Chris Colley: 0:12

Happy New Year to everyone out there. We're back from 2024 into 2025 here on Shifted Podcast. Today we do resolutions a lot right At the start of our 2025, I'd start a new year. Okay, we're going to try this. Well, I have an amazing guest here today that's going to kind of help us navigate the brain and how it functions around mental health and well-being. I have Dr. Tina Montreuil from McGill University Now. Tina, you are an associated director for counselling psychology, the applied psychology, and also director of childhood anxiety and regulation of emotions laboratory, which is CARE right.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 1:00

Yes, it's summed up for CARE. So we have various projects or interests in our lab, but they tend to focus around, you know, better understanding child internalizing disorders, of which anxiety is one of them. Closely, emotion regulation is associated with anxiety and our focus is, yes, establishing those associations but, more importantly, trying to determine ways, understanding the mechanisms by which they are associated, so that we can actually help kids, you know, manage anxiety better and sort of not suffer in silence. And I think that's one of the things why, for me, I'm an expert of like, of course, child conduct disorders as well, right, which are more externalizing. But, in my experience, is that, you know, children who are anxious, a lot of the times they will not perturb the class, they will not disturb the class, but they are still very much experiencing psychological and emotional distress. And that's why, as a researcher, guided by clinical interests, I've decided to focus mainly on those internalizing disorders, of which anxiety.

Chris Colley: 2:16

Well, the brain is such a complicated thing, right? Emotions and all that, We'll dive into that. But I'm so curious, you know, like, how did you? How did you come to this spot in life? What were some of your moments in your timeline that kind of brought you to where you are now at McGill?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 2:34

Yeah, so, um, you know, in preparation for this, this podcast, I was kind of like thinking about that. But I also had a colleague who we were talking about history very recently, another podcast, and it got me to also think about. You know, how far does it go back? And so, as far as I can remember, like I'm the eldest of three, three, three girls and um, and we were very sort of close, close, tight knit, community Cause I grew up in a small town and so as far as I can remember, like I have very strong recollections of just being the teacher, so being in an educational setting, so it seems to be something that I've always, that I've taken a liking to from a very early age.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 3:19

And I guess, just like anybody I grew up and you're kind of trying to figure out what you want to do, I think the sort of pedagogical or teaching aspect of who I am today has sort of intersected with, obviously, a person who I have also a lot of experiences in schools or what have you. I was always someone drawn to helping people. I don't know what it is. I feel like I have this sort of attunement to other people. There's a way in me when I look at people, I look at their behavior, I look at their emotional expression. I tend to focus on that and I'm really interested in understanding what's going on beyond what you see, and I have memories of that from early on as well. So I guess the crossroad is, you know, loving the aspect of teaching and sort of transferring knowledge, supporting coaching, I guess, and then combining that with a desire to help others feel better, um, kind of brought me to who I am today. So like, like it's kind of coming full circle. It's not like I planned this out, but it's kind of how it happened. And then I've gotten great opportunities. You know, you never become who you are on your just your own being. It starts from your home. Of course. I'm very fortunate to have grown up in a home where people believed in me and pushed me to succeed.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 4:44

But also, you know, like, how I came to work in schools, because I'm not a local Montrealer was coming to McGill and studying psychology there, and then coming across this great program which I believe still exists, but in a different location, but the Taylor Adolescent Program. And so that program really, you know, was training psychology students mainly to work as sort of like clinical tutors, so they were matching you with students and finding you a sort of, I guess, an internship. So you were basically combining with a student and you got to work with various schools and through these connections got to eventually even work in school. So I've worked for the English Montreal School Board, I've worked for the Lester E Pearson School Board mainly the Anglo sector and I pretty much have had every single position you can imagine. I've been a shadow, I've been a teacher's assistant, I've been a sort of like childcare worker, so that was during my studies.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 5:47

So working in schools during my master's added a lot of contextual knowledge to my studies, because that's what I was, I was studying, you know. You know inclusive education and you know sort of curriculum adaptation as part of being a psychologist and school psychologist and and. But it also, you know sort of curriculum adaptation as part of being a psychologist and school psychologist and and. But it also, you know, contributed financially to my, my, my, my, my path, and so this is kind of a what brings me now working in what I'm doing.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 6:17

And it just so happened not to be a professor at McGill but be a professor at McGill and the faculty of education, and that's probably my biggest, probably my biggest surprise in life. It's really great. I love what I'm doing, but I can't say that I actually saw that long-term. I never sort of thought I'd be eventually a professor, but I knew I would be helping people and so it's great because now, really, if you look at my early beginnings, it's basically brought me here, like being able to teach as part of my capacity and my role as an associate professor, but also teach what I love to do, which is psychology and helping people. So it's like really an amazing job really. It's like it really feels like it's something that I love doing, because it goes way back.

Chris Colley: 7:02

Yeah, it's cool. I see the circular path as well, um, really cool. Um well, it kind of brings me to I mean, this podcast kind of got started um out of covid, out of the pandemic, and trying to keep teachers in touch and kind of having conversations with our local people and stuff like that, and I wanted to ask about kind of start with the pandemic, because it did play a big role and I think it still continues. What do you think the biggest challenges are for schools and teachers and students if we put our minds in that realm following the pandemic, like, how's our well-being going on in schools nowadays? You know, I mean, we're maybe four years-ish removed. What have you noticed in your observations?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 7:58

Yeah, so first, I always try to not have an overly catastrophizing or pessimistic view of things, right? So I think it's factual. The pandemic affected everybody changed, I guess it kind of left it marked, it created something that none of us, I think, maybe some of us that are more pessimistic in nature, but I think for most of us we were taken aback because none of us could have imagined that we'd ever be placed in such a situation and that it would play out the way it did. You know, when you think about, you know we're talking about the brain before. Like every single fight or flight fiber of our body got activated during this period, right From, let's say, from biological, physiological fears of contamination, all the way to our lives completely changing, our homes becoming our places of rest for most of us, now becoming associated as a place of work. So when I say all fibers of our body, both physiological the fear of contamination but also just our well, just our wellbeing mentally, got affected by this one single commonly experienced event. So I think, without being pessimistic or catastrophizing, I think we're just talking, we're just speaking facts. So that's kind of where I go from.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 9:18

And then the other thing is that you know the the. The thing is is that you know we already are our lifestyle, like families and parents, as I was telling you before, like it's kind of impossible to talk about child well-being without also addressing the systemic aspect, which is the family, the closest micro system to these individuals. But the thing is is that you know a lot of us, having worked in school, like, even like 10, 12 years ago, you know we were seeing, you know some families were both extremes of the continuum Some families very low SES, low education, perhaps kids were coming to school with some, you know, precarious conditions. But also the other extreme is like the families that are overly, you know, you know, working a lot, traveling a lot, so it's not that they don't have the means to attend to their kids, but they're just busy. And so the school provided this basis of ensuring that. You know we're training, we're forming future citizens, right. So it's almost like the school was compensating for some of the things that maybe at home, under certain conditions, were more precarious, right, were more precarious, right.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 10:24

What ended up happening is that because of the pandemic, I think one thing that it caused is that it destabilized, sort of the middle, the people that were probably more stable that the schools did not have to then compensate for. So therefore, you know, now the minority became a larger, I wouldn't say majority, but it became a larger proportion, more of the kids that were before more stable in the middle, even good families. All of a sudden, the conditions of surrounding the pandemic impacted these families and therefore also impacted the children. Therefore there was a greater. So it's kind of like, you know, like, think about it as a faucet. There's a small's, a small wave. Okay, the school are feeling the pressure in terms of what's happening, but then all of a sudden turn on the tap much through much, much larger debit. All of a sudden it's like the wave is a bit bigger, we have a lot more demands coming in.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 11:20

The other aspect of that is that when I was talking about the school, the, the role of the teachers, like I that's why for me, I oftentimes interchangeably talk about the parents as agents of socializations for children. But teachers as well, like our kids in elementary school, preschool, they spend eight, sometimes even like more, hours per day in school. So the influence of the teacher is ginormous, it's very important. So the influence of the teacher is ginormous, it's very important. And so therefore, you know, like, in a certain sense, like the teachers are also agents of socialization. So therefore, that's what I mean by the school was compensating. You know, if you have, maybe some kids came from harsh homes where there was harsh parenting, but they came to school and the teacher was supportive, the teacher was encouraging, the teacher built their self-esteem. That was great.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 12:07

But another dimension is that now we have more demands from the families and now we have people in schools that over time, because this lasted for a while, became tired. We're talking about COVID, compassion, fatigue, and the reality is that these people, the school staff, these amazing people, became very tired and it never really stopped for them. And I think even I mean I'm not teaching in elementary or high school, teaching in a university setting, but I think for most of us we're seeing our staff, people are tired and we haven't really stopped. So then it brings me to then putting these two things together. We have a lot more children coming in with emotion, emotional issues, systemic issues, and then we have staff that you know they chose this vocation, this job, not because they're being paid excessively well, but because they have the care, the love of teaching and love of working with children. So there's still good people there, those qualities are still there, but you're tired or you're deprived yourself and a lot of the families I was telling you about some of the teachers, they were the ones impacted with these sort of like systemic, you know, having to take care of aging families, maybe having lost some families to COVID, and then yet you still are called upon going back into the schools and supporting others, and I think it's a combination of the two.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 13:39

That now, to answer your question hopefully as well as I can, is that this is what's happening now in the schools, is that COVID has come and gone, but the aftermath it's still there.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 13:51

And you know, like people might say argue. Well, you know the teachers, they don't have, they have summers to rest. Well, I think you know any clinical psychologist will tell you that the accumulated fatigue that a lot of these teachers have endured would require more than just a summer. It's not enough. And so, therefore, I mean, I think this is to me what I see and this is what explains, for example, that you know, the schools are still feeling, they're still feeling some of the aftermath and there's, you know, like we saw, some great teachers, but I think we still have to think, I think you know, from the ministry, ministries perspective, from parents and expectations of the teachers as well that are teaching their kids, is that, yes, covid is done. But you know these folks, you know these, these, these givers, these caregivers, by extension, have have endured a lot and they haven't had, perhaps, I think, enough time to really recover fully from COVID.

Chris Colley: 14:47

Yeah, I see that too. Where it was never, there was never closure. You just had to keep, you know, churning the mill and hoping that you don't burn out or you know. And we're seeing that in how many teachers are coming in to become teachers pre-service teachers and the duration of their careers tend to be a little bit shorter and shorter as time goes on. I totally love that idea too. I don't love the idea, but I like the awareness of that they haven't stopped and that they are tired. You can see that a lot of the time. But that, that love for teaching, in that sense of responsibility and duty, I mean teachers are amazing, strong people.

Chris Colley: 15:33

That you know, they put their heads down and they just go. I wanted to ask you to kind of around that is is Is this kind of like anxiety and mental well-being, something that kids learn from parents, teachers, others, or is it part of them, you know, do they have that in them already and it takes somebody to activate it? But can you dive into that a little bit of how do kids become anxious and, you know, have difficulty sometimes with their mental health?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 16:11

Yeah, so, like many, like many, just like, if you take the model of the developmental origins of disease, you know we have something similar now as well with mental health. Is that? Of course? You know, like anything, we're born with our own temperament. Each child has its own temperament and temperament is largely genetically sort of wired right, like. So, of course, you know, I think it's not impossible that you have two parents that there's no history of.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 16:40

I think let's take anxiety specifically, and then you know, could that result in a child being anxious? Yes, but again it's. Could that result in a child being anxious? Yes, but again, it's all about the incidents, right? So it's never like causal, direct cause, but it's, it's the likelihood of, or the increased risk of, right. So so usually what we do see is that, minimally, there's on one side of the parents, the genetic biological parents there's, there's a there, there is a lineage of either. You know, it doesn't need to be anxiety specifically, it could be anxiety, could be depression, could be anything else, but there was something where there was either suspected. So that's why you often ask that, have to ask not just like diagnosed, but sometimes people live their entire lives without an actual diagnosis, but like people will say oh yeah, like whenever there was an incident, my mom was a worrier. She was like you know she would be preoccupied. It was evident, you know she was stressed out when people come over these types of things. So typically that's what we have.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 17:32

So there's something in genetic component and you sort of talked about that before, about, like you know that there's like almost like a stress vulnerability model. So you have a genetic predisposition and then you know you need an environment, something to basically trigger the genetic predisposition to be sort of like manifested, or we call it phenotype. So you have a. It activates the manifestation related to the genetic presentation. So it's usually a combination of both.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 18:04

So that at the same time, I'm always careful how I address it, because I never talk about I don't want parents to think it's the parents fault. You know we do. It's the parents fault if you're anxious. That could be true. Like you might grow up in an environment where it kind of was more stressful and therefore it did lead to you developing some vulnerability when it comes to anxiety. But the good side of that as well is that because the environment plays a role in sort of like setting up or turning on your genetic vulnerability is that you know if you lose, you learn the tools your environment can also become one to buffer this risk right. So you may be born into a family where you know your parents were anxious and the way they reacted.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 18:47

That's why we, that's why I say working with kids, you have to work with parents as well, because our response to our kids will play a role in how they express their emotions. That we call that emotion socialization, emotion regulation, socialization behaviors, because it sort of sets the tone. It's not exclusive, it's not causal, but it's one of the mechanisms by which it gets manifested. But so the positive take I want to tell people as well is that's why, you know, it's worth it for families to learn more about emotion regulation and how to promote it in their children. It's worth it for schools and teachers to learn about it because there's ways that we can change it, and the earlier the better, because when we're younger our brain is like, there's brain plasticity, so that means the brain is malleable. It has the ability to reorganize itself more in a more easier, more feasible fashion.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 19:47

Hence the whole aspect of my lab that studies and promotes school-based mental health, which is let's give the kids the tools before they become ill, so that when they do, perhaps by implementing these strategies, they can either offset or at least reduce the severity of what is being manifested. So it's twofold. I think I always want to be careful not having that dialogue without also highlighting that you know what? Maybe you did grow up in an environment where it was anxiety prone or induced induced, but you have the ability via the environment to also, how I could say, reverse things, reverse the negative side effects. And also that's why I'm working in pregnancy now is that if we teach parents even before they start thinking about these realities, is that hopefully, by the time their children grow?

Chris Colley: 20:53

these positive, proactive changes can be implemented in the system and the environment to then sort of create better outcomes, being much more to the forefront because we were seeing it much more often in our teachers parents. Like everyone was affected by it, as we said before. With that in mind, what are some tips or tricks here to start this school year off that you would recommend for teachers and parents to be aware of or to support that mental health in the students and in their kids?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 21:28

Yeah, I would say one of the first thing is probably surrounding just organization and the level of activity that is in your family. I think this is one of the things that I'm trying to always even myself like I'm speaking as a professional, but I'm trying to always even myself like I'm speaking as a professional, but I'm also, um, a mom. I mean, I have a family, right. So, um, and I want to, I'm always conscientious of not providing, you know, advice that I don't myself, you know, um, implement. That's just my, my way, that I want to live my life by. But point being is that definitely it's, it's, there's a systemic pressure to always be doing something, the, the, the sort of like irony positive irony of the pandemic is that you know, despite the fact that people were stressed about, like, sanitary issues and you know the health component, because a lot of the things close and were interrupted, the reality is that a lot of people reported that they were actually feeling healthier after a few months because they were forced into making a choice, a systemic choice, and some activities were reduced and therefore you weren't overworking yourself as an individual, but also as a family. You didn't have to rush after school to bring your kids to this activity or that activity every single day. That was not there. So you kind of went about your day of like, okay, you know what, today I think I would like to do this and then let's, you know, let's just do it. So and I actually wanted the sort of caution like I remember towards the end of the pandemic people were like, okay, so what are the? What's a cautionary tale that you envision as we're exiting, as we're walking away, seeing the end of the tunnel out of the pandemic? Was this very point. Was that people forget quickly, as much as now, if I ask most people either that I saw clinically or that I was doing a lot of.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 23:36

I was doing a lot of sort of talks at the time and sort of conference. People were saying I'm so, I'm so glad that I just I'm doing things more, maybe more intuitively, you know, because I'm kind of forced to, but I'm prioritizing my mental health. I'm prioritizing my health. I'm walking every day forcing you into reducing the over demand on your lifestyle. You know you have to remember the benefits of it so that you maintain it. But I said I feel like for a lot of people they're going to go right back to where they were and forget the benefits of making these choices and forget the benefits of making these choices.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 24:28

So I think we're afraid, as families, we compare ourselves a lot to what other kids are doing, what other parents are supporting their kids in achieving, and we're really filling up our activity, our schedule and that has an impact. So, therefore, you can have the best strategies in the world to manage anxiety. But anxiety, you know, at the base is the result of stress that is not well managed and you know. So your schedule being overwhelmed and twofold, I think, is one of the ways that I see families struggle is that we do too much and there's not enough time in one day or one week to feasibly a lot of the times, be able to do everything that we do sustainably. Maybe right now it's working, but eventually you're going to burn out, but that's the reality. So I think you know that's one of the things we have to do.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 25:24

First and foremost, think about prioritizing and trying to, you know, establish I was I was talking about that during the pandemic like what's your family plan? Like your family is. We do that as part of parenting care. We always say like what's your in case of emergency what's your plan and do it based on your values. Emergency what's your plan and do it based on your values?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 25:48

And I think the more we can try to focus our outlook on not what the society is doing, not what other people are. You know, because there's always, you know, like Instagram. You know Instagram versus reality. You know like there's these families that seemingly even in the media sometimes, you know we talk about that a lot in pregnancy. Now, this is like what people post-pregnancy looks like like mom, like hair all well done, like makeup on, like nice clothes, like lost all the baby weight. And then the reality. This is not what most women are experiencing.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 26:18

So I think we have to try to establish what. What does our family need? And it may be less than others, but maybe it's healthy for us. And so even with schools, maybe this teacher is able to do all that I talk about that. You know I compared to gardens. You're looking at your, your, your fellow teacher, and they seem like they're doing this and that and oh my gosh, so it looks so great what they're doing and you're trying really hard to to have that fruit garden, but maybe you're like a vegetable garden, you know, to give an analogy and so, and then ultimately, like I compare myself, I'm like I'm just a vegetable garden, like I wish I was a fruit garden. But ultimately, when you think about it, like if I had to choose one over the other, like I shouldn't have to choose because I need the fruits, I need the output of that individual, but I also need the I know, also need the vegetables. So we we have, all of us have something to contribute.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 27:11

And this is why I think I always bring it back to my other point about anxiety social support community. Like during the pandemic, we lost that. So all of a sudden, because we lost it, we valued it. Now that we have it, how many of us now, you know, when we look at the pandemic, we're like, oh, if only I could go see my mother, if only I could connect with that neighbor. And now we have the ability to do it. How many of us are actually doing it Right? We always sort of value something once we don't have it, we try to have a mindset of more taking advantage of it now that we have it. So that starts with priority. So the social support.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 27:50

Like back to my thing about like you know, how can I benefit? One teacher has vegetables, like it's figurative right, but one has fruits. Well, we need to be in community to be able to benefit from each other's output and so. So, therefore, I'm seeing that, you know, we're going back to being very individualistic, very sort of doing our own thing, but ultimately that has a price as well, because we can't benefit from each other's gifts and contributions and skills and aptitudes, right? So there's very little benefits to trying to be someone else. Instead, let's fully assume who we are and try to, in community collectivity, try to benefit or also capitalize on what others have to offer in order to be able to just be more happy but also to be less tired.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 28:40

It goes back to my initial point, like being overworked. Is there a that? Is there a way that we can set up our work and our school environments where maybe we can't have two teachers in one class? The co-teaching model is not endorsed by the ministry, like it is perhaps in other countries or other schools, but is there a way that we can share?

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 29:00

I don't know lesson preparation, I'm good at universal style, you know sort of history and you're good in math.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 29:07

I'm really struggling when I have to do my math. So instead of like not telling anybody that I'm struggling with putting together my math you know, lesson you know can I just be comfortable with who I am, share you know what I have to give and then maybe benefit from other people helping me out with what they've prepared, and then all of a sudden I can go home earlier on a given day because I've, I've, I've been able to, you know, complete my my course preparation or my class preparation more efficiently, trying to be someone else. That I'm not Right and I know it's very philosophical what I'm saying, but I think we still have to think about that, because that's how we were living in the pandemic and that was the positive at the pandemic. But now that we're out of the pandemic, we've kind of lost these. We've lost these kinds of, let's say, uh, you know, so these, these, um, these life like, like life skills or things that would benefit us ultimately yeah, I love how to your, your, we.

Chris Colley: 30:01

There were so many important lessons that we learned from that period of time that we all went through together, and I love the idea of reflecting back on it for the positive things that came out of it, where the rat race wasn't always going on, you know, like we had to, you know shelter in place. Sometimes we had curfews and we often forget those lessons. It was just like, almost like we wanted to forget about it and reassume the way we were before, without acknowledging that it did change us and that we did learn some insightful lessons, as you're pointing out.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 30:41

Well, let's not wait till it's forced upon us, right? Because that's what burnout does as well. I'll talk about the other thing. Ultimately, you know, like doing everything or trying to do everything comes at a cost, ill. And so there, that's what our bodies, where I'm saying my brain is shutting down because it's just too much, um, and then it can lead into even like my brain's overtiredness, can also lead my body physiologically to shut down. That's what a burnout is. It's a psychological and a physiological like let down. I shut down, I'm just overly tired. And there you know, like once we hit rock bottom, like we have to stop.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 31:25

So I always tell people like what, what's better? To make conscious choice today, to sort of like slow things down, which will help me manage stress better, which ultimately it's, it's all mathematical if I manage stress better, I'm gonna be less anxious, um, or wait till again, not a pandemic this time, but a burnout actually slows down. But the problem is that once you hit rock bottom like that, the bottom of the barrel, with a burnout, it can take years to really remit from that or get better from that. So I think we have to. We always think about what it could be.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 32:03

Oh, here's what I could be. It's never good enough. We're never good enough, but you know, I think we also have to learn to value where we're at today based on what it could be. So think about the negative as well and sort of use that as a leverage of okay. So maybe I need to make these decisions today to ensure that I continue living my life in a more sustainable way and a happier way as well, like happiness is. It's not a formula, it's not money, it's it's perspective, right, it's. It's based on values, it's based on a sense that I'm making decision. I have a sense of agency, as opposed to just running on autopilot, right?

Chris Colley: 32:41

Right In control, rather than the world.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 32:46

You know, I'm at the will, I'm just kind of like, I'm just kind of like a bouncing ball, like whatever, but it doesn't need to be this way. And so this is why I always say I could come up with the best strategies, but you know, it's almost like putting a bandaid on an infected wound, right. Ultimately, you know, these strategies can only really work well if, systemically, you know, I'm at a place where things are healthy and sustainable, right.

Chris Colley: 33:15

Yeah, for sure.

Chris Colley: 33:16

So, insightful, really insightful, I mean. I think just listening and having this conversation it's starting to trigger ideas in me and reflecting and like it's really interesting to kind of look at yourself in the mirror a little bit and be like this is who I am and maybe I need to adjust this or tweak that. Or, you know, go and see the neighbor or you, whatever it might be, that's going to be your thing. But I love this idea that we can control it. We don't have to be that kind of bouncing ball, as you said.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 33:53

Exactly. And also let's control it now, because eventually we're not infallible. And so, therefore, other things maybe not a pandemic this time, but other life circumstances, could you know? We don't know. Like you know things, things happen life. Life is ups and downs, right, so let's not wait till something on the outside of us stops us. And how about we just try to make some choices today that will not at all costs prevent you know harmful things, or you know sad things, from happening, but at least it's it's. It's paving the way into creating a more stable.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 34:29

That's what emotion regulation is as well. Right, it's like my ability to tolerate the distress, potential for distress that comes from adversity. Right, like, emotion regulation is not measured when all things are going well. What differentiates people that are well regulated from those that are not? It's when they're tested. Right, when periods of adversity.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 34:50

For some reason, people that have better emotion regulated, like, when they experience adversity, they don't deal with it in the same way, and I think we know from research that it's really based on their outlook. It's based on, for example, if I have less things going on left and right and then all of a sudden, I don't know, I break my leg, for example, well then you know, if I, the less things I have, if my life was already more manageable before that life event, well then you know I'll be better able to to just kind of like address various needs. If I'm running on, like you know, almost like paycheck to paycheck, that kind of analogy like if I'm running on like a thin thread, if I'm like spread left and right and then an event like that happens, for sure it's going to create a much more overwhelming reaction, because I was already overwhelmed before that event. And now that that event is occurring, well then I can't, I can't address all the different things, right? So well then I can't, I can't address all the the different things, right? So, um, it's also the perspective. It's like, okay, maybe, maybe this bad thing happened, but you know what? I also have these things right.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 35:53

So this idea of compartmentalizing our life like that and making sure that it's it's it's feasible if something were to happen, it's all the notion if something were to happen, like would I still be able to manage all of that. And I'm the worst at that as well. We know a lot of perfectionists are the worst at that, because we want to be doing everything everywhere. But, like I'm reminded of that, as I'm telling it to you as well, it is the way to do it and and that's why people and if we study people that are naturally more resilient and emotionally regulated, that's they're not.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 36:24

They're not better individuals necessarily genetically than us. It's just they often have these systemic features that can be replicated by those that are less emotionally regulated. This is the characteristics around their lives typically. So it's not just genetics, it's like. This is how they tend to see life, this is how they tend to make the choices, this is based on values and then. So therefore, if that's what they do and they seem to be better regulated, the idea is that, well, if I sort of make these same or implement or introduce these same things in my everyday life, then essentially I should be able to see those same types of benefits. So I think the model by which I idea of resiliency is that it's not one that you're just born with. It's one that you can actually in your environment, in your systemic um, in your systems that you, you live by, whether it's professional or personal um, it's one that can be harvested, and that's really my, my mindset, that's my view of things. I think it's way more encouraging and hopeful. Um so, um so it really taps.

Chris Colley: 37:26

You can achieve that idea where you're not limited. You can always improve, you can always try something else. You can always practice a bit more. Like it's not like. Nope, this is what I am.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 37:38

Yes, it's like test it, try it and see and you become the judge of it, right, but a lot of the times we just we don't even stop. That's why, again, the other another tool for emotion regulation and anti-anxiety is mindfulness. We need to be able, like everything I just said, to achieve, for example, making better choices, prioritizing, you know, for example, socializing, you know, valuing the, you know the sense of community. Well, you can only achieve that if you actually stop and think about how you're living your life. Right, mindfulness is that it's just being attuned to what I'm thinking, what I'm doing. So that's another thing.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 38:14

If your life is busy, busy, busy, full, full, full, full, full, well, you won't be able to be mindful, right, because it's too full, it's too busy. So that's why, you know, the idea of like prioritizing goes hand in hand with being more mindful and being more mindful that you can be more attuned to your values. And then it's like. It's like once you trigger one thing, it's kind of like always give people the analogy like, imagine you're, you're riding your bike you don't have a gear bike, ever old style bike. You're, you're pedaling forward and all of a sudden you want to start pedaling backwards.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 38:43

At first it's hard, like you know, to kind of get it to engage in the opposite direction, but eventually, once you do it, like, oh, it's becoming much more, it's facilitated, right, it's the same thing like the first. Usually the first big change is the hardest. The mindset, perhaps, the belief that you know it can actually make a difference, just just at your level of conviction of like, oh well, you know, like just this little change will not make much of a difference, but what if it did? How about you test you, you implement it and you test and you test and see and observe, um, and then usually, like, when you do that, like, then the next thing, and the next thing it just kind of naturally falls through. The hardest part is just initiating the change, um, and that usually after you do that, it's much easier to implement more changes to have a healthier lifestyle.

Chris Colley: 39:32

So cool. Well, tina, this has just been fascinating. I want to have you back because there's so much more that I have all these questions and notes that we didn't get to, so we'll definitely have to have this other continuation of this chat. Didn't get to, so we'll definitely have to have this other continuation of this chat. I think you've made us all much smarter today, and what a great episode to begin 2025 with um. Just a little surge of think about things a bit. Think about you, think about you know your likes, dislikes, where you want to be. Maybe you're doing too much. Reduce down a bit, like all these just wonderful thoughts that I think that we should be having at the beginning of the year. So, thank you so much for all of your insight and strategies that you shared with us today. It was so cool.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 40:16

Well, it's my pleasure. Thank you very much for your invitation.

Chris Colley: 40:19

Cool, and I wish you all the best in 2025. And well, we'll be talking soon.

Dr. Tina Montreuil: 40:26

Thank you Right back at you.