Demystifying Mental Health Using Neuroscience-Based Strategies for Well-Being

This blog was originally published on Word on Benefits.

People who want to improve their health and well-being are usually better off taking a few small steps at a time rather than attempting wholesale changes. Which changes should they make? Mike Mousseau, Ph.D., suggests starting with those that are backed by neuroscience.

Mousseau, who is the mental health programs and business development manager at GreenShield Health in Calgary, Alberta, in September led the audience at the 44th Annual ISCEBS Employee Benefits Symposium in Minneapolis, Minnesota through a discussion of several concepts and techniques, urging them to apply a few lessons to their own lives. “Through the pandemic . . . everybody was an expert in well-being and mental health,” giving advice about what to do to improve mental health, Mousseau said. “Nobody ever stopped to talk about why. What are some of the neurosciences and how do we even change behavior? These are the concepts I try to bring into the conversation.”

Naming Your Feelings

“Physical, mental and emotional states are all interconnected,” Mousseau said. “How do we deal with these feelings that are hitting us every day?” He provided an example of receiving an unpleasant email at work and asked the audience how they would respond. “You either react to it, or you ignore it. You’re masking it or you’re responding to it,” he said. People often want to hide their discomfort due to social pressure, he said. Another strategy is to release those feelings, such as through the audience’s suggestions of taking a breath, screaming or journaling.

Mousseau suggested trying a different strategy called “affect labeling,” which he credited to the book Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, Ph.D. With this approach, people name their feelings by saying them out loud. So, instead of masking or screaming, they say, “This is making me a little bit angry.”

“This works because that area of your brain that’s processing and handling those emotions is a very highly conserved area of the brain that is very close to the area that produces language. Why is that interesting? Because if they’re close together, this area of language is starting to take over and shunting a little bit of this emotional control.”

Combating Negative Self-Talk

The brain has a control mechanism that defaults to negative self-talk, Mousseau explained. “It’s a control mechanism to protect ourselves.” One way to deal with that is to use neuroplasticity to an advantage. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt and make new neural connections. Instead of negative self-talk, people can leverage cognitive behavioral therapy with the ICE thinking technique:

• I: Identify the negative thought. For example, Mousseau shared that he sometimes feels bad about not being a good parent or spouse when he is traveling for work and must be away from his family.
• C: Challenge the thought. “My best way to think about this is: What would your best friend say to you if you had a sit-down conversation? He would say: ‘What are you talking about? I’ve seen you with your kids. You’re doing what you need to do’—lots of positivity.”
• E: Exchange the thought. Mousseau said he knows that sometimes he misses out on family time, but he tells himself that he is also home a lot. This stops negative thoughts from spiraling and uses the brain’s plasticity to an advantage.

Addressing Youth Mental Health

Youth mental health has become a significant concern over the last few years. A discussion in the audience revealed theories about the impact of social media, social isolation during the pandemic, violence, neurobiological development concerns and video games. Mousseau described a theory presented in The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, which ties the advent of the smartphone camera, selfies and the social comparison that ensued on social media to the problem.

The generation described by Haidt experienced amplified social comparison, rewired brains and disrupted sleep. Levels of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increased, and in-person interactions decreased. “Could we take away phones at night, help sleep and maybe some of it goes away?” Mousseau asked the audience. With ADHD, “there is a neurobiological component, but there is a lot behaviorally as parents we can do, too.”

Mousseau offered another suggestion for improving youth mental health—eating dinner together as a family more often. A 26,000-person study of kids between ages 11 and 15 in Canada showed a “dose effect” on lifelong mental health resulting from this practice, he explained. “For every one more dinner you had a week with your family with phones put away, there was a decrease in mental health issues later in life. Can we add more dinners? Can we put our phones down?” he queried the audience. This is effective because it makes children more resilient and establishes trust with their parents, Mousseau explained. “You talk about your day and what happens on the schoolyard. You can rely on your parents. That interaction is incredibly important.”

Integration of Physical and Mental Health

Mousseau offered additional suggestions for diet, exercise and sleep to boost both physical and mental health.

Diet

After discussing the connection between gut health and brain health, Mousseau provided the following tips.

• Avoid fasting in most cases. Fasting has its place, but it is probably not ideal for increasing the gut microbiome with the bacteria that helps support the gut–brain connection, which aids the production of serotonin.

• Take probiotics shortly after taking antibiotics in order to replenish the gut bacteria. The best foods to eat are fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi.

• Use technology to improve nutrition. Some smartphone apps can identify the micronutrients from pictures of the food you eat. That can be sent to a dietitian who can suggest small changes in someone’s diet rather than a wholesale change. “Those small changes will stick,” he said.

Exercise

Exercise boosts levels of dopamine and epinephrine and increases blood flow, Mousseau noted. One Harvard study showed that 15 minutes of running or an hour of walking a day could decrease an individual’s risk of major depression by 26%. “It is incredibly important for our mental health,” he said.

Sleep

Mousseau provided additional strategies for improving the quality of sleep, focusing on the following areas.

• Sunlight exposure: Getting sunlight as early as possible in the day will start the circadian cycle.

• Temperature: The body should be warmed up in the morning. Exercising or taking a cold shower are effective ways to increase body temperature.

• Caffeine: Caffeine intake should be delayed until 60 to 90 minutes after waking up. Caffeine “interacts with certain receptors. Let it wash out, and then you have your coffee. It will work better, and it’s more efficient. Then you should stop caffeine by about noon or 1:00 p.m.”

• Nighttime routine: Reducing light access around 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. is advised. Taking a warm shower and having a cool room also can help with sleep. Substances, such as alcohol and cannabidiol (CBD), should be avoided.

“Take one or two pieces for today and try it,” Mousseau suggested. “Behavior change doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in very small increments. Ultimately, if you want to change your behavior, you have to make it your own idea.”

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  Kathy Bergstrom, CEBS

  Senior Editor

  IFEBP