November 26, 2024 • 17 mins
In this episode of Psyched for Peds, Dr. Elise Fallucco and her teenage son, Chase Fallucco, discuss the seasonal surge of mental health symptoms, termed the 'emotional flu,' impacting teenagers during October and November. They discuss:
** What are the symptoms and signs of the emotional flu?
** Why are October and November high-risk periods for the Emotional Flu?
** What can we do to "vaccinate" teens against the Emotional Flu?
Check out our website PsychEd4Peds.com for more resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (00:00):
Welcome back to psyched for feeds the child
(00:02):
mental health podcasts forpediatric clinicians.
Helping you help kids.
I'm your host, Dr.
Elise Fallucco Childpsychiatrist and mom, and I'm
really excited to bring thisspecial episode today.
We're going to be talking aboutthe epidemic of mental health
symptoms that are affectingteenagers and now even tweens.
(00:23):
At this time of year in thebeginning of winter season.
And these symptoms are what I'mgoing to call the emotional flu.
So here to help me understandthings about the emotional flu
is my 14 year old son ChaseFallucco.
Chase Fallucco (00:40):
Thank you mom.
Thank you for having me ontoday.
I'm glad to be here.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (00:44):
I'm so glad to have you.
So first we're going to startout and talk about the outbreak.
What are these cases of thesemental health symptoms that are
plaguing teenagers this time ofyear?
Just in the past week, multipleparents have approached me
talking about things that areaffecting their teenage sons and
daughters.
One mom told me she was calledout in the middle of her job
(01:06):
unexpectedly because herdaughter texted her in the
middle of an anxiety attack andwas just saying, I can't, I'm so
overwhelmed right now.
My heart is racing.
I'm having trouble breathing.
Mom, I need your help.
I think I may need to leaveschool.
And then another mom was tellingme that her daughter is having
these meltdowns at home.
(01:27):
She's crying and she just seemsto be so irritable and just
isn't like herself.
And the mom was telling me,she's worried about her
daughter.
And also this is a lot.
Because when a kid's not doingwell, they often take out their
anger on their parents and thispoor mom.
Was just of course, feeling badfor her daughter, but also
feeling a little helpless andoverwhelmed.
(01:47):
I could go on forever with allof these cases, honestly, just
from the past couple of days.
I wanted to ask you chase haveyou noticed anything like this
in school or with any of yourfriends lately?
Chase Fallucco (01:58):
Oh, yeah, last week I was turning in paper and
I was just talking to one of myother friends about it and he
was like oh yeah, I gotta turnthat same paper into, and I got
a essay to write in history.
He was feeling nervous about.
So I've definitely seen it.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:12):
So
Chase Fallucco (02:12):
your friend was talking about how nervous he was
with all the papers that weregoing on.
I think I was, I felt a littlestressed too last week.
I had to turn in a huge Englishpaper and I also had four tests
that week.
Oh my gosh.
Especially like on top of thenormal homework and everything.
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:31):
So it was like a particularly stressful
week school-wise and it justlike with anything, like when
we're experiencing a lot ofstress, it can become really
overwhelming and it can affectyour mood or just how you feel.
Did you notice anythingpersonally about how it made you
feel.
Chase Fallucco (02:47):
Yeah.
I was definitely a littlestressed.
It's always like hard in themoment because you feel like you
got so much stuff to do and youdon't have a lot of time,
especially like with examscoming up.
So definitely a little bit ofanxiety.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (03:02):
Yeah, for sure.
And that's totally a normalexperience.
So to summarize, like all ofthese cases with this outbreak,
we have different presentations,but it's a lot of emotional
symptoms like sadness orirritability or temper
outbursts, anger, meltdowns,anxiety, attacks, distress.
All of these things are peakingThis is the worst time of year
(03:24):
for these type of emotionaloutbreaks.
We actually have national datathat I'm going to nerd out on
for just a little bit.
That tell us that October.
And November in the Northernhemisphere tend to be peak
seasons in teenagers for bothdepression and suicidality.
But they did this really coolstudy that was published in JAMA
last year in 2023, where theylooked at over 73,000 teenagers
(03:49):
who had visited the emergencydepartment or who had been
hospitalized for suicidality.
And they were trying to look attrends over a five to six year
period and what they found.
Is really similar to what we seein our clinical practices.
October was the peak month forsuicidality out of all 12
months, over a five to six monthperiod, which is really
interesting.
The month that came in, numbertwo behind October was actually
(04:11):
April which we'll get to andtalk about later.
But right now we're talkingabout October, November.
And this national data makes alot of sense.
If you ask any childpsychiatrists or pediatricians
about what are the worst months.
In terms of how many patientsare coming to us with stress.
And in crisis, what they willsay is also October and
November.
(04:32):
But why is that?
What I've realized in talkingand working with teachers and in
a school system is that this isa peak time of stress
academically.
So the first couple months ofschool, and certainly the first
couple of weeks of school arereally academically, relatively
easy.
Like it's a tough transition tostart school from the summer.
But things haven't ramped up.
(04:54):
There's actually a lot of timefor review and most teachers are
spending the first couple ofmonths just reviewing material
from the previous year but oncewe hit October and definitely
November.
That's when things start to rampup.
And so you're being exposed to alot of new material and more
challenging material You'regetting to the point in the year
where you're starting toactually have big deal papers
(05:17):
that are due and assessments.
I
Chase Fallucco (05:19):
I completely agree with that because in my
math class, at the beginning ofthe year, it was like a lot of
review from last year.
Then we started to slowly buildinto new topics.
And then I would say right nowwe're doing more difficult
stuff.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:33):
That's a great example with math too,
because every single year buildsupon the previous year for the
most part, except for geometry.
What was geometry?
Chase Fallucco (05:41):
Uh, I think geometry.
I don't know.
I had a nice teacher ingeometry.
So that was good.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:46):
Oh, that's very nice.
That was not my favorite year inmath.
I was like where are we goingwith this?
What is a co-sign and a tangent?
But back to our topic so chaseis helping us understand
seasonal trends in the emotionalflu from a student perspective.
So when we see these kids in ouroffices who are presenting with
irritability, with outbursts,with sadness, with just
worsening mood symptoms, firstof all, be unsurprised, this
(06:09):
happens every single year aroundthis time, so we know what to
expect it.
And then when we're thinkingabout what could be causing
this, always be thinking aboutis this is the stress of.
The academic year causing a newonset of some sort of mental
health problems.
So what I always like to say iswe know that stress makes every
single, underlying healthproblem worse, and that
(06:31):
includes, aDHD anxiety,depression, as well as asthma
diabetes, all sorts of chronicillnesses.
And the other thing we know withour stress diathesis model,
which basically says that severestress can cause the onset of
new types of illnesses, anytypes of physical and mental
health illness.
So in this context of heightenedstress of October, November, we
(06:54):
would expect to potentially seea new onset of something like
major depression, which presentsin the teens.
Or potentially a worsening ofunderlying anxiety.
So we want to be thinking aboutthose things in the office,
screening kids for anxiety,using the scared or for
depression using the PHQ orsimilar screening tools.
(07:14):
And then of course alwaysassessing for safety and
suicidality, knowing that thisis the peak time of year for
suicidality.
And I want it to go back for aminute.
Because I have to give a shoutout and tons of credit to.
The woman who in my mind coinedthe idea of the emotional flu.
Her name is Jan Gallagher, andshe is a brilliant therapist and
(07:34):
colleague.
We were talking about thedifference between physical
health symptoms and mentalhealth symptoms and how people
can understand if you have areally bad cold or some sort of
gastroenteritis and they wantyou to cope and get better, but
that sometimes it's harder forpeople on the outside to
recognize when you're strugglingwith emotional health problems,
because you don't necessarilyhave a high fever and.
(07:58):
Other physical symptoms that arevery obvious to people.
And so Jan told me, she said, Ilike to think of it as the
emotional flu.
Like sometimes people need totake a little break or need to
take care of themselves andrecover when they're
experiencing a worsening ofunderlying emotional and mental
health problems, just like aregular flu.
So shout out to Jan, thank youfor this idea.
(08:20):
So anyway what do we do whenkids present to our office with
the emotional flu?
What do we say to teenagers?
Really important to validate tocause they may not even be aware
that part of the reason whythey're feeling awful is that
they're under a lot of stress.
So validate that they're under alot of stress.
And, provide encouragementregardless that we know that
(08:40):
they've got this.
And we're going to talk aboutways to help them feel better.
So chase at home we areconstantly trying to get all of
our family members to do abetter job of being healthy and
trying to prevent regular typesof infectious illness.
I'm always screaming at the kidsto wash their hands And we
should have stock in theairborne company because we have
(09:02):
a lot of vitamins.
I was just about to say that.
Go ahead.
You got to take it
so much airborne,
so much airborne in our house and we try
to eat fruits and vegetables,and we're always telling the
kids to bundle up and try tomaintain a healthy sleep
schedule that all of thesethings are really good for
overall health and certainly forthe emotional flu.
But let's talk about what can wedo specifically to try to
(09:24):
prevent.
Stress from impacting our bodiesand to build up resilience.
Chase Fallucco (09:28):
Yeah, I would say, uh, for me, I think.
Way to that helps me like dealwith the stress and everything
is, I love to exercise.
Just go for a run.
Lyft or something.
I'm just like, just be outside,honestly.
I feel like being outside is oneof the best best ways to deal
with the stress and everything.
Cause you can take a break fromthe homework and everything for
(09:51):
a little bit and just likereset.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (09:53):
And that's excellent in two ways, you're
incorporating movement into yourlife.
And we know that movement getsour endorphins going and, it's
like our body's way of combatingstress.
And you're outside.
So you're with nature and inFlorida, we've got lots of
sunshine, even this time ofyear.
And so you're getting exposureto the sun, which is helping
(10:14):
promote our vitamin D levels.
Which is also healthy for ourmood.
And I think stress relief looksdifferent for every individual.
And a good exercise forteenagers or for their parents,
or for physicians is to try towork with the teenager or the
individual to figure out.
What do you do that helps yourelieve stress?
Some people are really in tobaths but for other people it
(10:36):
looks really different, likeconnecting with friends or
spending time journaling, orlike you said, having movement
and going outside and.
So I think part of our job asclinicians is to work with
families and individuals to tryto figure out what does stress
relief look like for you?
Chase Fallucco (10:52):
Yeah.
And I think I totally agree withthat.
I think it it definitely dependson who you are as a person.
What what best helped you.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (11:00):
I have to say that you and I have the
exercise thing in common.
Chase Fallucco (11:03):
Yeah, I would say exercise is the most helpful
for me.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (11:07):
But is there anything, More broadly, is there
anything we can do to vaccinateour kids against the emotional
flu?
If do we have some sort ofanalogous thing that can lower
their risk of even developingthe emotional flu?
And I think here is where westart thinking about things like
resilience, The more often kidsare exposed to stressful
(11:27):
situations and that we canprovide them some sort of
support to help them processthat.
And to get through them, themore they develop confidence
that like I've got that, and Ithink this is a big part, this
is a huge reason to be investingin therapy for your kids because
that the role of the therapistis to help the child and also
help the parents.
Process stressors.
Chase Fallucco (11:48):
Yeah.
And I think just as you weresaying earlier, like just
validating their concerns andrealizing that Hey, this is like
a real thing.
That this happens just like anormal flu, like you were
saying.
This is like this emotional flu.
Is definitely somethingsomewhere to deal with.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:06):
It's predictable.
We know that this time of yearthe teens and students are gonna
develop more intense emotionalsymptoms and just be prepared
and know that's what to expect.
The first step is awareness andbeing recognizing like this as
possible, and you're at risk.
And, just like with the regularflu, there are certain people
who are at higher risk, right?
Chase Fallucco (12:24):
I think a lot of people, some people could be
more susceptible of it.
Like just like in a normal cold.
Some people have a lower immunesystem, so they're more
susceptible to those illnesses.
Some people are more susceptibleand then others are pretty much
immune.
Like they're very cool witheverything.
Not much bothersome.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:44):
So that's a great way to put it, like I
think people who have morepractice in managing stressful
situations or for whateverreason, their temperament,
they're not as bothered bystress.
Like we're not going to expectto see them be effected.
And since we're talkingspecifically about academic
stress and stress related togrades, I think, that analogy
holds true as well.
(13:04):
So there are some people.
Who are much more concernedabout their academic
performance, about gettingcertain grades?
And so those people may be morelikely.
To be affected by that thisstress
Chase Fallucco (13:16):
because I would say, like to answer what you're
saying is a lot of the gradesget finalized, like from a
student perspective.
All of the grades are reallygetting finalized.
There's only a certain amount ofyour grade can change.
So everyone's they're some ofthem like they're scrambling
just to get to that like insteadof an a minus or like an a minus
instead of a B plus, just to getthat like little extra bump.
(13:37):
They can put in so that theydefinitely put a lot more
pressure on themselves to do itrather than the start of the
year where they know, there'sgoing to be a ton more grades
being put in.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (13:46):
So much of their grade has already been
determined at that point.
And then to your point, like atthe beginning of the semester,
you have, you still have a wholesemester to raise your grade or
have opportunities to do reallywell.
And so it feels lower stakes,but right in the middle or two
thirds through the semester iswhen you start to see the
crunch.
And this brings us back toApril.
(14:07):
So that study that we talkedabout earlier in this episode
said that the two peak monthsfor suicidality were October,
which was number one and thenApril, which was number two.
And while there could be amyriad of reasons why this is
possibly true, certainly from astudent perspective and an
academic perspective, April andOctober, both represent the
halfway to two thirds of theway.
(14:28):
Point through the semester whenyou're feeling that academic
crunch.
Chase Fallucco (14:33):
And I think April, especially it's right
before the end of the year.
It's the very finaldetermination.
There's no more semester leftwhere you can.
improve your grade again.
It's it's really the end.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (14:46):
So wrapping up, everybody bundle up, take
lots of airborne, spend lots oftime outside doing whatever type
of movement makes you happy.
Figure out what it is.
That's your stress release.
And try to carve out some timeto do that, to protect yourself
from emotional flu.
So to recap.
What we know is that.
(15:07):
Halfway through an academicsemester, particularly October,
November, and then also again inApril is when we begin to see
signs of the emotional flu andthe symptoms of the emotional
flu vary depending upon thestudent, but they can be
sadness, irritability,meltdowns, or anxiety attacks,
and suicidality.
So we need to be on the lookoutfor this.
(15:29):
And also we need to be thinkingabout how we can promote
resilience and protect our kidsfrom the effects of.
Some of this stress whether it'sthrough therapy.
Or through individual stressrelief plans or whether, this is
bringing out some sort ofunderlying mental health problem
or exacerbating an underlyingmental health problem.
Like depression or anxiety.
(15:50):
That we can identify and treatin our offices.
And so we want to make sure thateverybody's protecting
themselves and their kids andteenagers that they're caring
for.
From the emotional flu so thatthey can stay healthy and
resilient throughout the entireyear.
Finally, I want to thank mysweet kind son for being
(16:11):
vulnerable and taking time to bea guest on the podcast and
sharing the perspective of astudent.
Chase Fallucco (16:17):
I'm glad to help mom.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (16:19):
Thank you, sweetheart.
All right.
Thank you for listening and wehope you guys will tune in next
time.
As we continue talking aboutmental and emotional health for
teenagers, kids and families.
Welcome back to psyched for feeds the child
(00:02):
mental health podcasts forpediatric clinicians.
Helping you help kids.
I'm your host, Dr.
Elise Fallucco Childpsychiatrist and mom, and I'm
really excited to bring thisspecial episode today.
We're going to be talking aboutthe epidemic of mental health
symptoms that are affectingteenagers and now even tweens.
(00:23):
At this time of year in thebeginning of winter season.
And these symptoms are what I'mgoing to call the emotional flu.
So here to help me understandthings about the emotional flu
is my 14 year old son ChaseFallucco.
Chase Fallucco (00:40):
Thank you mom.
Thank you for having me ontoday.
I'm glad to be here.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (00:44):
I'm so glad to have you.
So first we're going to startout and talk about the outbreak.
What are these cases of thesemental health symptoms that are
plaguing teenagers this time ofyear?
Just in the past week, multipleparents have approached me
talking about things that areaffecting their teenage sons and
daughters.
One mom told me she was calledout in the middle of her job
(01:06):
unexpectedly because herdaughter texted her in the
middle of an anxiety attack andwas just saying, I can't, I'm so
overwhelmed right now.
My heart is racing.
I'm having trouble breathing.
Mom, I need your help.
I think I may need to leaveschool.
And then another mom was tellingme that her daughter is having
these meltdowns at home.
(01:27):
She's crying and she just seemsto be so irritable and just
isn't like herself.
And the mom was telling me,she's worried about her
daughter.
And also this is a lot.
Because when a kid's not doingwell, they often take out their
anger on their parents and thispoor mom.
Was just of course, feeling badfor her daughter, but also
feeling a little helpless andoverwhelmed.
(01:47):
I could go on forever with allof these cases, honestly, just
from the past couple of days.
I wanted to ask you chase haveyou noticed anything like this
in school or with any of yourfriends lately?
Chase Fallucco (01:58):
Oh, yeah, last week I was turning in paper and
I was just talking to one of myother friends about it and he
was like oh yeah, I gotta turnthat same paper into, and I got
a essay to write in history.
He was feeling nervous about.
So I've definitely seen it.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:12):
So
Chase Fallucco (02:12):
your friend was talking about how nervous he was
with all the papers that weregoing on.
I think I was, I felt a littlestressed too last week.
I had to turn in a huge Englishpaper and I also had four tests
that week.
Oh my gosh.
Especially like on top of thenormal homework and everything.
Yeah.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (02:31):
So it was like a particularly stressful
week school-wise and it justlike with anything, like when
we're experiencing a lot ofstress, it can become really
overwhelming and it can affectyour mood or just how you feel.
Did you notice anythingpersonally about how it made you
feel.
Chase Fallucco (02:47):
Yeah.
I was definitely a littlestressed.
It's always like hard in themoment because you feel like you
got so much stuff to do and youdon't have a lot of time,
especially like with examscoming up.
So definitely a little bit ofanxiety.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (03:02):
Yeah, for sure.
And that's totally a normalexperience.
So to summarize, like all ofthese cases with this outbreak,
we have different presentations,but it's a lot of emotional
symptoms like sadness orirritability or temper
outbursts, anger, meltdowns,anxiety, attacks, distress.
All of these things are peakingThis is the worst time of year
(03:24):
for these type of emotionaloutbreaks.
We actually have national datathat I'm going to nerd out on
for just a little bit.
That tell us that October.
And November in the Northernhemisphere tend to be peak
seasons in teenagers for bothdepression and suicidality.
But they did this really coolstudy that was published in JAMA
last year in 2023, where theylooked at over 73,000 teenagers
(03:49):
who had visited the emergencydepartment or who had been
hospitalized for suicidality.
And they were trying to look attrends over a five to six year
period and what they found.
Is really similar to what we seein our clinical practices.
October was the peak month forsuicidality out of all 12
months, over a five to six monthperiod, which is really
interesting.
The month that came in, numbertwo behind October was actually
(04:11):
April which we'll get to andtalk about later.
But right now we're talkingabout October, November.
And this national data makes alot of sense.
If you ask any childpsychiatrists or pediatricians
about what are the worst months.
In terms of how many patientsare coming to us with stress.
And in crisis, what they willsay is also October and
November.
(04:32):
But why is that?
What I've realized in talkingand working with teachers and in
a school system is that this isa peak time of stress
academically.
So the first couple months ofschool, and certainly the first
couple of weeks of school arereally academically, relatively
easy.
Like it's a tough transition tostart school from the summer.
But things haven't ramped up.
(04:54):
There's actually a lot of timefor review and most teachers are
spending the first couple ofmonths just reviewing material
from the previous year but oncewe hit October and definitely
November.
That's when things start to rampup.
And so you're being exposed to alot of new material and more
challenging material You'regetting to the point in the year
where you're starting toactually have big deal papers
(05:17):
that are due and assessments.
I
Chase Fallucco (05:19):
I completely agree with that because in my
math class, at the beginning ofthe year, it was like a lot of
review from last year.
Then we started to slowly buildinto new topics.
And then I would say right nowwe're doing more difficult
stuff.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:33):
That's a great example with math too,
because every single year buildsupon the previous year for the
most part, except for geometry.
What was geometry?
Chase Fallucco (05:41):
Uh, I think geometry.
I don't know.
I had a nice teacher ingeometry.
So that was good.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (05:46):
Oh, that's very nice.
That was not my favorite year inmath.
I was like where are we goingwith this?
What is a co-sign and a tangent?
But back to our topic so chaseis helping us understand
seasonal trends in the emotionalflu from a student perspective.
So when we see these kids in ouroffices who are presenting with
irritability, with outbursts,with sadness, with just
worsening mood symptoms, firstof all, be unsurprised, this
(06:09):
happens every single year aroundthis time, so we know what to
expect it.
And then when we're thinkingabout what could be causing
this, always be thinking aboutis this is the stress of.
The academic year causing a newonset of some sort of mental
health problems.
So what I always like to say iswe know that stress makes every
single, underlying healthproblem worse, and that
(06:31):
includes, aDHD anxiety,depression, as well as asthma
diabetes, all sorts of chronicillnesses.
And the other thing we know withour stress diathesis model,
which basically says that severestress can cause the onset of
new types of illnesses, anytypes of physical and mental
health illness.
So in this context of heightenedstress of October, November, we
(06:54):
would expect to potentially seea new onset of something like
major depression, which presentsin the teens.
Or potentially a worsening ofunderlying anxiety.
So we want to be thinking aboutthose things in the office,
screening kids for anxiety,using the scared or for
depression using the PHQ orsimilar screening tools.
(07:14):
And then of course alwaysassessing for safety and
suicidality, knowing that thisis the peak time of year for
suicidality.
And I want it to go back for aminute.
Because I have to give a shoutout and tons of credit to.
The woman who in my mind coinedthe idea of the emotional flu.
Her name is Jan Gallagher, andshe is a brilliant therapist and
(07:34):
colleague.
We were talking about thedifference between physical
health symptoms and mentalhealth symptoms and how people
can understand if you have areally bad cold or some sort of
gastroenteritis and they wantyou to cope and get better, but
that sometimes it's harder forpeople on the outside to
recognize when you're strugglingwith emotional health problems,
because you don't necessarilyhave a high fever and.
(07:58):
Other physical symptoms that arevery obvious to people.
And so Jan told me, she said, Ilike to think of it as the
emotional flu.
Like sometimes people need totake a little break or need to
take care of themselves andrecover when they're
experiencing a worsening ofunderlying emotional and mental
health problems, just like aregular flu.
So shout out to Jan, thank youfor this idea.
(08:20):
So anyway what do we do whenkids present to our office with
the emotional flu?
What do we say to teenagers?
Really important to validate tocause they may not even be aware
that part of the reason whythey're feeling awful is that
they're under a lot of stress.
So validate that they're under alot of stress.
And, provide encouragementregardless that we know that
(08:40):
they've got this.
And we're going to talk aboutways to help them feel better.
So chase at home we areconstantly trying to get all of
our family members to do abetter job of being healthy and
trying to prevent regular typesof infectious illness.
I'm always screaming at the kidsto wash their hands And we
should have stock in theairborne company because we have
(09:02):
a lot of vitamins.
I was just about to say that.
Go ahead.
You got to take it
so much airborne,
so much airborne in our house and we try
to eat fruits and vegetables,and we're always telling the
kids to bundle up and try tomaintain a healthy sleep
schedule that all of thesethings are really good for
overall health and certainly forthe emotional flu.
But let's talk about what can wedo specifically to try to
(09:24):
prevent.
Stress from impacting our bodiesand to build up resilience.
Chase Fallucco (09:28):
Yeah, I would say, uh, for me, I think.
Way to that helps me like dealwith the stress and everything
is, I love to exercise.
Just go for a run.
Lyft or something.
I'm just like, just be outside,honestly.
I feel like being outside is oneof the best best ways to deal
with the stress and everything.
Cause you can take a break fromthe homework and everything for
(09:51):
a little bit and just likereset.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (09:53):
And that's excellent in two ways, you're
incorporating movement into yourlife.
And we know that movement getsour endorphins going and, it's
like our body's way of combatingstress.
And you're outside.
So you're with nature and inFlorida, we've got lots of
sunshine, even this time ofyear.
And so you're getting exposureto the sun, which is helping
(10:14):
promote our vitamin D levels.
Which is also healthy for ourmood.
And I think stress relief looksdifferent for every individual.
And a good exercise forteenagers or for their parents,
or for physicians is to try towork with the teenager or the
individual to figure out.
What do you do that helps yourelieve stress?
Some people are really in tobaths but for other people it
(10:36):
looks really different, likeconnecting with friends or
spending time journaling, orlike you said, having movement
and going outside and.
So I think part of our job asclinicians is to work with
families and individuals to tryto figure out what does stress
relief look like for you?
Chase Fallucco (10:52):
Yeah.
And I think I totally agree withthat.
I think it it definitely dependson who you are as a person.
What what best helped you.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (11:00):
I have to say that you and I have the
exercise thing in common.
Chase Fallucco (11:03):
Yeah, I would say exercise is the most helpful
for me.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (11:07):
But is there anything, More broadly, is there
anything we can do to vaccinateour kids against the emotional
flu?
If do we have some sort ofanalogous thing that can lower
their risk of even developingthe emotional flu?
And I think here is where westart thinking about things like
resilience, The more often kidsare exposed to stressful
(11:27):
situations and that we canprovide them some sort of
support to help them processthat.
And to get through them, themore they develop confidence
that like I've got that, and Ithink this is a big part, this
is a huge reason to be investingin therapy for your kids because
that the role of the therapistis to help the child and also
help the parents.
Process stressors.
Chase Fallucco (11:48):
Yeah.
And I think just as you weresaying earlier, like just
validating their concerns andrealizing that Hey, this is like
a real thing.
That this happens just like anormal flu, like you were
saying.
This is like this emotional flu.
Is definitely somethingsomewhere to deal with.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:06):
It's predictable.
We know that this time of yearthe teens and students are gonna
develop more intense emotionalsymptoms and just be prepared
and know that's what to expect.
The first step is awareness andbeing recognizing like this as
possible, and you're at risk.
And, just like with the regularflu, there are certain people
who are at higher risk, right?
Chase Fallucco (12:24):
I think a lot of people, some people could be
more susceptible of it.
Like just like in a normal cold.
Some people have a lower immunesystem, so they're more
susceptible to those illnesses.
Some people are more susceptibleand then others are pretty much
immune.
Like they're very cool witheverything.
Not much bothersome.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (12:44):
So that's a great way to put it, like I
think people who have morepractice in managing stressful
situations or for whateverreason, their temperament,
they're not as bothered bystress.
Like we're not going to expectto see them be effected.
And since we're talkingspecifically about academic
stress and stress related togrades, I think, that analogy
holds true as well.
(13:04):
So there are some people.
Who are much more concernedabout their academic
performance, about gettingcertain grades?
And so those people may be morelikely.
To be affected by that thisstress
Chase Fallucco (13:16):
because I would say, like to answer what you're
saying is a lot of the gradesget finalized, like from a
student perspective.
All of the grades are reallygetting finalized.
There's only a certain amount ofyour grade can change.
So everyone's they're some ofthem like they're scrambling
just to get to that like insteadof an a minus or like an a minus
instead of a B plus, just to getthat like little extra bump.
(13:37):
They can put in so that theydefinitely put a lot more
pressure on themselves to do itrather than the start of the
year where they know, there'sgoing to be a ton more grades
being put in.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (13:46):
So much of their grade has already been
determined at that point.
And then to your point, like atthe beginning of the semester,
you have, you still have a wholesemester to raise your grade or
have opportunities to do reallywell.
And so it feels lower stakes,but right in the middle or two
thirds through the semester iswhen you start to see the
crunch.
And this brings us back toApril.
(14:07):
So that study that we talkedabout earlier in this episode
said that the two peak monthsfor suicidality were October,
which was number one and thenApril, which was number two.
And while there could be amyriad of reasons why this is
possibly true, certainly from astudent perspective and an
academic perspective, April andOctober, both represent the
halfway to two thirds of theway.
(14:28):
Point through the semester whenyou're feeling that academic
crunch.
Chase Fallucco (14:33):
And I think April, especially it's right
before the end of the year.
It's the very finaldetermination.
There's no more semester leftwhere you can.
improve your grade again.
It's it's really the end.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (14:46):
So wrapping up, everybody bundle up, take
lots of airborne, spend lots oftime outside doing whatever type
of movement makes you happy.
Figure out what it is.
That's your stress release.
And try to carve out some timeto do that, to protect yourself
from emotional flu.
So to recap.
What we know is that.
(15:07):
Halfway through an academicsemester, particularly October,
November, and then also again inApril is when we begin to see
signs of the emotional flu andthe symptoms of the emotional
flu vary depending upon thestudent, but they can be
sadness, irritability,meltdowns, or anxiety attacks,
and suicidality.
So we need to be on the lookoutfor this.
(15:29):
And also we need to be thinkingabout how we can promote
resilience and protect our kidsfrom the effects of.
Some of this stress whether it'sthrough therapy.
Or through individual stressrelief plans or whether, this is
bringing out some sort ofunderlying mental health problem
or exacerbating an underlyingmental health problem.
Like depression or anxiety.
(15:50):
That we can identify and treatin our offices.
And so we want to make sure thateverybody's protecting
themselves and their kids andteenagers that they're caring
for.
From the emotional flu so thatthey can stay healthy and
resilient throughout the entireyear.
Finally, I want to thank mysweet kind son for being
(16:11):
vulnerable and taking time to bea guest on the podcast and
sharing the perspective of astudent.
Chase Fallucco (16:17):
I'm glad to help mom.
Dr. Elise Fallucco (16:19):
Thank you, sweetheart.
All right.
Thank you for listening and wehope you guys will tune in next
time.
As we continue talking aboutmental and emotional health for
teenagers, kids and families.
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