Austin Scholar #158: Dads: This is why mental health techniques are useful in everyday life
& America's literacy crisis
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Dads: This is why mental health techniques are useful in everyday life
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
I made it through my first winter quarter at Stanford!! For those who don’t understand what I’m talking about, Stanford’s winter quarter (January through March) is notorious for being super hard and very depressing because it’s cold, rainy, and has very few social activities. And because of that, everyone loads up on hard classes this quarter so that when the weather improves, we can take easier classes and have more free time.
So this quarter, I took a math class that even math majors said was the worst class they’ve ever taken, and it was absolutely as awful as they said. The class covers both linear algebra and multivariable calculus, which means you’re learning two completely new and different ways of thinking about math in just ten weeks. After a pretty disappointing first midterm, I locked in and crushed the final. I’m super proud of myself for how I handled this class and was able to use a bunch of learning science concepts (spaced repetition and constant retrieval practice) to master all of the content.
Yes, I do practice what I preach :)
Dads: This is why mental health techniques are useful in everyday life
I have a heavy mom readership and I’m trying to build up the dad side. So this one is for them.
Many moms already buy in to mental health techniques in everyday life - but I find many dads (maybe just my dad?) don’t.
In honor of how I used DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) to help me get through finals week relatively unscathed, I thought it would be the perfect time to create a list of my favorite DBT skills. Dialectical behavioral therapy focuses on the fact that two things can be true at once – you can not like something but you have to accept it, which is a super important concept to understand if you want to live a happy, peaceful life.
I know it’s easy to immediately dismiss therapy skills as unnecessary if you don’t have mental health struggles, but I promise that every single skill I will talk about here can not only help you through emotionally tense moments, but also has applications for the rest of your day-to-day life.
And let’s be real: no matter how well-adjusted or balanced a kid is, they’re pretty much physically bound to have mood swings and emotional reactions – and teaching them these skills can help them mitigate the potential damage.
Now that I’ve (hopefully!) convinced all of the tech bro dads to keep on reading, let’s dive into my five favorite and most-used DBT skills:
DEARMAN
I’ve talked about DEARMAN before, but basically it’s an equation for effective communication.
When you want something, these are the steps you follow:
Describe the situation
Express your feelings
Assert your ask
Reinforce by explaining what the other person will get out of the arrangement
(be) Mindful to keep focus on your goals (don’t bring up any previous grievances or situations)
Appear confident
(be willing to) Negotiate
The first four outline the structure of your statement, and the last three explain how you should act in the conversation. This has an absolutely endless number of applications: an email to a professor, advocating for a change of rules in the house, asking for a weekday sleepover, an internship request, a cold DM, settling an argument with a friend… the list goes on and on.
When I started using DEARMAN, I would write out every step ahead of time because I was scared of potential confrontation with my parents. I wrote DEARMANs about phone privileges and screen time, not talking about school for at least an hour after I got home, buying another floral sundress that I didn’t need, and so much more. The point of a DEARMAN is to practice communicating and disagreeing in a clear, sympathetic, and effective way. Too many arguments between parents and their kids end in tears or slammed doors – DEARMAN helps you avoid that.
TIPP
If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, TIPP is absolutely the exercise for you. It’s about physically changing your state through your temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. I use every single aspect of TIPP on the regular – I drink cold water or sit outside in the cold wind to get out of my head and focus, I do a 20-minute at-home pilates session to not think about all of the things I’m stressed about, and I use paced breathing and progressive muscle relaxation when I can’t fall asleep and before exams.
Here’s how it works:
Temperature
By changing your body’s temperature, you can change your heart rate and emotional response to things. This DBT website says that “cooler temperatures decrease your heart rate (which is usually faster when we are emotionally overwhelmed). You can either splash your face with cold water, take a cold shower, or if the weather outside is chilly you can go for a walk. Another idea is to take an ice cube and hold it in your hand or rub your face with it.
On the other hand, higher temperatures increase your heart rate (which is usually lower when you feel depressed, sad, or anxious). You can take a hot bath, nestle up in a blanket, go outside on a hot day, or drink warm tea.”
Intense Exercise
When you’re overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed, finding a physical release for all of that chaotic energy can help you calm your mind and refocus. You can go to the gym, go for a walk or run, or even just do two minutes of jumping jacks in your room. The goal is just to get your heart rate up and to physically release your frustration.
Paced breathing
Personally, I use square breathing (in four, hold four, out four, hold four) to slow down my breathing rate – which then has the effect of slowing down the rest of my physical actions and therefore calming down my mind. You can use any form of paced breathing though, like 4-8-8, 4-7-8, or 4-6.
Progressive muscle relaxation
I use progressive muscle relaxation when I can’t sleep. Google AI overview explains how to do it like this:
Find a comfortable position: Sit or lie down in a relaxed position.
Close your eyes: Focus on your breath and let go of any distractions.
Start with a small muscle group: Begin by tensing the muscles in your toes or feet. Hold the tension for a few seconds, then release it slowly.
Move on to larger muscle groups: Work your way up the body, tensing and releasing muscles in your calves, thighs, buttocks, back, shoulders, neck, and face.
Repeat: Go through the whole body again, tensing and releasing each muscle group.
Focus on your whole body: Once you have gone through all the muscle groups, take a few deep breaths and focus on letting go of tension throughout your entire body.
The goal here is to release any tension in your muscles and allow your body to relax, which then allows your mind to relax as well.
As a whole, TIPP allows you to focus on your physical sensations to help you get through any emotional ones, which is often a lot easier to do.
Radical Acceptance
One of my very first posts on Twitter was about how much I love the Serenity Prayer, which goes like this:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Every comment under the post was about how you should always work to change and improve things in your life and how acceptance was dangerous for kids to learn. I think every single person that commented about that fundamentally misunderstood