Dr. Chloe Carmichael joins the podcast this week to help us explore the many benefits of free speech. We know the first amendment is important because it’s a fundamental human right that benefits society as a whole, but did you know that free speech may improve your mental health as well? Dr. Carmichael makes the case that engaging in open dialogue may reduce your anxiety and depression, leading to overall wellness and personal growth.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael is a clinical psychologist, internationally known speaker, and USA Today bestselling author. She is a leading expert on anxiety and stress management and is author of the book Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety. She appears regularly in national media including ABC Nightline, Inside Edition, VH1, Vanity Fair, New York Times, and many others. She sits on the advisory board of Women’s Health Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode we explore the many benefits of free speech. Yes, we know that the first amendment is important because it’s a fundamental human right that benefits society as a whole. But did you know that free speech may improve your mental health, as well?
Well, our guest today makes the case that engaging in open dialogue may actually reduce your anxiety and depression and lead to overall wellness and personal growth. Her name is Dr. Chloe Carmichael. She is a clinical psychologist, internationally known speaker and USA Today bestselling author. She is a leading expert on anxiety and stress management and is author of the book “Nervous Energy: Harness The Power Of Your Anxiety.” She appears regularly in national media, including an ABC Nightline, Inside Edition, VH1, Vanity Fair, New York Times and many others. And she sits on the advisory board of Women’s Health Magazine.
Dr. Chloe, a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Thank you, Beverly. It’s so great to be in the space where we are allowed to think for ourselves.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yes. A very important thing. I actually want to start with your book before we get into the connection of mental health and free speech. As I mentioned, your book is called “Nervous Energy: Harnessing The Power Of Your Anxiety.” I think most people view anxiety as being a negative thing. Why do you say that there is power in it?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
The idea is that it’s actually very empowering for us to realize that whether you think of it as from mother nature or God-given feelings or whatever these are, that these are helpful signals that can actually guide us to take constructive behaviors. If we just make sure we do that proactively when we have those feelings, instead of trying to stuff them down.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I know that you outlined this in the book, but what would you say is one of the top tips for taking anxiety, which can take us to a negative place, but help us harness it for the good that you were just talking about. Are there any tips our audience can take on helping with that?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Sure. The book has nine techniques and they’re kind of broken into two categories. One is like a lean in and face your fear technique. When the anxiety is stimulating you to prepare for something that you need to manage, and then the other is for when the anxiety has almost overstimulated you and the stressor is over, the test is over, but you’re still just jazzed up with all this energy. And maybe your mind is even auto tracking onto studying for the test, even though the test is over.
One tip is that in that latter situation, when we have that extra energy still, we want to actually make sure we point it at something constructive. There’s a technique in the book called the mental shortlist. And what we do is we come up with five things that we know would be a better use of our time and energy of our mental energy. It could be getting a jump on your birthday and holiday shopping, making weekend plans with your spouse, a work project that you need to get going on. But the idea is to have five things that you write down in advance, so that instead of saying stop thinking about that old test, it’s over. That’s like don’t think about pink elephants makes you think about pink elephants. Instead, you give your brain five good things to pivot onto, to make good use of the fact that you do have that extra mental energy.
Beverly Hallberg:
And of course, some people are looking for ways to reduce their anxiety in addition to that, and you have a great suggestion. It’s related to this idea of talking; a free speech open dialogue. And I want to let people know that they can read more about this. This is what we’re going to discuss today. But if you go to Dr. Chloe.com, you have a blog there where people can look at your article entitled Free Speech May Benefit Healthy Importance of Your Dialogue.
And I thought this was so interesting because it is common for people to talk about the risks of conversation. We’re used to speech being dangerous or thought of as dangerous or potentially damaging to your mental state. I even think about, you always have those articles around Thanksgiving, which is how to handle conversation at the Thanksgiving table with family; especially related to politics. But you were actually making the point that mental health is actually benefited by engaging in conversation with people whom you disagree. Why do you say this?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
But the simple fact remains that psychology studies have shown that learning to label your feelings, put your inner experience into words. Those things are absolutely associated with decreased levels of pathological anxiety or pathological depression. Putting your feelings into words and expressing yourself is of course associated with closer relationships, greater self-awareness, the ability to think through your thoughts and even discard certain ones. When you hear yourself say them aloud, if you realize that they don’t really work for you, they don’t make sense for you. All these things are good for people’s maturity and their social relationships, as well as their self-awareness and all of those things promote mental health.
Beverly Hallberg:
And do you find that women tend to be more open to having conversations even about feelings? Do you find that there is a difference between the sexes on this?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Well, women are naturally more prone to talk about feelings. However, men may be very much inclined to say discuss beliefs. We all have different ways of processing our internal life, but whether you’re male or female learning to take your internal life and put it into words will improve your social relationships as well as increase your problem solving abilities. I mean, you mentioned men versus women. Yes, women are also more prone to take refuge in social relationships, even though men need those, too. But putting our issues into words does also help us to get help from others in terms of problem solving and idea development.
In fact, evolutionary psychologists have speculated that our gift for language is why human beings evolved to such a sophisticated species. Those of us who say, Hey, language came from God. We can look at it that way, too, that God gave us this very special unique gift as humans. Any way you look at it, language is important and there’s no need to stifle it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Would you say that all conversations with people are beneficial? Meaning, let’s say somebody vehemently disagrees with you and is not in a place of wanting to have a conversation. Are there times where it is beneficial to your wellbeing to not have conversations that may be confrontational?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Beverly Hallberg:
And from a psychological standpoint, if somebody has been thinking about an issue for a while and it’s really, really bothered them, what do you see as the ease and comfort level a person has once they, as we would call it, get it off their chest? Do people tend to feel better when they get it off their chest?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Well, that’s obviously going to depend a little bit on the content of what they’re getting off their chest. You might have a heart to heart and get off your chest some certain beliefs that you have about a political issue or people across the aisle. And as you get it off your chest, you realize, again, to the point of my book “Nervous Energy: Harness The Power Of Your Anxiety,” that it stimulates people to do preparation behaviors. If you have a heart to heart and you realize that you don’t feel any better, you just feel a greater sense of awareness that you’re very disturbed by what’s happening in your local politics.
That conversation, while it didn’t make you feel better, might fire you up and give you the awareness that you need to go volunteer for a campaign or start some door knocking, or maybe it makes you realize that you don’t know enough about the issue. That you had a lot of talk and realized you had a lot of emotion, but that you didn’t have a lot of facts. And so it may stimulate you to go read a book. The idea is not always talk it out and then feel calm. Sometimes the idea is talk it out and realize what other healthy action you need to take.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think that’s such an important part. I’m a huge defender of free speech and one of the reasons why is that we get better ideas the more that people converse and talk. It’s when people stop talking that people don’t learn and grow and we can all learn from each other. Have you seen a correlation in this fear of speaking out because of the polarization of this nation? People are fearful in doing that and people not feeling as comfortable. We see that even when it comes to suicide rates and there are so many different factors that go into it, but that people’s wellbeing as a whole has declined and decreased as polarization has increased in the United States.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Absolutely. And I would say even, to me, it’s less about the fact that there’s polarization and more about the fact that that polarization is for some reason causing us to feel as if we cannot talk to each other, and as if we cannot listen to each other. One of the hallmarks of depression is a sense of helplessness to the point that you and I just discussed. You can have a good conversation with somebody and they can give you ideas about things that you could do. If you wanted to say, learn more, do more, get involved, develop some ideas, learn about what’s happening in your community. That would mitigate the sense of helplessness, which is associated with depression.
On a similar level, social support is considered a protective factor against both anxiety and depression. And when we can have a true heart to heart with others that is authentic, deep, high quality social support. When we have to be constantly hiding our real views because we’re afraid we could get canceled if somebody knows what we really think, that’s almost the opposite of social support. Right? That’s like the opposite. For many reasons, social support and other factors that help mental health I think are actually associated with free speech.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think there are a lot of people out there who obviously fear the condemnation of saying something that’s unpopular. That’s common for so many people. But there are those people where even if it’s not a confrontational topic, they’re afraid of conversing an open dialogue because they’re afraid they’re going to sound stupid. What do you say to somebody about the importance of talking through feelings and thoughts as a way to inform oneself and they shouldn’t feel stupid for talking about things that they don’t have all knowledge about?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Well, there’s one technique in psychology that can be very helpful, which is called narrating your experience. Which again, it’s taking your internal life and putting it into words. And it’s been shown in psychology to be helpful for people’s mental health. And so what you’re describing there, Beverly, narrating your experience would look like saying, I’ve never really said some of this stuff aloud, so I’m going to talk my way through it and think my way through it. I might even change my mind aloud as I speak. And I actually also confess, I don’t know a lot about the topic. If you hear blind spots in what I’m saying by all means, feel free to jump in and educate me, but here’s been on my mind lately.
To just be honest about where you’re coming from, as well as the limits and the truth of your curiosity, I think is a great starting point for someone who may even have an accurate awareness that their knowledge level might leave something to be desired. And there’s no shame in that realizing that, and then being willing and able to talk it through and start exchanging information and ideas is a great starting point.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I want to take a brief moment to talk to you, our listeners. You may know the Independent Women’s Forum is the leading National Women’s Organization dedicated to enhancing people’s freedom, opportunities, and wellbeing. But did you know that we are also here to bring you women and men on the go the news?
You can listen to our high noon podcast and an intellectual download featuring conversations that make a free society possible. Hear guests like Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin discuss the most controversial subjects of the day. Or join us for happy hour with At The Bar, where host Inez Stutmin and Jennifer Bruceros chat on the latest issues at the intersection of law, politics, and culture. You can listen to past [email protected] or search for High Noon or At The Bar in your favorite podcast app.
Well, Dr. Chloe, I’m going to go back to one of the common criticisms of the idea of free speech, and that is, do you really support all of free speech when people are saying things hateful. For example, if it was racist in nature, do you still support free speech then? Do you think that all speech should be protected?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Yes, I do. And that includes if somebody wants to say something against, for example, women as I am, or something against psychologists, as I am. Anything that people want to say. Yes, yes, and yes, they should be allowed to say it. Does that mean that I have to choose to open up my ears and listen to it? No, no, and no. In fact, I’m extremely careful about what I personally consume in terms of my media diet, as well as the people that I let into my inner circle and surround myself with.
However, ironically, it’s free speech that enables me to make wise choices about who I really want in my inner circle. If somebody wants to say derogatory things about women or whatever else, I’m glad to know how they feel, because then if I want to, I can engage in debate about it, or I can say, nah, I’d rather just move on and talk to other people about other things. But shutting down free speech, it actually makes us less secure as a society.
Beverly Hallberg:
I want to talk about what we have seen more in the educational sphere. We think of higher education colleges and university who are notorious these days for shouting down speakers, for trying to silence people who have a certain perspective. What could be the possible impacts of that as time goes on, if more and more people think that certain speech shouldn’t be allowed?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Well, obviously it’s a stunted intellectual environment. It’s very unfortunate. I’ve actually had several very interesting talks with some of my professors since graduating more than a decade ago with my PhD. After a few years, I finally got enough courage up to talk to some of the professors that used to say things that I really disagreed with, but I didn’t have the courage to discuss. Well, I mean, I say I didn’t have the courage, but honestly it may have even been simple savviness because as we also know, if you disagree with a professor, it could hurt your grade. And I needed those grades in order to accomplish my professional goals on some level. But as you were kind of alluding to there are all these safe spaces at these universities, and those are not only damaging and limiting to the intellectual conversation because students don’t even get to hear both sides.
And it’s actually by hearing both sides of an argument that we even become inoculated and stronger against “the other side” by, I think, colleges are actually leaving themselves open, vulnerable to an uprising from people like IWF, because they’re not even preparing students to hear the other side. But then of course, again, as I mentioned earlier, this whole concept of safe spaces is actually undermining our sense of social safety. When we teach students that God forbid, they hear the wrong words that is tantamount to physical violence, which as a clinical psychologist, I can tell you it is not.
When I’m assessing a patient, it’s my duty to find out, does this person have thoughts of harm to self or others? And if they do it is my duty to take legal action, to prevent them from acting on those thoughts. If the person tells me that they have thoughts of telling off their neighbor, it would actually be illegal for me to try to take steps, to interfere with their movements or whatever they might do. So I think we’re really doing students that disservice by suggesting to them that words are violence and that they cannot be safe in spaces where people may say things that they dislike.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so much of what people dislike these days is political rhetoric. And I think when Donald Trump was President he really highlighted communication, whether you think it was positive or negative, but it was just an interesting case study from a communication standpoint. He introduced more of hitting back tough, name calling, and we see that even today among both parties.
Do you feel like you’ve seen the rhetoric and how people communicate with each other, especially in the public square, on social media change, from how it used to be? And maybe that’s partially because of social media, allowing people to have this anonymous cover.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
A hundred percent. I couldn’t have said it better, Beverly to tell you the truth. As you just said so clearly on social media, we are depersonalized. There’s less empathy because you don’t see the person’s face even kind of register and ouch if you insult them. There’s not even any kind of obligation or opportunity to stick around and hear the person’s response. It’s a little bit more of a drive by. Social dynamics are also very distorted and skewed thanks to the bots, because part of the benefits, again, of speech and language are that we have a sense of community and social feedback.
If that’s actually contrived through bots on social media or people that are not really truly there to have a conversation, it’s an extremely distorted and maladaptive environment. I wouldn’t let anybody on social media that didn’t have a very strong and mature sense of themselves. I mean, that sounds strong again to say I wouldn’t quote let them, but I would certainly be very careful for anyone that wasn’t very grounded if they were going to make that foray.
Beverly Hallberg:
And just to round out the conversation, I want to end with a tip maybe that you can offer to our audience. One of the things I’m very benefit in doing is having a platform to be able to share thoughts. And so it gives me if we want to say a safe space to do so, it’s what I do for a living. Even though there are some naysayers out there, there is a benefit in a paycheck and having work in speaking my mind.
It’s something that I view as actually an easy thing to do because there’s a platform for it. But for people out there who are listening who think, I don’t know how to talk to my neighbor about this, or I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I’m too afraid. It’s scary to think about talking about political viewpoints or my perspective on anything, whether that’s just day to day issues, whether that’s faith. What tips can you give someone who’s say afraid to dip their toe in these waters? If they really do want to speak about things to help learn, like you said, reduce anxiety is a benefit of it. How do you help that person? How have you helped your patients?
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Yeah, so making a list there, there’s a few thoughts. Depending on your situation. One tip is that you may want to consider having an ally. Right? You mentioned the proverbial Thanksgiving dinner table. And if you want to be someone that says, wait a minute, I don’t want to be a Thanksgiving dinner table where we can’t share our minds. I want to have those good old fashioned debates and discussions at our Thanksgiving table, or with my neighbor or whatever, but I’m just really intimidated.
One thought is to have an ally. You would maybe talk to a friend and say like, I’m going to try to raise the subject of such and such. I’m going to do it in a friendly way. I want to have a true conversation, but I don’t want to do it alone. Would you join me in raising that in the group conversation? Another way to do it is to demonstrate a true willingness to be a listener because what makes those conversations go sideways sometimes is when people feel like they’re not really looking for a conversation, you’re just trying to get at them.
You can start by saying, I realize that I don’t have enough political conversations and maybe I don’t understand as much about what other people think. Would you please share with me your thoughts about such and such and I’m going to listen and I’m just going to ask questions. And if you want to hear my thoughts, I’ll share them, but I want to start by listening.
And one final thought, Beverly, for people, as you said, that are very shy and just trying to get started is actually to listen to shows like yours. I’ll even say for myself when I’m trying to work out my own thoughts and feelings about some new item in the news. And it’s just kind of taken me a little bit to figure myself out. I benefit by listening to political podcasts and shows where other people are talking about it and having a dialogue. And next thing you know, I’m kind of having a dialogue in my mind and it’s a half step towards having a conversation. Then you can share with somebody. You can forward them the podcast or whatever, and say, I heard this and I want to know what you think. I do that with girlfriends on social media all the time.
Beverly Hallberg:
I know everybody is different. There are some that are internal processors, some that are verbal processors. Not surprisingly, I’m the latter. I like to talk things out and that’s how I process. But I think regardless, it just brings up the important point that conversations are important and the added benefit, as you say, it helps your mental health. It reduces anxiety and depression. And I think it’s just a fantastic thing to think about.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Remember the blog is Dr. Chloe.com and the book is “Nervous Energy: Harness The Power Of Your Anxiety.” Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Chloe Carmichael:
Thank you, Beverly. I actually have a super easy way for people to find the book. I know some people just listen and I know you’ll put it in the links. But just in case, they can go to makeachange.us. That’s makeachange.us and it will take them straight to my blog.
Beverly Hallberg:
That’s perfect. Thank you so much. And thank you all for listening to us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. Please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That’s iwf.org/donate.
Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or review on iTunes, it does help and would love it if you shared this episode so your friends can know where they can find more She Thinks. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for watching.
