they are being physically active in some way. But I think we beat ourselves up because we maybe don't go to the gym or we don't do a class, but we forget about some of the other things that we're doing. That's why I say don't knock on walking. Walking's always great, great way to get it in, especially if you don't have equipment and things like that. So those are some easy ways is just start moving, just start moving. And there's so many different things that you can do that don't require equipment, that don't require a professional.
Rodney Crouther (28:56):
That's great that she's mentioning how it doesn't have to be organized exercise, it's just your physical activity. Doing daily tasks like cleaning your house is something we should recognize as things we're doing for ourself. Did she go on from that into talking about how our community structure and how our social relationships can help improve our physical activity level?
Stacey Bender (29:18):
It's huge. It's absolutely huge. When we break down the social ecological framework, we're looking at that. We look at the individual level, we look at the interpersonal, which is your intimate relationships, and then we start to branch out looking at your organizational, your community, the public policy. And so that's where we find a lot of those negatives is when you have a lack of community, when you have a lack of organization or public policies. And so we're lucky here, obviously at Texas State we have that WellCats policy, and we have that time to get away and to be able to have these aspects for free. But when you think about it, when you think about the community is if you're not having, and San Marcus is great too, there's so many 5Ks and there's so many parades. I grew up in a small rural town and so when I think about, we didn't have gyms or facilities, we didn't have the activity center here. When you don't have an activity center, when you don't have a city that has policies or any community aspects to gather people together, you lose out. You lose out on a lot of it. And I don't think people realize that too is how much those just branching down all the way from different policies to those community aspects. And then looking at your institutions or your organizations and what they can offer.
Eddie Sanchez (30:45):
So for somebody that is so involved in physical activity and training other people, and again building that mind body connection, how do you stay motivated?
Stacey Bender (30:55):
It's hard. It's hard. It does get hard. I'm really bad about, I plateau a lot. And so as I go through, and this is just me, I can't buy one box of cereal and keep one box of cereal in my pantry. So I can't just always choose one mode or type of exercise and just only do that. I find myself, I need variety. And so for my motivation is a lot of times is if I start to plateau and I start to get bored, I guess is a good way to say it, I have to change it up. I have to change up what I'm doing. And I think some people hit that too, is you kind of go through progress and you're going to get to that top of that plateau, the top of that mountain. You're going to get stuck at some point.
(31:46):
And that's what happened to me when I started my strength trainer. I was stuck. Nothing was going. And so for me, I had to go outside of myself. Most of the stuff I do is for everyone else. And so I have a hard time understanding that what workouts I give to everybody else doesn't necessarily work for me. And I, I've aged, I've had two kids, my body's changed too. My hormones have changed. And so I've had to change my workouts with how I've changed physically. I always say muscle growth and exercise is like your GPA or your credit. You have one little error, but it takes forever. You drop down and it takes forever to get back up. And we get lost in that process as we tend to give up on ourselves.
Eddie Sanchez (32:37):
We'll be right back after this.
Rodney Crouther (32:52):
That was a great discussion with Dr. Bender. She brought up some really good points, especially about how our social structure and our community relationships can affect our level of physical activity. But she also hit on how it gets frustrating and discouraging sometimes. I mean, we're at the end of January here. This is traditionally when you read a news story about how many people gave up their gym membership where they started off really full of fire on New Year's Day and life catches up with all of us. People are busy, all of us are, and what do we do to push through those moments?
Eddie Sanchez (33:26):
So that was actually part of the conversation that I wanted to have for this episode. And I reached out to a faculty member here from Texas State University.
Rick Morley (33:34):
My name is Dr. Rick Morley. I'm a assistant professor at the School of Social Work.
Eddie Sanchez (33:38):
Who was able to talk to me about self-compassion and mindfulness and how we can use these tools to overcome challenges and obstacles that we face throughout our daily lives. So as I was looking through your faculty profile, I saw that your areas of study, some of your areas of study at the very least were self-compassion, mindfulness, and criminality as well. And I guess how those aspects influence violence or violent behavior. So what drew you into that subject?
Rick Morley (34:07):
First with mindfulness in particular, when I was, I guess in high school, I began to read up on things on meditation. Never was able to meditate in more than five or 10 minutes at a time, but would notice little details like the world being more blue. I felt more relaxed, things like that. And then I pursued a career as a parole officer for a while and then part-time as a correction officer down the road or working on my master's degree. And when I got to my Ph.D., I happened to be at the University of Texas, and Kristin Neff was working there at the time, who's big name in self-compassion research. And I didn't realize that people could do research on meditation. And so I began to do a lot of, took a huge interest in researching meditation. And side note to that is when we talk about classroom discussions of the Ph.D. program, I drew a lot upon my experience talking with my former parolees and their stories and things I picked up from there. And so it really seemed more and more I began to pull the two together to see how things on mindfulness and self-compassion would be of great benefit to anybody, but especially for folks who don't receive a lot of compassion for the world.
Eddie Sanchez (35:16):
Could you explain to us what mindfulness is, what self-compassion is?
Rick Morley (35:20):
Well, mindfulness, it's interesting you say because mindfulness is a couple different things and there's things that we're still trying to figure out. But mindfulness relates to a couple either a state of mind, which is the current definition or there's several definitions, but the one I'm going to announce is being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions in the moment. But there's also mindfulness relates to practices like meditation, yoga, even tai chi, martial arts, as well as there's states of mind which are mindfulness. And the concept, while it's kind of universal among religions and spiritual groups in psychology, it was largely brought into play by a gentleman named Kabat-Zinn, who defined and conceptualized it and he drew more upon Buddhism for his initial response. And partially because I think at times the way Zen Buddhism sounds, it sounds can be phrased very secularly even though it's a spiritual practice behind that. So self-compassion also goes back. I think even Lao Tzu, who predated Buddha, talks about self-compassion and mindfulness.
Eddie Sanchez (36:27):
Tao Te Ching, right?
Rick Morley (36:28):
Yeah, Tao Te Ching. Yes, yes. The founder of Daoism, you could say. Either way in terms of Western society that you see a gentleman named Stassney start talking about self-compassion like the late nineties. And Stassney was very much more into practical application. So there wasn't many studies and Stassney phrase it very cognitive psychology. And then Kristin Neff came along in the early 2000s and started phrasing it more from a Buddhist perspective, tying it into mindfulness research. And as it's kind of stayed since then, and there's been a lot of studies since those two. But self-compassion is more kind of a combination thereof where it involves being mindful, but it's a little more than just being mindful. It involves mindfulness, but it also involves being objective, using mindfulness about yourself and applying compassion or a stassney phrase that positive affect. And Neff went further to state, it's kind of like imagining that all of ourselves, including yourselves are part of a common humanity and that we suffer together. And objectively suffering is part of the human condition and by objectively being aware of that, it helps alleviate some of the suffering involved in them. And indeed research has supported a strong link between both of those and mental health.
Rodney Crouther (37:51):
Dr. Schepis has discussed how substance abuse affects our mental health and how our mental health plays into how we approach substances. So I wonder, does Dr. Morley discuss how mindfulness plays into our self-care?
Eddie Sanchez (38:04):
Yeah, he definitely did. And it was pretty insightful what he had to say.
Rick Morley (38:09):
It's a good question and there's many ways they can talk about it because mental health is a concept in a way. So it's not really a standard definition of what mental health is rather than we just know what it's kind of not, right. And so we could talk about well-being. So someone for instance, could have a really good well-being but could be diagnosed with something that would be labeled as a mental illness, is that person necessarily have bad mental health just because they have a diagnosis or well-being? But that being said, in terms of how it relates to things like well-being, first, it has a very strong positive correlation with self-esteem in terms of having a diagnosis, well, mindfulness and self-compassion in both used in a large variety of treatments. So for instance, I worked with a researcher and she was doing research looking at MRI among people with schizophrenia and using mindfulness and biofeedback, people seeing their brain imaging as a tool to know, to show when the voices were at and using mindfulness as a tool to shut off the voices.
Eddie Sanchez (39:14):
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Rick Morley (39:14):
So that's one good example of that. Other things like for instance, the diagnose of any Axis II personality disorder, which includes narcissism, histrionic, borderline and particular interest in mind, antisocial personality disorder. A lot of folks tend to lack mindfulness per se. They tend to lack self-awareness. And so some of the treatments that have been most successful with individuals being able to be aware of the impact of their behaviors has been mindfulness. So those are just a few, but also depression's been both mindfulness and self-compassion has been used among other things. So they're very useful tools.
Eddie Sanchez (40:00):
Talking about compassion, some advice you might have for somebody that's trying to cultivate this better, much more in their lives, and especially at the beginning of the new year, I think a lot of people, they're always trying to improve themselves. So how can we be more self-compassionate with ourselves?
Rick Morley (40:17):
OK, well, and that's a good question. So first thing I can say, self-compassionate can be hard at times because we tend to hold ourselves to a higher standard than we do other folks around us that we care about. So what I'd say to that is first thing is being able to take time to reflect and think about it. Sometimes just writing your feelings out is a good way or being, expressing compassion to other folks can remind you. Remembering when you think about times when a person you cared about, there's things called self-compassion based meditations, and it's to think about people who, maybe it's your brother, sister, sibling, parent, pets are good ones oftentimes because we often have very unambiguous feelings about pets or children or the other ones. Just think about what happens if they're having a bad day and realize you too deserve that same kind of compassion. So what I would do to do is start there. Two, I do think mindfulness practices in one form or the other are very helpful and you do what's good for you.
(41:23):
I did an observation with a bunch of inmates at one point, and one of the things they would do is they'd bring in a lot of yoga practice rather than standard meditation because, and their cells, they just didn't get a lot of time to stretch. So while they did appreciate the mindfulness piece and they did do the meditation piece afterwards, it always started off with yoga to get out their stress and to flex. So sometimes being more physical, that is more useful if that's your mindset, especially if you're sitting around a bunch and you need the exercise. But other times is just giving time for yourself, even if it's like five minutes. I try every day when I go to on really busy days to force myself to sit down and I'll listen to some calm meditative music and try to meditate for at least 10 minutes on days when I have the time. I try to get myself to meditate much longer than that, 30 to 45 minutes.
Rodney Crouther (42:14):
The world's moving pretty fast for everybody today. So does Dr. Morley give us any advice for how we can incorporate, if you wanted to start meditating, how do you make that part of your mindfulness routine or your self-care?
Rick Morley (42:27):
One particular I guess story that I connect to on that is when I went to a Sufi meditation group, which is a mystical meditative form of Islam. And one of the things they used to talk about, which is very different from some of the more Tibetan style Buddhists is they purposefully like short meditations. And they said, because folks who meditate too much can go way out there and it's not as practical. And if you're spending all your time meditating and not living in the real world, you're not accomplishing what meditation wants you to bring to the table. You're not fully using it to its effectiveness. So I would say think of it from that perspective. Taking five minutes is a big deal and taking five minutes for yourself for anything to start off with. It doesn't have to be meditation, it could be just taking five minutes for a walk and just to think, could be just going and looking at the clouds, whatever the easiest thing for you to do. And if meditation works for you, I mean there's many different forms. Find one that appeals to you, like Sufi meditation work for a lot of folks, other folks like Zen Buddhism or more Tibetan style Buddhism, other folks like more like transcendental meditation. There's all kinds of meditations out there, and then there's Jewish, Christian meditation. So find something that appeals to you and connects with your spiritual views or as well as your personal views and values, if you don't connect with the idea of spiritual values.
Eddie Sanchez (43:57):
Earlier you were kind of mentioning there's days when you feel, feel just very in tune with your surroundings with the universe. And then there's days when the reality is just it's different. How can our 18-, 19-year-olds who are barely making their way into the world and they're starting to see all the craziness that's taking place in society, how do they balance is that aspect of life without losing, I guess, it's what would be the term, disconnected? There's a disconnect. Yeah. You can very easily say, well, it's all part of the universe, and no, I disconnect from this. And it is how do you balance that out? What's your recommendations?
Rick Morley (44:32):
Yeah, and I think that's important, right? And that's where I kind of think about the Sufi practice of saying, do meditate, but also realize you live in the real world. So first thing I say is that the meditation has benefits because it does allow you in some ways to get perspective on the world. So when you're 18, you've got a lot thrown at you. There's a lot that you've got going on and you have a life that you've been building and an identity you're building, and your identity is going to be building the rest of your life. And at some point, whether you want to or not, you're always going to end up self-reflecting at some point. And from the day you're born to the day you die, you'll have these different life reviews that'll come up in your life, whether like graduating high school, you do, graduating college, you do.
(45:15):
And even at least in terms of science, the last thing science can say on the issues of death is that the most meaning you'll get, potentially get based off of what we currently measure conscious experience on, which is gamma synchrony, and the most meaning that people report in their lives is the life review they get when they're dying. And so what I would say to all that is be mindful that you're alive and that this is a self journey for you and that you're going to have downsides, but the end result is for you to enjoy your life as you. And that involves taking perspective. It's like taking time and it's like, what do I need right now? What is it that I'm missing when you feel disconnected? And sometimes it may feel selfish to even ask that question, but it's not selfish. For instance, to take time to heal yourself and get a hold on yourself mentally and get clarity.
(46:06):
I feel clarity in all these moments, whether it's in a life review or just like, what do I want to be when I graduate high school? How am I going to be when I'm like midlife, when I have a family and all these other things. Those moments of clarity won't always be there, but they come as long as you work at it, it's a work in motion. So you're going to have tough times. You're going to forget about it. You're going to get lost in the moment. But the thing is, is when things get hard, always return to it. And even if you're having a bad day and you're feeling all is lost, just remember that take a moment. And that there's always been whatever's going on in the world right now. It's happened before and other people had to deal with those things too. So just take that moment of clarity and say, what do I do in this moment to get through this difficult time and these difficult and very sometimes scary futures that may lie in front of us, but also realize other folks have the same fears that the future doesn't hold. So just keep working at it. Don't give up.
Rodney Crouther (47:16):
Well, Eddie, you pulled off the trifecta of interviews here. You got mind, body, spirit. And good information on all of ’em.
Eddie Sanchez (47:22):
Yeah that's what I was going for. Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate that. That was really what my target was, especially with, again, us starting the new year and trying to make sure that we're balanced in all these different ways and trying to improve ourselves in all these different ways. So I'm very grateful to have had these conversations with our faculty.
Rodney Crouther (47:37):
And I think all three of your guests hit that aspect of yeah, even if it's getting hard, even if you feel like you've already blown your resolution, that's not a reason to give up. You can still just keep at it.
Eddie Sanchez (47:47):
Yeah, that's all it is. Always keep trucking along. That's all you can do. Alright, Rodney, so January is my episode. February is yours. What do you have coming up for us?
Rodney Crouther (47:57):
Actually one of our guests from this episode, Dr. Bender, kind of touched on it a little bit. I'm just taking it in a different direction. We're sticking with sports. Texas State is coming off our first bowl win ever. Go Bobcats. But that got me thinking, why are we, not just as a culture here in Texas or America, but as humans, so obsessed with sports, why are we so into 'em? People go crazy for it around the world. What is it that draws us? What is it that keeps us in it?
Eddie Sanchez (48:25):
Yeah, we spent quite a bit of time talking about sports ourselves, so I'm definitely interested to hear what—
Rodney Crouther (48:31):
I think it's fascinating. I think it's a very human thing because the sports may differ from country to country or culture to culture, city to city, but humans love sports and have for millennia.
Eddie Sanchez (48:42):
Awesome. Rodney, I'm really excited to hear your episode about sports. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us on Enlighten Me.
Rodney Crouther (48:49):
Thanks a lot. We'll see you next month.
Eddie Sanchez (48:51):
This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communications at Texas State University. Podcast appearing on the Texas State Podcast network represent the views of the host and guest and not of Texas State University.