How to Get Out of a Funk
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About the Show
On this episode, Chuck Gaidica is joined by Senior Health Care Analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Josh McCullough. Together, they discuss what it means to be in a funk and ways to get out of one.
In this episode of A Healthier Michigan Podcast, we explore:
- What it means to be in a funk and how it's different from clinical depression
- Common signs of being in a funk
- Effective ways to rest and recharge while in a funk
- How engaging in creative activities might help one feel better
Transcript
Chuck Gaidica:
Have you ever experienced temporary sadness or a lack of motivation for a period of time? You might be in a funk. This is A Healthier Michigan podcast, Episode 163 and coming up, we discuss ways to get out of a funk.
Have you ever experienced temporary sadness or a lack of motivation for a period of time? You might be in a funk. This is A Healthier Michigan podcast, Episode 163 and coming up, we discuss ways to get out of a funk.
Welcome to A Healthier Michigan podcast. It's a podcast dedicated to navigating how we can improve our health and wellbeing through small, healthy habits that we can start implementing right now.
I'm your host, Chuck Gaidica, and every other week, we'll sit down with a certified expert and we discuss topics that cover nutrition, fitness, and more. And on this episode, we're diving into what it means to be in a funk and ways we can get out of it. With me today is senior healthcare analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Josh McCullough. Josh, good to have you with us.
Josh McCullough:
Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.
Chuck Gaidica:
It's something that I think we all experience, right, that... and I don't think it's too broad a brush. We have experienced sadness, we experienced joy, we experienced happiness, all these different kinds of emotion. But sometimes, sadness can be accompanied by lack of motivation. Could go on for days at some point. Questions are many, but during those times, it seems like a lot of us tend to keep ourselves to ourselves, right? That was a thing during the pandemic, especially. We may even avoid others. That accompanies this idea that we're down. And for those who have experienced this idea, maybe as we're calling it, being in a funk, we know that eventually it passes, maybe even on its own. You get back to your day-to-day operations. Everything seems fine. But there are ways that we can be proactive, right, to get ourselves out of a funk sooner than later?
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely right.
Chuck Gaidica:
So can you define, maybe let's have a couple definitions, what is a funk? What does it mean?
Josh McCullough:
So a funk is kind of when people experience the blues, the blahs. There's something that happens in their life or something that's going on that sticks with them that they just can't quite shake. It might not be something that rises to the level of... you mentioned clinical depression and clinical depression is defined by National Institutes of Mental Health as "symptoms of depression that last two weeks or longer." So those symptoms can be things like problems with sleep, problems with appetite. We certainly feel that depressed, downer mood, have that depressed thinking. We can be very down on ourselves, dismissive of ourselves, and it would impact our functioning.
I think that's an important thing to pay attention to is not only do we have those internal feelings, but when it comes to a clinical depression, it starts to impact things like, are we going to our job? Are we taking a lot of time off? Are we at our job and we're not functioning? We're not doing the work we're supposed to be doing. Maybe we're not taking care of ourselves. We're not eating as frequently or as well as we do or as we used to. It can really throw off our daily routines.
A funk is something that is, again, not to dismiss it, but it's not as severe. It's that depressed feeling, those troubles, those thoughts that we just can't shake, that don't rise to the level of impairing our functioning to the levels that I talked about.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, it seems to me there's a headline that's screaming in this right away and that is that if you're in a funk, there's great hope that you're going to come out of it, right? I mean, that's kind of by definition what you're saying is that eventually, in a shorter period of time, maybe than longer, we pop out of that. Am I off?
Josh McCullough:
No, you're absolutely right and I think not only for that short term funk that we're talking about, but also for longer term depression. I want to make sure that people understand that that is something that can improve. It can go away, that when we're feeling down, part of what we're feeling may be hopelessness. Things may not change. I'm always going to feel like this. This funk isn't going to pass. This depression isn't going to pass. But some of the things that you and I are going to talk about today are things that can help snap us out of it or help prevent it, kind of lessen the blow to begin with.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, for someone who's had somebody in my life, in my family who had clinical depression, I could see signs, right? And there's so many off-ramps here. I'm just racing through my own mind as you're speaking. It could be body image, it could be you're a binge eater, or it could be your depression or your funk is leading to those things. But give us some signs. What are some signs that pop up that say you or someone you know may be in a funk. We won't necessarily differentiate yet and go into clinical depression, but what about the funk? What are we looking for?
Josh McCullough:
Well, it's certainly that feeling of depressed mood. I think that's something everyone can relate to. At one point in our life or another, we've all had that. If it's some sort of temporary falling out or permanent falling out with someone who's close to us, something's going wrong in our jobs or our schoolwork, something else is going on in our social life, one way or another, we feel that depressed mood and that we might feel pretty quickly. We have a falling out one night with a loved one or a coworker or something like that. The next morning, we're certainly feeling it.
That kind of stucked-ness in our thinking is another one. We may kind of ruminate or think over and over and over about what it is that's troubling us. We may start to then generalize it, "Well, not only is this one thing going wrong in my life, maybe other things are going wrong in my life." I may start to focus on the negative.
We may stop enjoying the activities we used to enjoy or we may slow down on them: listening to or playing music, creating art, reading, writing, exercising. Whatever it may be, we may say, "I just don't feel like doing that like I used to."
So it's really an issue of what we're thinking isn't matching what's happening. When we're in a funk, we're in a depression, we tend to focus on the negative, even if people point out to us not everything is going right or not everything is going wrong, I should say.
Chuck Gaidica:
Right.
Josh McCullough:
There's other things in life, but this funk, this bad mood really colors how we see everything. It's kind of the opposite of rose-colored glasses in a sense.
Chuck Gaidica:
And while I think it's got to be great that we've got our own kitchen cabinet of people around us, right, could be a spouse, coworker, friends, other relatives that can recognize we've gone into a funk, can try to help us get out of it, sometimes that advice may just be, "Come on, snap out of it, snap out of it."
Josh McCullough:
Just don't be depressed.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah. From what you're saying, it may not be that easy to get out.
Josh McCullough:
Unfortunately, no. And I would dare say that in my time as a psychologist, I've been practicing for a couple decades now, and rather, I've had my license and been a psychologist for a couple decades. I have never met anyone that that's been the answer for. Just snap out of it. And someone says, "Oh. Oh, you're right. Oh, why don't I just snap out of it?"
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, correct.
Josh McCullough:
And oftentimes when that happens, it can kind of turn into a case of the shoulds. I should snap out of it, but I'm not snapping out of it, so I feel even worse. I should feel better, but I don't, so then I feel even worse. We just get into this sort of role of snowballing of shoulds. And even with the best of intentions, our friends, our family, our loved ones can give advice, but advice makes a certain common sense. But especially if we're in a funk or we're feeling depressed, we're just not feeling good about ourselves, that common sense sort of approach just doesn't seem to snap folks out of it. It can take a little more than that to help lift the mood again.
Chuck Gaidica:
And what's so interesting there is that we all may have good intentions. It may not be that we're just walking around telling everybody, "Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and it will be okay." We have these great intentions, but we don't quite know what to say sometimes because either we don't relate or we're not in a funk at the same time. So it is complicated, huh?
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, it is. And I think that that's one of those sort of counterintuitive things for most folks is if we don't know what to say, we'll try to say something. Maybe the best thing we can do is listen for a little bit and just kind of let the person know that what they're thinking, what they're feeling makes sense. It may not make sense to you or I, but it makes sense the way they're telling it to us. "I had a falling out with Josh and now I'm in this funk." "Oh, yeah, that makes sense the way you say it. Yeah, when you say it that way, I see what you're saying" because sometimes, people want to be heard, they want to be acknowledged. They want to know that what they're thinking is real. And sometimes, if we try and argue against that, it's kind of like, "Oh geez, I can't even get my closest friends and family to at least listen to me a little bit," which can, again, compound things unfortunately.
Chuck Gaidica:
So I would assume that finding rest and it may simply be something as resting your mind. It may not be that you're sleep-deprived, but the idea of finding an ability to rest and recharge could at least help you come out of the funk, right?
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Especially when it comes to a work schedule, a school schedule, things like that or even if we just have more or less routine times and days we may get together with friends, engage in hobbies, things like that. Those things are very important. And it does come down to this very fine line of just snapping out of it is not as simple as it sounds, but if there's any way that we can motivate ourselves to even just get back to those routines, engage in those things we enjoy, talk to those people that are supportive to us, even just a little bit can be very helpful. I think that something that happens to folks when they're in a funk is they may say to themselves, "I can't do what I love to do or need to do 100%. So if I can't do it 100%, then I'll do it 0%."
These kind of big swings of the pendulum, which there's something to be said for even doing a little bit of something that's helpful to you. I think of someone who's very close to me that is a runner and runs. I mean, he runs marathons, ultra marathons. He's incredible. And there are times where maybe he suffers an injury, let's say, and he can't run like he usually does, that he notices that kind of puts a damper on my mood. So even getting outside a little bit might help or walking a little bit. Even if I can't run the full 10 miles, maybe if I could just walk a little bit around the block or take small steps towards that is still better than that kind of sedentary, I'm just going to sit here and be depressed.
So I think that all or nothing thinking that the people may run into when they're in a funk is something that is going to keep us where we're at. If we can take a step back and think a little bit, "Is there something I can do that's even just a step away from what I'm doing right now?" A step closer can be very helpful.
Chuck Gaidica:
And then think of all the ancillary goodness that comes along with that. If you're going for a walk, there's the fresh air, there are the birds chirping, there's the smell after the heavy rain. I mean, there's all this stuff that's a benefit anyway, so that seems like there's an upside. And you're mentioning this one example of this friend of yours who's jogging and it's crossing my mind how many life events do we all go through? I mean, it can be a letdown because I got a sports injury. It could be I want to be an astronaut, Josh, and time has passed, right, so my dream is too... I can keep dreaming, but there's reality. But I mean, all these different things you go through in life as you mature, all these life events could lead to an individual funk and probably at times, do. And a lot of us do weather the storm or storms of life often maybe better than others, right? So it's all contextual. It's all based on how we're wired, I guess.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, and part of it is also our history as well. So we know that some people, their wiring so to speak, they're more likely than other folks to feel in a funk, to be depressed. Some people are not for some reason. We may all know those eternally positive people no matter what. We may also know some of those folks that are... they always see the dark side of things, the glass is half empty sort of folks. So we do know that some folks are just wired differently. But then we can also look at what is our history of handling difficulties in our life? And I think one of the things that can help us through a funk is if we're laying the groundwork ahead of time.
I've done some work with folks who have dealt with substance use issues. I've got my credentials as an addictions counselor, and there's a popular saying in the 12-step community that sometimes that telephone weighs 500 pounds.
Chuck Gaidica:
Wow.
Josh McCullough:
When folk are struggling, they know if I pick that phone up and I call somebody, that's going to help me out. But for a lot of different reasons, they don't. And so one of the things I recommend to people is to practice whatever might help you out ahead of time. So making routines out of calling friends, family, loved ones, having set times where you engage in things that are fun just for fun's sake: reading, writing, music. And maybe being an astronaut is no longer in the cards as you say, but that doesn't mean that you can't do things like look at the stars. That doesn't mean that you can't do things like read up on what's going on at NASA or the JPL or some of these things if they spark your interest.
Chuck Gaidica:
Thank you, Josh. I appreciate that for bringing me down gently. That's good.
Josh McCullough:
Hey, there are a good many people who have gone up to the stars.
Chuck Gaidica:
Right, right.
Josh McCullough:
Never say never. But it's interesting because there's kind of difference between when we look at a wave of things, if we look at water coming in from the lake, right, and the waves or the ocean, it's made up of all these particles of water, right? So the wave is the big concept. The big concept is space, but it's made up of all these little things like being an astronaut, looking at the stars, cool telescopes of being up-to-date on what's going on in NASA. There's something about that that sparks something in you. And even if being jetted off into space may not happen, there are still things that you can touch and contact that still spark that joy in you. And rather than saying, "Well, geez, this one big thing that's never going to happen. I should never enjoy anything related to it again," maybe enjoying things that are related to it may help contact that joy, contact that fun, that sense of wonder or whatever it is for you or for someone else.
Chuck Gaidica:
No, that's really good stuff. And I think that having... I don't know that mentor is the right word I'm looking for because I've had mentors in my life, but I think that maybe surrounding myself, even what your parents may have told you when you're a kid. They told me, right, always hang around with people that are smarter than you? And I think that maybe hanging around with some people that are more positive than me could also be helpful. I guess it could go the other way, but it seems like having this circle of people around you that can... encouragers, influencers, people who are wearing a VR headset and going to the moon. If you start to get involved with those kinds of folks, that may help you move your own life along, I guess.
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's tough to be depressed if you're around people that are not depressed. And I don't mean people that are trying to sugarcoat things or people that are trying to put on that kind of fake smile. But if you're around people that are being active and doing things, it's tough to kind of sit there and be depressed, be that Debbie Downer. And again, that's something that many of us may have experienced. Maybe I've been in a funk and maybe I went out with some friends or went see a movie or did something. Maybe it got me out of that for at least a little bit and that's worthwhile and valid too, that afterwards, maybe some of that funk comes back and that all or nothing thinking may hit us and say, "Oh geez, it's here again. It didn't work." That's discounting the fact that maybe spent a couple hours with folks and felt a little better for a while. That improvement doesn't have to be all or nothing, doesn't have to go from zero to 100. It can take steps along the way to get there.
Chuck Gaidica:
So can engaging in creative activities help someone feel better? Can you literally feel better by being creative?
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I am a hobbyist musician myself, and I know that that is something that can help me if I'm feeling down, even to just strum a few chords, kind of absent-mindedly for a little while, the old standbys, the ones, the songs I know the best or the chords I like the best can help. Being around other people that are playing is something that if I'm in a funk, but I know these fellow musicians that I get together with from time to time, and it's tough to think about being depressed if you have to think about playing music or creating art or doing things with other people. A lot of other people may also find that their creativity helps manage and deal with emotions. I can express some of the downness I'm feeling. I can express some of the happiness I'm feeling, the sadness, the anxiety, the joy, the whatever. So anything we can do to be creative can also help contact and kind of manage those downer feelings, that funk that we're experiencing. Absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
That's interesting because I think of being creative in so many different ways and that idea of expressing an anger or the down whatever you're going through could maybe come out in some creative ways where for me, it's gardening, right? I love... hours can go by. I get in the flow, right, and it's just like, "Hey, you better come in for dinner" and it's like, "Oh, I'm covered in bark, mulch, and dirt. I got to stay out here." But for me, literally, hours can go by. So I'm serving, I guess it is something bigger than self, but my mind is just tuned into what I'm doing and I'm not taking out any anger. I'm not slamming the shovel harder than usual, but I am lost in these moments and it's pretty hard to have a bad time, I mean, unless I hit the sprinkler head or something.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, something like that. I mean, sometimes that funk, that depression can absolutely be blinders that we are just so focused on what's not going well and if we can somehow engage in something that really occupies our mind one way or another. Like you said, it wasn't like I was slamming down the bags of mulch or shoveling harder, but I made a choice to pay attention to something for at least a little bit of time. And maybe that snapped me out of it for a little bit of time. Maybe that was one step on the way to getting out of whatever was ailing me.
Chuck Gaidica:
What other suggestions could you make for simple, creative tasks? What other ways of being creative do you think that people should try?
Josh McCullough:
I would say similar to being an astronaut and space, anything that sparks your interest. So I think so often, we kind of discount what it is we're interested in for a lot of different reasons, especially when it comes to creativity. Oh, geez, when it comes to music, people who are interested in music typically have some sort of musical hero or heroes that they look up to. Someone that got me interested in playing guitar, playing bass, playing drums, playing pianos, singing, writing music, whatever. And we start and we think, "Oh geez, I'm not as good as they are." I think that the important thing to do with anything creative is to, one, like I said, find something, whatever it is that sparks your joy. Two, start off small. Especially when it comes to music, musicians can oftentimes spend a lot of money on acquiring new gear. The more expensive guitar, the bigger amplifier, the fancier piano, the more drums for the drum set, whatever the case is.
But there's nothing wrong with starting small and seeing how it goes. And there's also nothing wrong with reaching a certain level and being okay with that. A good many of us, myself included, when we were younger, would've loved nothing more than to be a professional musician. Oh, I'm going to get the record deal. I'm going to join the band. The band's going to make it big. We're going to hit it big. And for most, that just plain doesn't happen for a variety of reasons. But there's nothing wrong with being a hobbyist. There's nothing wrong with being a bedroom player, finding other people that are also bedroom players or maybe not. Anything that sparks, that sort of scratches that itch is valid.
And another thing that I think is important is to also not discount is to think less in terms of good, bad, right, wrong, quality, not quality, but think more in terms of is this expressing what I want to express? So I use music because it's what I'm used to knowing. We may often think, "Oh geez, I didn't play that very well. I didn't sing that very well. That sound wasn't as good as my heroes." But I think there's a lot more to be gained if we think, "Did that accurately express what I wanted to express?" Maybe the note was off. There's a lot of musicians that sing bum notes all the time and maybe their voices are not operatic, but that's part of what makes them great.
I was talking about this with my brother-in-law a while ago who himself is a very creative person. And we were talking about this concept and I said, "I'm not a very good guitar player. I've been playing for decades. I haven't gotten much better." And he, long story short, said, "The things that you think are limitations or the things you think are not very good are what get you the gig. Whether there's something about you and the way you play and things like that that make people want to play along with you."
So if it's painting, well, geez, maybe I'm not painting like Picasso or Rembrandt or the Old Masters or things like that. Well, maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe the things that are individual about your creative expression are what make what you're doing so great. Kurt Cobain, a very famous musician, sadly, is no longer with us, was talking about his guitar style one time and he said, "There's a fellow named Andrés Segovia, the father of modern classical guitar. Kurt Cobain said, "I can't play like Segovia, but Segovia can't play like me either." And I think that that's something people lose is the things that make you individual are what make your creativity so interesting.
Chuck Gaidica:
And let's be fair, you may not know the rest of your story until the rest of the story is written. You may get better, right? I mean, if you look in the rearview mirror three years down the road, I mean, you're humbly saying you haven't improved. I bet you you have improved, right? It's just maybe for me, if I took piano, I started taking piano lessons in my thirties and I took for a year and I got to When the Saints Come Marching In. And Josh, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't keep doing this." So I just know that that's not my gifting, right? But it was fun and it was good and then I moved on to something else that was an interesting thing to me. So it's okay.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with dabbling. Sometimes we think if I invest time, money, effort into being creative that I have to stick with it. And if that's our thought, then we're creating less from a place of wonder, curiosity, emotional connection, and more from a sense of obligation. I play this instrument because I spent a lot of money versus I play this instrument because I like the way it sounds and I have fun with it. And that's perfectly valid. We don't always have to do it exactly as we should. Sometimes people think, "Well geez, I've got this instrument, this piano, this guitar, this whatever. I need to practice at least an hour a day." And there are some musicians, some very famous guitar players who have these programs where they practice 8, 10, 12 hours a day. The average person can't do that. We have too many other things to do. There's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm going to pick it up for a little bit. I'm going to put it down for a little bit. I want to go back to it. And even if we're not just nose to the grindstone all the time, if we are engaging at a rate that makes us feel fulfilled, that's perfect. And I think that sometimes the funk may come if we get that sense of obligation and we think, "Geez, I'm not doing this as much as I should."
Chuck Gaidica:
I think that's great advice to start small and there's another version of that idea. An author, Bob Buford, said he encouraged everybody to use small cost probes. And I like that phrase because in his context as he was portraying the idea, it was if you want to volunteer for something, which I think would be a great way to snap out of a funk. You're serving others, right? You get your attention on helping other people. But he said, "You may think I want to go help people give blood. I want to help take blood." And you get there and you find out you pass out when you see blood. Well, but it was a small cost probe, right? You didn't get a new car. You're not driving 100 miles each way every time, right? You're kind of sticking your foot in the shallow end first and making sure it's okay. And so I like that idea because I think that sets us up for permission to fail, if you will. It's okay because there is something else other than piano lessons or whatever.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
So what can you leave us with as we wrap this one up, suggestions to understand what a funk is, how we can start to pull ourselves out of it, and things that we may want to concentrate on. Anything else you wanted to mention.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, so in kind of a nutshell, that funk is that shorter term depressed mood. It may not hit us as hard as a full clinical depression, but that doesn't mean that it's not significant. It's something that we want to pay attention to. We can maybe lay the groundwork ahead of time if there are people to talk to, activities to be engaged in that we can do before we feel that funk. Likely, it'll be a better safety net, in a sense, when we do feel it. It's kind of one thing I've used with a lot of folks that I've worked with is the idea of a safety net. And we see high wire artists, trapeze artists, acrobats, that they have a safety net and it's usually not made of just one rope. That wouldn't be a very good safety net. So we may have bigger ropes than others, people that are more important in our lives or that we're closer to than others, but to have kind of a multi-layer safety net that we're practicing ahead of time, that's more likely to catch us if we fall, if that makes sense.
Taking a look at things. Is there any small steps that I can take to help get me out this funk? I don't have to think between zero and 100. I can take smaller steps to get there. I can reach out to people, not only people that are close to me, but if I'm feeling if that maybe those couple of weeks have passed and I just still can't shake this, reaching out to our primary care physician, "Hey doc, can I get in? I've been feeling this for a while." They have different screening tests that you can take and maybe they'll recommend something. See if maybe you should see someone like a counselor to talk to, maybe a medication might help. It's good to have that professional outside eye to look at things to help with. And then also when we are being creative, thinking is this expressing what I want to express rather than good, bad, quality, not quality. It's giving us permission not to be so hard on ourselves, I think.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, that's all great stuff. Well, Josh, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you being with us.
Josh McCullough:
Thank you so much for having me.
Chuck Gaidica:
With this new world of space exploration, I'm going to call you and maybe we'll start our own thing in the backyard of going to the moon. I'm not sure.
Josh McCullough:
William Shatner went to the moon in his nineties, so-
Chuck Gaidica:
Never too late to be who you're supposed to be, right?
Josh McCullough:
... stranger things have happened. Absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, thank you so much, Josh. Take good care.
Josh McCullough:
Thank you so much. You as well.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, thanks. Josh McCullough is senior healthcare analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. We're glad he was with us and we're glad that you were here. Thanks for listening to A Healthier Michigan podcast, brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. If you like the show, you want to know more, check us out on our newly refreshed website, ahealthiermichigan.org/podcast or you can leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you can get new episodes, old episodes on your smartphone or tablets, so be sure to hit that Subscribe button on your Apple Podcasts app or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is. I'm Chuck Gaidica. Stay well.
I'm your host, Chuck Gaidica, and every other week, we'll sit down with a certified expert and we discuss topics that cover nutrition, fitness, and more. And on this episode, we're diving into what it means to be in a funk and ways we can get out of it. With me today is senior healthcare analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Josh McCullough. Josh, good to have you with us.
Josh McCullough:
Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.
Chuck Gaidica:
It's something that I think we all experience, right, that... and I don't think it's too broad a brush. We have experienced sadness, we experienced joy, we experienced happiness, all these different kinds of emotion. But sometimes, sadness can be accompanied by lack of motivation. Could go on for days at some point. Questions are many, but during those times, it seems like a lot of us tend to keep ourselves to ourselves, right? That was a thing during the pandemic, especially. We may even avoid others. That accompanies this idea that we're down. And for those who have experienced this idea, maybe as we're calling it, being in a funk, we know that eventually it passes, maybe even on its own. You get back to your day-to-day operations. Everything seems fine. But there are ways that we can be proactive, right, to get ourselves out of a funk sooner than later?
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely right.
Chuck Gaidica:
So can you define, maybe let's have a couple definitions, what is a funk? What does it mean?
Josh McCullough:
So a funk is kind of when people experience the blues, the blahs. There's something that happens in their life or something that's going on that sticks with them that they just can't quite shake. It might not be something that rises to the level of... you mentioned clinical depression and clinical depression is defined by National Institutes of Mental Health as "symptoms of depression that last two weeks or longer." So those symptoms can be things like problems with sleep, problems with appetite. We certainly feel that depressed, downer mood, have that depressed thinking. We can be very down on ourselves, dismissive of ourselves, and it would impact our functioning.
I think that's an important thing to pay attention to is not only do we have those internal feelings, but when it comes to a clinical depression, it starts to impact things like, are we going to our job? Are we taking a lot of time off? Are we at our job and we're not functioning? We're not doing the work we're supposed to be doing. Maybe we're not taking care of ourselves. We're not eating as frequently or as well as we do or as we used to. It can really throw off our daily routines.
A funk is something that is, again, not to dismiss it, but it's not as severe. It's that depressed feeling, those troubles, those thoughts that we just can't shake, that don't rise to the level of impairing our functioning to the levels that I talked about.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, it seems to me there's a headline that's screaming in this right away and that is that if you're in a funk, there's great hope that you're going to come out of it, right? I mean, that's kind of by definition what you're saying is that eventually, in a shorter period of time, maybe than longer, we pop out of that. Am I off?
Josh McCullough:
No, you're absolutely right and I think not only for that short term funk that we're talking about, but also for longer term depression. I want to make sure that people understand that that is something that can improve. It can go away, that when we're feeling down, part of what we're feeling may be hopelessness. Things may not change. I'm always going to feel like this. This funk isn't going to pass. This depression isn't going to pass. But some of the things that you and I are going to talk about today are things that can help snap us out of it or help prevent it, kind of lessen the blow to begin with.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, for someone who's had somebody in my life, in my family who had clinical depression, I could see signs, right? And there's so many off-ramps here. I'm just racing through my own mind as you're speaking. It could be body image, it could be you're a binge eater, or it could be your depression or your funk is leading to those things. But give us some signs. What are some signs that pop up that say you or someone you know may be in a funk. We won't necessarily differentiate yet and go into clinical depression, but what about the funk? What are we looking for?
Josh McCullough:
Well, it's certainly that feeling of depressed mood. I think that's something everyone can relate to. At one point in our life or another, we've all had that. If it's some sort of temporary falling out or permanent falling out with someone who's close to us, something's going wrong in our jobs or our schoolwork, something else is going on in our social life, one way or another, we feel that depressed mood and that we might feel pretty quickly. We have a falling out one night with a loved one or a coworker or something like that. The next morning, we're certainly feeling it.
That kind of stucked-ness in our thinking is another one. We may kind of ruminate or think over and over and over about what it is that's troubling us. We may start to then generalize it, "Well, not only is this one thing going wrong in my life, maybe other things are going wrong in my life." I may start to focus on the negative.
We may stop enjoying the activities we used to enjoy or we may slow down on them: listening to or playing music, creating art, reading, writing, exercising. Whatever it may be, we may say, "I just don't feel like doing that like I used to."
So it's really an issue of what we're thinking isn't matching what's happening. When we're in a funk, we're in a depression, we tend to focus on the negative, even if people point out to us not everything is going right or not everything is going wrong, I should say.
Chuck Gaidica:
Right.
Josh McCullough:
There's other things in life, but this funk, this bad mood really colors how we see everything. It's kind of the opposite of rose-colored glasses in a sense.
Chuck Gaidica:
And while I think it's got to be great that we've got our own kitchen cabinet of people around us, right, could be a spouse, coworker, friends, other relatives that can recognize we've gone into a funk, can try to help us get out of it, sometimes that advice may just be, "Come on, snap out of it, snap out of it."
Josh McCullough:
Just don't be depressed.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah. From what you're saying, it may not be that easy to get out.
Josh McCullough:
Unfortunately, no. And I would dare say that in my time as a psychologist, I've been practicing for a couple decades now, and rather, I've had my license and been a psychologist for a couple decades. I have never met anyone that that's been the answer for. Just snap out of it. And someone says, "Oh. Oh, you're right. Oh, why don't I just snap out of it?"
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, correct.
Josh McCullough:
And oftentimes when that happens, it can kind of turn into a case of the shoulds. I should snap out of it, but I'm not snapping out of it, so I feel even worse. I should feel better, but I don't, so then I feel even worse. We just get into this sort of role of snowballing of shoulds. And even with the best of intentions, our friends, our family, our loved ones can give advice, but advice makes a certain common sense. But especially if we're in a funk or we're feeling depressed, we're just not feeling good about ourselves, that common sense sort of approach just doesn't seem to snap folks out of it. It can take a little more than that to help lift the mood again.
Chuck Gaidica:
And what's so interesting there is that we all may have good intentions. It may not be that we're just walking around telling everybody, "Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and it will be okay." We have these great intentions, but we don't quite know what to say sometimes because either we don't relate or we're not in a funk at the same time. So it is complicated, huh?
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, it is. And I think that that's one of those sort of counterintuitive things for most folks is if we don't know what to say, we'll try to say something. Maybe the best thing we can do is listen for a little bit and just kind of let the person know that what they're thinking, what they're feeling makes sense. It may not make sense to you or I, but it makes sense the way they're telling it to us. "I had a falling out with Josh and now I'm in this funk." "Oh, yeah, that makes sense the way you say it. Yeah, when you say it that way, I see what you're saying" because sometimes, people want to be heard, they want to be acknowledged. They want to know that what they're thinking is real. And sometimes, if we try and argue against that, it's kind of like, "Oh geez, I can't even get my closest friends and family to at least listen to me a little bit," which can, again, compound things unfortunately.
Chuck Gaidica:
So I would assume that finding rest and it may simply be something as resting your mind. It may not be that you're sleep-deprived, but the idea of finding an ability to rest and recharge could at least help you come out of the funk, right?
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Especially when it comes to a work schedule, a school schedule, things like that or even if we just have more or less routine times and days we may get together with friends, engage in hobbies, things like that. Those things are very important. And it does come down to this very fine line of just snapping out of it is not as simple as it sounds, but if there's any way that we can motivate ourselves to even just get back to those routines, engage in those things we enjoy, talk to those people that are supportive to us, even just a little bit can be very helpful. I think that something that happens to folks when they're in a funk is they may say to themselves, "I can't do what I love to do or need to do 100%. So if I can't do it 100%, then I'll do it 0%."
These kind of big swings of the pendulum, which there's something to be said for even doing a little bit of something that's helpful to you. I think of someone who's very close to me that is a runner and runs. I mean, he runs marathons, ultra marathons. He's incredible. And there are times where maybe he suffers an injury, let's say, and he can't run like he usually does, that he notices that kind of puts a damper on my mood. So even getting outside a little bit might help or walking a little bit. Even if I can't run the full 10 miles, maybe if I could just walk a little bit around the block or take small steps towards that is still better than that kind of sedentary, I'm just going to sit here and be depressed.
So I think that all or nothing thinking that the people may run into when they're in a funk is something that is going to keep us where we're at. If we can take a step back and think a little bit, "Is there something I can do that's even just a step away from what I'm doing right now?" A step closer can be very helpful.
Chuck Gaidica:
And then think of all the ancillary goodness that comes along with that. If you're going for a walk, there's the fresh air, there are the birds chirping, there's the smell after the heavy rain. I mean, there's all this stuff that's a benefit anyway, so that seems like there's an upside. And you're mentioning this one example of this friend of yours who's jogging and it's crossing my mind how many life events do we all go through? I mean, it can be a letdown because I got a sports injury. It could be I want to be an astronaut, Josh, and time has passed, right, so my dream is too... I can keep dreaming, but there's reality. But I mean, all these different things you go through in life as you mature, all these life events could lead to an individual funk and probably at times, do. And a lot of us do weather the storm or storms of life often maybe better than others, right? So it's all contextual. It's all based on how we're wired, I guess.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, and part of it is also our history as well. So we know that some people, their wiring so to speak, they're more likely than other folks to feel in a funk, to be depressed. Some people are not for some reason. We may all know those eternally positive people no matter what. We may also know some of those folks that are... they always see the dark side of things, the glass is half empty sort of folks. So we do know that some folks are just wired differently. But then we can also look at what is our history of handling difficulties in our life? And I think one of the things that can help us through a funk is if we're laying the groundwork ahead of time.
I've done some work with folks who have dealt with substance use issues. I've got my credentials as an addictions counselor, and there's a popular saying in the 12-step community that sometimes that telephone weighs 500 pounds.
Chuck Gaidica:
Wow.
Josh McCullough:
When folk are struggling, they know if I pick that phone up and I call somebody, that's going to help me out. But for a lot of different reasons, they don't. And so one of the things I recommend to people is to practice whatever might help you out ahead of time. So making routines out of calling friends, family, loved ones, having set times where you engage in things that are fun just for fun's sake: reading, writing, music. And maybe being an astronaut is no longer in the cards as you say, but that doesn't mean that you can't do things like look at the stars. That doesn't mean that you can't do things like read up on what's going on at NASA or the JPL or some of these things if they spark your interest.
Chuck Gaidica:
Thank you, Josh. I appreciate that for bringing me down gently. That's good.
Josh McCullough:
Hey, there are a good many people who have gone up to the stars.
Chuck Gaidica:
Right, right.
Josh McCullough:
Never say never. But it's interesting because there's kind of difference between when we look at a wave of things, if we look at water coming in from the lake, right, and the waves or the ocean, it's made up of all these particles of water, right? So the wave is the big concept. The big concept is space, but it's made up of all these little things like being an astronaut, looking at the stars, cool telescopes of being up-to-date on what's going on in NASA. There's something about that that sparks something in you. And even if being jetted off into space may not happen, there are still things that you can touch and contact that still spark that joy in you. And rather than saying, "Well, geez, this one big thing that's never going to happen. I should never enjoy anything related to it again," maybe enjoying things that are related to it may help contact that joy, contact that fun, that sense of wonder or whatever it is for you or for someone else.
Chuck Gaidica:
No, that's really good stuff. And I think that having... I don't know that mentor is the right word I'm looking for because I've had mentors in my life, but I think that maybe surrounding myself, even what your parents may have told you when you're a kid. They told me, right, always hang around with people that are smarter than you? And I think that maybe hanging around with some people that are more positive than me could also be helpful. I guess it could go the other way, but it seems like having this circle of people around you that can... encouragers, influencers, people who are wearing a VR headset and going to the moon. If you start to get involved with those kinds of folks, that may help you move your own life along, I guess.
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's tough to be depressed if you're around people that are not depressed. And I don't mean people that are trying to sugarcoat things or people that are trying to put on that kind of fake smile. But if you're around people that are being active and doing things, it's tough to kind of sit there and be depressed, be that Debbie Downer. And again, that's something that many of us may have experienced. Maybe I've been in a funk and maybe I went out with some friends or went see a movie or did something. Maybe it got me out of that for at least a little bit and that's worthwhile and valid too, that afterwards, maybe some of that funk comes back and that all or nothing thinking may hit us and say, "Oh geez, it's here again. It didn't work." That's discounting the fact that maybe spent a couple hours with folks and felt a little better for a while. That improvement doesn't have to be all or nothing, doesn't have to go from zero to 100. It can take steps along the way to get there.
Chuck Gaidica:
So can engaging in creative activities help someone feel better? Can you literally feel better by being creative?
Josh McCullough:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I am a hobbyist musician myself, and I know that that is something that can help me if I'm feeling down, even to just strum a few chords, kind of absent-mindedly for a little while, the old standbys, the ones, the songs I know the best or the chords I like the best can help. Being around other people that are playing is something that if I'm in a funk, but I know these fellow musicians that I get together with from time to time, and it's tough to think about being depressed if you have to think about playing music or creating art or doing things with other people. A lot of other people may also find that their creativity helps manage and deal with emotions. I can express some of the downness I'm feeling. I can express some of the happiness I'm feeling, the sadness, the anxiety, the joy, the whatever. So anything we can do to be creative can also help contact and kind of manage those downer feelings, that funk that we're experiencing. Absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
That's interesting because I think of being creative in so many different ways and that idea of expressing an anger or the down whatever you're going through could maybe come out in some creative ways where for me, it's gardening, right? I love... hours can go by. I get in the flow, right, and it's just like, "Hey, you better come in for dinner" and it's like, "Oh, I'm covered in bark, mulch, and dirt. I got to stay out here." But for me, literally, hours can go by. So I'm serving, I guess it is something bigger than self, but my mind is just tuned into what I'm doing and I'm not taking out any anger. I'm not slamming the shovel harder than usual, but I am lost in these moments and it's pretty hard to have a bad time, I mean, unless I hit the sprinkler head or something.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, something like that. I mean, sometimes that funk, that depression can absolutely be blinders that we are just so focused on what's not going well and if we can somehow engage in something that really occupies our mind one way or another. Like you said, it wasn't like I was slamming down the bags of mulch or shoveling harder, but I made a choice to pay attention to something for at least a little bit of time. And maybe that snapped me out of it for a little bit of time. Maybe that was one step on the way to getting out of whatever was ailing me.
Chuck Gaidica:
What other suggestions could you make for simple, creative tasks? What other ways of being creative do you think that people should try?
Josh McCullough:
I would say similar to being an astronaut and space, anything that sparks your interest. So I think so often, we kind of discount what it is we're interested in for a lot of different reasons, especially when it comes to creativity. Oh, geez, when it comes to music, people who are interested in music typically have some sort of musical hero or heroes that they look up to. Someone that got me interested in playing guitar, playing bass, playing drums, playing pianos, singing, writing music, whatever. And we start and we think, "Oh geez, I'm not as good as they are." I think that the important thing to do with anything creative is to, one, like I said, find something, whatever it is that sparks your joy. Two, start off small. Especially when it comes to music, musicians can oftentimes spend a lot of money on acquiring new gear. The more expensive guitar, the bigger amplifier, the fancier piano, the more drums for the drum set, whatever the case is.
But there's nothing wrong with starting small and seeing how it goes. And there's also nothing wrong with reaching a certain level and being okay with that. A good many of us, myself included, when we were younger, would've loved nothing more than to be a professional musician. Oh, I'm going to get the record deal. I'm going to join the band. The band's going to make it big. We're going to hit it big. And for most, that just plain doesn't happen for a variety of reasons. But there's nothing wrong with being a hobbyist. There's nothing wrong with being a bedroom player, finding other people that are also bedroom players or maybe not. Anything that sparks, that sort of scratches that itch is valid.
And another thing that I think is important is to also not discount is to think less in terms of good, bad, right, wrong, quality, not quality, but think more in terms of is this expressing what I want to express? So I use music because it's what I'm used to knowing. We may often think, "Oh geez, I didn't play that very well. I didn't sing that very well. That sound wasn't as good as my heroes." But I think there's a lot more to be gained if we think, "Did that accurately express what I wanted to express?" Maybe the note was off. There's a lot of musicians that sing bum notes all the time and maybe their voices are not operatic, but that's part of what makes them great.
I was talking about this with my brother-in-law a while ago who himself is a very creative person. And we were talking about this concept and I said, "I'm not a very good guitar player. I've been playing for decades. I haven't gotten much better." And he, long story short, said, "The things that you think are limitations or the things you think are not very good are what get you the gig. Whether there's something about you and the way you play and things like that that make people want to play along with you."
So if it's painting, well, geez, maybe I'm not painting like Picasso or Rembrandt or the Old Masters or things like that. Well, maybe you're not supposed to. Maybe the things that are individual about your creative expression are what make what you're doing so great. Kurt Cobain, a very famous musician, sadly, is no longer with us, was talking about his guitar style one time and he said, "There's a fellow named Andrés Segovia, the father of modern classical guitar. Kurt Cobain said, "I can't play like Segovia, but Segovia can't play like me either." And I think that that's something people lose is the things that make you individual are what make your creativity so interesting.
Chuck Gaidica:
And let's be fair, you may not know the rest of your story until the rest of the story is written. You may get better, right? I mean, if you look in the rearview mirror three years down the road, I mean, you're humbly saying you haven't improved. I bet you you have improved, right? It's just maybe for me, if I took piano, I started taking piano lessons in my thirties and I took for a year and I got to When the Saints Come Marching In. And Josh, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't keep doing this." So I just know that that's not my gifting, right? But it was fun and it was good and then I moved on to something else that was an interesting thing to me. So it's okay.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with dabbling. Sometimes we think if I invest time, money, effort into being creative that I have to stick with it. And if that's our thought, then we're creating less from a place of wonder, curiosity, emotional connection, and more from a sense of obligation. I play this instrument because I spent a lot of money versus I play this instrument because I like the way it sounds and I have fun with it. And that's perfectly valid. We don't always have to do it exactly as we should. Sometimes people think, "Well geez, I've got this instrument, this piano, this guitar, this whatever. I need to practice at least an hour a day." And there are some musicians, some very famous guitar players who have these programs where they practice 8, 10, 12 hours a day. The average person can't do that. We have too many other things to do. There's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm going to pick it up for a little bit. I'm going to put it down for a little bit. I want to go back to it. And even if we're not just nose to the grindstone all the time, if we are engaging at a rate that makes us feel fulfilled, that's perfect. And I think that sometimes the funk may come if we get that sense of obligation and we think, "Geez, I'm not doing this as much as I should."
Chuck Gaidica:
I think that's great advice to start small and there's another version of that idea. An author, Bob Buford, said he encouraged everybody to use small cost probes. And I like that phrase because in his context as he was portraying the idea, it was if you want to volunteer for something, which I think would be a great way to snap out of a funk. You're serving others, right? You get your attention on helping other people. But he said, "You may think I want to go help people give blood. I want to help take blood." And you get there and you find out you pass out when you see blood. Well, but it was a small cost probe, right? You didn't get a new car. You're not driving 100 miles each way every time, right? You're kind of sticking your foot in the shallow end first and making sure it's okay. And so I like that idea because I think that sets us up for permission to fail, if you will. It's okay because there is something else other than piano lessons or whatever.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
So what can you leave us with as we wrap this one up, suggestions to understand what a funk is, how we can start to pull ourselves out of it, and things that we may want to concentrate on. Anything else you wanted to mention.
Josh McCullough:
Yeah, so in kind of a nutshell, that funk is that shorter term depressed mood. It may not hit us as hard as a full clinical depression, but that doesn't mean that it's not significant. It's something that we want to pay attention to. We can maybe lay the groundwork ahead of time if there are people to talk to, activities to be engaged in that we can do before we feel that funk. Likely, it'll be a better safety net, in a sense, when we do feel it. It's kind of one thing I've used with a lot of folks that I've worked with is the idea of a safety net. And we see high wire artists, trapeze artists, acrobats, that they have a safety net and it's usually not made of just one rope. That wouldn't be a very good safety net. So we may have bigger ropes than others, people that are more important in our lives or that we're closer to than others, but to have kind of a multi-layer safety net that we're practicing ahead of time, that's more likely to catch us if we fall, if that makes sense.
Taking a look at things. Is there any small steps that I can take to help get me out this funk? I don't have to think between zero and 100. I can take smaller steps to get there. I can reach out to people, not only people that are close to me, but if I'm feeling if that maybe those couple of weeks have passed and I just still can't shake this, reaching out to our primary care physician, "Hey doc, can I get in? I've been feeling this for a while." They have different screening tests that you can take and maybe they'll recommend something. See if maybe you should see someone like a counselor to talk to, maybe a medication might help. It's good to have that professional outside eye to look at things to help with. And then also when we are being creative, thinking is this expressing what I want to express rather than good, bad, quality, not quality. It's giving us permission not to be so hard on ourselves, I think.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, that's all great stuff. Well, Josh, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you being with us.
Josh McCullough:
Thank you so much for having me.
Chuck Gaidica:
With this new world of space exploration, I'm going to call you and maybe we'll start our own thing in the backyard of going to the moon. I'm not sure.
Josh McCullough:
William Shatner went to the moon in his nineties, so-
Chuck Gaidica:
Never too late to be who you're supposed to be, right?
Josh McCullough:
... stranger things have happened. Absolutely.
Chuck Gaidica:
Well, thank you so much, Josh. Take good care.
Josh McCullough:
Thank you so much. You as well.
Chuck Gaidica:
Yeah, thanks. Josh McCullough is senior healthcare analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. We're glad he was with us and we're glad that you were here. Thanks for listening to A Healthier Michigan podcast, brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. If you like the show, you want to know more, check us out on our newly refreshed website, ahealthiermichigan.org/podcast or you can leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and you can get new episodes, old episodes on your smartphone or tablets, so be sure to hit that Subscribe button on your Apple Podcasts app or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is. I'm Chuck Gaidica. Stay well.
