 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this year's World Mental Health Day panel discussion. I'm very pleased that we're hosting this panel discussion this year in partnership with Mental Health Australia. Before we start, I would like to begin by acknowledging the first Australians on whose traditional lands and airways were meeting. Pay my respects to elders past and present. I'm joining from the lands of the Namri Ngunnawal people have been traditional custodians for this part of the world for over 20 millennia. But I realize that we're joining from across the country and we pay our respects to all First Nations people. These past two years have been some of the most challenging times for most people, not just here in Canberra or Australia, but indeed across the world. It has been a global experience. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to change so many parts of our lives, both personal and work. And I think many of us have found has taken a huge toll on our mental health. Certainly for me, I have found it the most challenging time of my life. We're shortly going to be hearing from our panel today. We'll be discussing about focusing on isolation and connectedness. Isolation is something that everyone has experienced, particularly over these past two years. And it's important that we all know that we're not unique in navigating these feelings. Now, when I first started here at ANU more than 20 years ago, mental health was not something was openly discussed and we're breaking down barriers and stigma associated with mental health. And in that sense, maybe the pandemic has been a chance for us to make good out of something bad. But there's a lot more that we can do. We need to keep these open discussions going, knowing when to reach out for support and knowing when someone is struggling and indeed how we can help them. We are all human at the end of the day. We need to be kind to one another, but also to ourselves. As I said, I have certainly found the last two years challenging and it's not perhaps anything I've had to confront like this in my life. But for me, it's been an opening of realization of what many people face every year of their lives. We are a community here at ANU and I want everyone to feel supported at their place of work and study. I want to thank our excellent counselors and academics who provided additional support to our community throughout this time. We are fortunate here at ANU, some of the world's leading experts who can provide guidance to help support mental health research, be trusted members of the community to help staff and students during the time of needs. For our guests joining us who do not study or work here, I do reminder that support is always available. Anyone in Australia can call lifelong 24 sevens seven days a week at 131114. I also encourage you all to check, you know, with people around you with your loved ones with your colleagues your friends and peers and and and check out on them and don't be afraid to refer them or talk to them about what they're going through. Getting help. There is no shame in that we need to all remind ourselves that There's never been a time as important as the present to look after ourselves and one another to feel connected because of this stress we have been under for the last 18 months. Now today we are joined by distinguished panel. Some of our experts from ANU and special guests to the university from outside. It's a great to welcome Dr. Leanne Begley, Chief Executive Officer at Mental Health Australia and emeritus Professor Andrew Marcus from Monash University. And we welcome you both virtually to ANU. But of course, we'd love to have you come to our campus when someday we'll be able to open up and welcome you. But I do thank you both for taking the time. I also want to thank the rest of our panel. ANUites Amelia Tegan and Hugh for joining us. And it will be great to hear from all of you on such important issues. And I hope that by providing our community with some of the tools and resources and understandings, we can all better navigate the challenges that we're all facing. Finally, I'd like to introduce our moderator for today's panel, Michelle Lindmore. Michelle is Acting Senior Counselor at ANU, Counseling and a Registered Psychologist. She brings over 20 years of experience to our campus, community and government agencies. And so Michelle, I'm going to hand the baton over to you and look forward to listening to today's proceedings and I'll come back at the very end. Cheers. Thanks so much, Brian. I'd also like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, all the different lands from the different places where people might be logging in from and I'd like to pay my respects to Elders past and present. So yeah, it's great to be part of this discussion today. I think it's really important at the moment to keep talking about our mental health, given the challenges that we've all been through the last couple of years. And I'm really looking forward to speaking with this wonderful panel of experts around our mental health and especially around our themes today of isolation and the importance of connectedness. So as Brian mentioned, if today's session does stir up anything for people, you can always reach out to Lifeline and we also have the ANU well-being and support line. So in the information sent out when you registered, there are details if you do need support following today's conversation. So we will plan to go through each panelist so you get to know them a little bit and understand some of their work and their perspectives. And then the panel will have some general discussion before we open up for some questions and answers. So as you're listening, you might want to be thinking about if there's something you'd like to ask and when the time comes, you'll be able to do that either anonymously or with your name through the Q&A chat box at the bottom of your screen. And we'll get through as many of the questions as time permits. So I'll launch straight in and start introducing our panel. I'm going to start with you, Leanne, as the CEO of Mental Health Australia who are partnering with us for today's event. I wondered if you could just tell us a little bit about World Mental Health Day and how events like this can make a difference. Thanks, Michelle, and how wonderful to be here joining the acknowledgement from Brian and from yourself of the first owners of the land that we're meeting on. And also wanting to pay acknowledgement to people with lived experience of mental ill health and what they teach us every day about the challenges of living with mental ill health. And so I'm from Mental Health Australia, and we're delighted to be partnering on this event and on a whole lot of things that are going on over the weekend as part of World Mental Health Day, which is on Sunday. And World Mental Health Day is an opportunity to stop and think and look after our mental health. Many ways what we've been challenged with is in this lockdown environment last year and also this year, you know, how to make the most of the opportunities to connect when it's hard to do so in person. And so our processes this year have been very much online, very much in the social media world, lots of videos and opportunities to hear from comedians and other well-known folk about what they do to look after their mental health and opportunities to make promises about how you'll look after yours. We've got calendars that you can download like an advent calendar except it's a mental health calendar to do something each day targeted for particular groups. I guess the message for us is that it's really time to talk to each other about some of the issues and that, you know, picking up on what Brian said in his opening remarks. You know, before COVID I think when we talked about mental health we often meant mental illness. But these days we mean all sorts of things and we understand better issues of loneliness and disconnection and isolation and fear for the future and anxiety about work and all of those things that seem to add an extra burden. So we hope that World Mental Health Day is an opportunity to really stop and think and reflect and connect. So thank you for the opportunity to work with you and to be here. You're on mute, Michelle. Thank you so much for reminding me of that. So Mental Health Australia worked towards better mental health for all Australians and I just wondered while we've got you Leanne whether you could say a little bit about some of the priority areas for change right now. Yep, so thank you. Well, we are a focus, we're a membership organisation, so lots of mental health organisations in Australia are part of our membership base and they inform us, you know, on a routine basis what some of the challenges are. And people might be aware that the federal government committed to some real thinking about mental health in Australia through the Productivity Commission, who released a report some time ago and the Commonwealth government is looking to lead a process for a national agreement between the federal government and state governments to really sew up the integration of care across the community for people with mental health and to work on making sure that where there are gaps that they, that they're the right services and access to services that people need. And the more that we identify the problems and more we talk about them, the more that we want to be able to access services actually and to make sure that they're there in everyone's community, not just in the big cities or in the, you know, in the urban areas. And I guess our priorities are to see that agreement come to fruition and to engage with the sector to ensure that it happens. We're also interested in seeing the development of innovation and the leadership of people who have lived experience of mental health because they often have the best ideas about how things could be improved. So we're looking for, you know, some innovation in the future service delivery and, and keen to see some exciting developments related to government investment in areas like suicide prevention, and, and the advancement of people who have psychosocial disabilities living in the community and, and support for them in all sorts of ways. So there's a range of priorities and I could talk for the 90 minutes, which I won't. So I'll hand that back to you, but thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thanks so much, Leanne. I think you're right, but it is really good to keep those things on the agenda and to hear what the vision is of how we can keep moving forward and do better in this area. Thank you. I'd like to help the audience get to know you next as a social psychologist, a researcher and an author. I'm interested in what you think some of the major challenges are at the moment in the area of mental health. Thanks very much, Michelle. And good afternoon, everybody. I think an important point to make right at the beginning of this conversation is just to remind ourselves of the kind of species we belong to. Like many other species on planet Earth, we are members of a social species, which means that we are hopeless in isolation, that we're actually born to connect. We are genetically hardwired for cooperation. We absolutely need families, neighborhoods, groups, communities of all kinds to nurture us and sustain us. And to give us that all important sense of belonging, which is so fundamental to the mental and emotional health of people who belong to a species like this. Now, knowing that about ourselves, I think the biggest issue that we're facing is not, in fact, the current issue that's been very painful for many people. I want to say a little bit about that later. But I think the biggest issue is that when you look at over the last 30 or 40 or maybe 50 years around the Western world and Australia in particular, and look at the sort of social trends that have been reshaping us, what you find is that the cumulative effect of these trends has been to push us in the opposite direction from the one that is natural for us. I mean, the word loneliness, the whole idea of loneliness as a social issue is only about 200 years old or less. It was inconceivable in previous centuries and millennia. But now suddenly it's a big issue. So why is it a big issue? Just look at how our society has been changing. Look at some of the trends that have reshaped us. Things like our shrinking households. They've been shrinking for 100 years. In the last 100 years, the number of the Australian population has increased fivefold. The number of households has increased 10-fold. So we're growing households at twice the rate. We're growing the population, which means our households are shrinking. And the fastest growing household type in Australia is the single person household. It's already more than 25% of all Australian households. That doesn't mean that all solo householders are lonely, but it does mean the risk of social isolation is greatly increased in a society where every fourth household and the ABS suggests within the next 10 or 12 years every third household contains just one person. Combine that with our sustained high rate of relationship rate down between 35 and 40% of contemporary marriages are likely to end in divorce. Our falling birth rate. Parents know that if you move into a new neighbourhood, it's usually the kids that act as a sort of social lubricant, get to know each other. Well, we're producing relative to total population, the smallest generation of children Australia has ever produced. So that social lubricant is in less, is shorter supply than ever. We're a more mobile community than ever. We're now, like the Americans, we're moving house on average once every six years. Much more socially disruptive phenomenon than we used to have it. Of course, we're also more mobile in the sense that we have almost universal car ownership. Most of us live in drive in drive out suburbs where you wave at your neighbour's car, which is very different from stopping and having a chat on the footpath. We're all busier than ever. The promise of the IT revolution that this would be the golden age of leisure. Sorry, that doesn't work out. We're busier than ever. In fact, we've elevated busyness to the status of a kind of social virtue. Notice in Australia, we've even changed the way we greet each other. We now say, how are you going, Michelle? Busy? Come on. Are you busy or are you dead? The switch can only be on or off. Well, busyness is the great enemy of social cohesion, of course. Well, the neighbours are having drinks on Friday. Sorry, too busy. This is a huge issue for us. But so also, and I could go on with this list, I'll just mention one other factor that I think has to be there. And that is the information technology revolution itself. That great paradox that we're all in the thick of. The revolution promised that we would be more connected than ever. Implication, by the way, less lonely than ever. But the reality is that the information technology revolution has made us more connected than ever and has made it easier than ever for us to stay apart. I mean, it's brilliant on occasions like this where we can't get together and we are connected. But when you consider the rate of loneliness in Australia, I'll say a bit about that in a moment. But when you consider the rate of loneliness and then notice that the loneliest group in our population are the 18 to 25 year olds who are also the heaviest users of it, particularly social media. You realize that we have this phenomenon we could never have imagined before the information technology revolution of being connected but lonely. Now, I'll stop that little list. But if you put all those things together, Michelle, if you if you think about relationship breakdown shrinking households. Business mobility and our love affair with information technology. The cumulative effect of all that has been here as around the Western world, the phenomenon of social fragmentation. The rise of the so called me culture a shift in our culture and in our thinking from seeing ourselves as indivisibly one. Absolutely, all of us existing in a kind of shimmering vibrating web of interconnectedness and in the interdependency a shift pushed by these social trends in the direction of thinking of ourselves more as independent, individuals, the obsession with identity, whether gender, cultural, ethnic, religious, political, whatever identity is important. But the obsession with identity is a kind of symptom of the way in which we've lost a lot of our sense of being one. And we come to emphasize not the common humanity we all share, but the way we're all different and unique and special. If we go through a period like this, there's one outcome that is absolutely inevitable, we can predict this with no hesitation at all. Because we're herd animals. If we go through a period like this in which more and more people feel they are caught up from the herd. Our mental health will suffer. We'll suffer in obvious ways the three epidemics that we're now living within the Western world, including here are the epidemics of loneliness of anxiety and of depression. And they are all direct consequences of becoming a more socially fragmented society. Now, I'll stop there except to say, perhaps the advent of the pandemic. But all of how interconnected we desperately want to be might just be the disruption, might just be the circuit breaker that shocks us into realizing how far adrift we have gone from our true nature as members of a social species. Thank you. Thank you very much. You very fascinating to kind of see you set the stage I think for some of the current challenges that we're facing and and a nice segue I think to our next panel member who I'd like to introduce which is Andrew, because you kind of ended on that note about the current pandemic and how perhaps this will disrupt things. So Andrew, you're very interested in public opinion and attitudes and I understand that you've been doing some research into how Australia's social cohesion has been withstanding the pandemic. I wonder if you could paint a picture for us about what the data is telling us about Australia's mental health in the current context. Okay, good. Thank you for inviting me to participate and I'd also pay my respects to the traditional elders. I've been involved with the Scandan Foundation surveys which national surveys which are run every year last year was run on two occasions. And the next report will be released at the end of November. This is a finding that came out in terms of the general mood. I think we always have to draw this sharp distinction between general and particular. In terms of the general mood. And the find your surprisingly positive. And some of the things that change was the trust in government in the middle of last year and then later in that year went up very substantially. And we had like 85% of people last year were saying that the government is doing good job. The lockdowns contrary to, you know, the protests that we see. Lockdowns are supported by a large majority of the population when I say large majority we're talking about 85% or more 90% in Western Australia the support for the government is like, you know, almost 100%. And you can actually match reality with surveys because it was an election in Western Australia last year. And what we saw was that the incumbent government almost run every seat. So I think that also supports that notion of the general mood. Even in financial terms, people were saying last year that actually a lot of people again the general and the particular in general terms, people were saying that they well off. Now I'm interested also in under. And of course, you know, as the pandemic has gone on and governments have lost control that level from a number of surveys indicates that level of support and endorsement of governments gone down. But interestingly, it may still be at a level which was higher than pre pandemic. Now the other aspect which is interesting, because I'm in the business of quantifying. So here in terms of what you were saying, it's interesting that when people are asked, do you have a sense of belonging in Australia? Do you have a sense of pride in this country? Those numbers are still very high. And it's interesting to reflect why is that if we are becoming more isolated, more fragmented, one would think that those indicators would go down, but they're very high there. If we add strongly, and the next level of endorsement, we're still in terms of sense of belonging, getting around 90% of people saying, you know, I belong in this country, I'm happy to be in Australia, etc. Now just one other aspect, because we actually have surveys that try to quantify the people who are in psychological distress. And I might briefly refer to that. So we had the national health surveys, which were conducted every two years. And they were finding that on the Kessler 10 scale, level of psychological distress was in the range 11 to 13% of the population. Now that was a number that recorded significant change in the context of the pandemic. Because what was 13% went up to 21%. And again, you know, this differentiating the general and the particular, particularly high amongst young people that you drew attention to, amongst 18 to 34 year olds, 32% indicating high levels of distress. Women, much more than men, like 25 as opposed to 16. And then in some of the states, like Victoria, which is doing the hardest or has done the hardest in terms of the peer of lockdown, Victoria had the highest. So it's interesting to look at these numbers and to see the impact of the pandemic on people's responses. Because the last figure I've just referred to, when you ask people, do you feel nervous, restless, fidgety, everything is an effort. Those numbers went up plus 40% of people were saying, yes, I own that. And then when things got better at the end of the year, that went down to about 25%. So it shows that across the population, there was a marked impact in terms of people's levels of distress and emotional well being. It's not just that in terms of minorities, but a substantial proportion of the population reporting those symptoms. So fascinating to hear what the data is telling us and that it's a little bit different across different age groups and in different places. Thanks so much, Andrew. Amelia, I wanted to come to you next because you've also been researching impacts of the COVID lockdown and you've had a particular focus on people with lived experience of mental health conditions. And I think that's so fascinating to go from the big data perspective down to the more individual actual consumers of health services. I wonder if you could tell us from your perspective how you think our mental health is holding up. Yeah, so I can tell you a little bit about some of the research that we've done. So we actually have done a broad scale study, but some of our work has been informed by people with lived experience. So I was really excited to hear from Leanne that that's obviously something that's really important. So I'll just tell you a little bit about the study that we did. So we were lucky to receive a seed funding grant by the College of Health and Medicine here at the ANU to do some work on people's experiences during the first lockdown in Australia last year. So the overall study has been led by Dr Amy Dall and our team is multidisciplinary. We're made up of researchers from the Research School of Population Health and also the Research School of Psychology. And I'm from the Centre for Mental Health Research. So basically we conducted an eight-way longitudinal survey that was represented by around 1,200 people. We sent out fortnightly surveys between March and June last year, and then we did an eight follow-up survey a year later in March this year. And what's really interesting about this study is that because it's longitudinal, it's given us a really good insight into not only how people were feeling right at the beginning of the pandemic, we actually managed to capture people right at the beginning of those first lockdowns in Australia, which were happening nationwide, but also how this might have changed over time. So that's been really interesting for us. So I'll just sort of give you an update on some of the findings that we've had. We've done a lot of work into this and we've published a few papers already, but I'll just give you a few key ones that are relevant to today. So our first paper was led by Dr Amy Dall and it basically showed that the disruptions that occurred to our social lives and our work lives and also our financial situation were the biggest factors impacting on people's mental health. And we actually found that that was actually more important than any kind of contact with the virus itself. Dr Sonia McCallum has written a paper that's really relevant to today. This was on loneliness. And she found that people who experience more loneliness and less feelings of social connection or belongingness in their community had high levels of psychological stress and reduced well-being as well. So we know that there's a really clear connection there between loneliness and this disruption to our social world and our mental health during these lockdowns. Another colleague of mine, Professor Phil Butterham, did a really interesting study that it was a longitudinal study that followed people over the course of the first seven thought nightly waves of the survey. And he found that people tended to follow sort of different patterns of experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. So most people, I think it was around 80% were actually low on these two factors and they stayed low over the whole time, whereas others sort of followed quite distinct trajectories. So for example, some people who were sort of moderately anxious at the start of the first lockdown in Australia and then this anxiety kind of decreased over time. But I would say that in general, even for people who were distressed during this time, during the initial phases of the pandemic, this was actually fairly transient for most people. So that was really good news. And I'll just sort of tell you finally, so this is a study that was most influenced by our lived experience work at the lived experience research unit at the Center for Mental Health Research. This was a study that I led on the use of psychological strategies. So from a lived experience perspective, we were really interested to see if people who had sort of had any experience with psychological therapy prior to the lockdown using sort of psychological strategies or techniques, whether they were actually using them to cope during this time and whether they found them helpful during this time. And what was really interesting is we actually found that 100% of people who had any kind of previous exposure to psychotherapy with strategies had actually used them during lockdown, which we thought was a really positive finding that people are actually, when they're learning these techniques, they're actually taking them into their life and using them in the future, which is just amazing. The most common strategies that people were used were things like physical activities, a lot of people are out and walking and things like that, but also things like breathing exercises and mindfulness. So there's more sort of cognitive techniques. And we also found that using the technique of mindfulness and perceiving it to be helpful is actually associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety symptoms at a later date as well, which was really interesting. And I guess the idea behind this study sort of from my perspective was that perhaps if we could sort of teach people some of these really basic skills and how to manage feelings of depression and anxiety, it might be useful in sort of helping keep people protected during times of collective stress, like things like the pandemic that we find ourselves in today. I guess I'll just emphasise again that this study only documented the first major lockdown in Australia, so obviously we've had a few different lockdowns since then. I know there are other studies that are looking at sort of subsequent lockdowns in Melbourne and Sydney and also Canberra as well. There's obviously lots more work to do in this area, but I guess what I would say is that yes, people have been distressed during this time, but there are a lot of things that you can do about it. And people have been quite resourceful, which I think is really quite a positive finding. And so encouraging coming from a new counselling. It's lovely to hear that it makes a difference when people do come and speak with a psychologist or a social worker and gain those strategies. It's great to hear that people are using them. They're fine because things are working and making a difference. Thanks so much, Amelia. And again, you're our last panelist. Thanks for your patience. And you've been researching loneliness for quite some time. And of course, that was a big concern even before the pandemic hit. And I guess one that we're now even more aware of. Could you please tell us a little bit about how you think loneliness comes about and how it impacts mental health? Big question, Michelle. And yeah, thanks for having me. I think to kind of echo one of the points that Hugh made, I think it's really important that we emphasise just how strong this link is between social isolation, loneliness, the quality of our social connections and health. I've never seen a study that has not found that link. It is just so robust. And we have known about it for decades. And when I say it's a robust finding, I mean that meta-analysis suggests that the risk of premature death is more closely linked to the quality of your social relationships than it is to how often you exercise, whether you're a smoker, your body weight. And yet I think it's a real travesty how little we're doing about that really as a society. I think the disconnect between what the science is telling us about how important this is and our practical solutions that we have out there and what's going on in healthcare and I guess politics is a real problem. And I think, so my research career really is about solving that problem and trying to work out why we have that disconnect. I think there are broadly three reasons that are contributing to why we're not seeing more action on loneliness and boosting social cohesion. I think the first one is political and it's because if we acknowledge the contribution of things like poverty to health, then we have to do something about them. So to the extent that we see social connection as crucial to wellbeing, then that asks big questions about what we as a community need to do about those who are being marginalised and excluded in our society. So I think that is one of the barriers. I think the second barrier is conceptual. I think that health professionals often aren't trained in in social relationships and social connection. And they also struggle to understand how it can be linked to health. And I think that's a question that researchers need to spend more time answering and answering well and rigorously is what is the actual mechanism through which things like living alone or being feeling disconnected from one's peers. How exactly does that place you at higher risk of things like depression? So getting to the bottom of that question is something that I think is still a work in progress because doctors don't know how to do something about loneliness when they do see it in their practice. And I think the final barrier is actually a really practical barrier is that we don't have strong rigorous evidence-based solutions for what we do about things like loneliness. And certainly my experience has been that when I've had the opportunity to share with practitioners and health professionals, the strength of this evidence and the science that we've been doing, they often get very excited. But they say, well, what do I do about that? It's all very well to know that loneliness is contributing to this person I'm working with who has depression, but I don't know how to tackle loneliness. I don't have those skills that's not tools that are in my toolbox. And so one of the things that we've been doing is developing manualised modular, you know, pick up off the shelf and use them tools that people can do to use in their practice to address loneliness. And I guess I would emphasise in that as well that I think it's important that we don't pathologise loneliness and make it one more list of, you know, deficits or illnesses that people might be presenting with. And that the onus needs to be not on just addressing skills issues in people who might be experiencing loneliness, but also in providing opportunities for them to have an experience of belonging and community. It's the responsibility of all of us to create inclusive communities, not just for people who are experiencing loneliness. And so I think our solutions need to make sure they share that responsibility evenly. Yeah. Thank you. Did you want to tell us just a little bit more because I know you've done some looking into this, the science around building communities and ways to reduce loneliness. Did you want to tell us just a little bit more about that while you've got the floor. Yeah, sure. So one of the main programs I've been spending a lot of my time on in the last few years is called groups for health. And I developed that in collaboration with some colleagues of mine at the University of Queensland. And it's a it's a group psychotherapy type program. It's kind of got an educational component as well as a more therapeutic component. And we bring together groups of people sort of five to eight people who are experiencing loneliness, often associated with a mental health condition but not necessarily. And we provide them with as I said the skills to build those connections but even more importantly the opportunity. And I think the having that experience of a group environment in which you can have a positive sense of belonging in community is a critical scaffold to then being able to go out there and develop new connections and take those risks. So we've developed groups for health a few years back and we've just recently published our third clinical trial of that program. And what we found was that over a full year follow up groups for health reduced loneliness. Very substantially and in fact it outperformed cognitive behavior therapy which was the control condition in this trial. And I should emphasize here in building on what Amelia said cognitive behavior therapy is great. And it does great things in this country for people who are struggling with their mental health so this is not a story about how CBT isn't good. It's that if we can find things that address social connection, even better that's that's really exciting. So that outperformed CBT in terms of the loneliness rates at one year follow up, and it was comparable to CBT in terms of the depression performance over a one year follow up for our program. So I think why why I'm excited about that is that hopefully what it means is we are starting to break some ground in the science in ways to not just tackle symptoms and individual issues that are contributing to mental health, but also the social issues that are contributing to mental health and mental illness. And that's I think we need to be spending a lot of our time as researchers. Fantastic. Thanks so much for all of that information Tegan. So hopefully that's given everybody at home a chance to get to know our panelists a little bit and start thinking of questions you'd like to be asking later. So we're going to move into our panel discussion next and I'd like to start with some practical strategies initially because I know some people might have logged on today hoping that they'll leave with some ideas of how they might look after their mental health. And I wondered if we could come to you initially and you're a new student and you're somebody who's juggling both work and study. I wonder if you might be happy to kick the ball off with just talking a little bit about maybe some ways that you've been looking after your mental health and things you've heard in your work as well that you'd recommend for people who are wanting to improve mental health on an individual level. Thanks, Michelle. Yes, well, some people might think that working full time and being a student as well is, you know, not conducive. But for me, having the opportunity to think outside the box in a, you know, in a learning environment has been fantastic. And I think that's probably the message really here is, you know, for people to think about what it is that they do take pleasure from and that they do find useful. And really doesn't need to be what other people find useful and relaxing. It's what matters to you and what you find useful and relaxing. And there are some tips on our website about what people can do and often there are things like, you know, getting outside and getting off the zooms and the computers and so on. But also about, you know, recognizing taking time each day, setting up a routine and recognizing what does what you do find relaxing and making sure that you you spend a bit of time doing exactly that. And, you know, sometimes it's just as basic as a routine, you know, and going to bed early and and talking to people that that fill your soul and and don't drain you and making time to connect. In that way, I think those things are really important. So encourage people to go to our website, have a look and and see some of the suggestions that others have made. But really it is about understanding what it is that you find relaxing. And for me, it strangely I enjoy studying and and thinking and I also like a good chat. And I also enjoy jigsaw puzzles, as long as they're not too hard. So there's a range of things, of course, that that that we can all find helpful. Is was that what you're asking? That's perfect. And I just love that study for you is one of the things that reduces stress and stress and helps your mental health rather than that just being something that creates heaps of stress. Except maybe on the deadlines for the essays, but other than that, yeah. Very relatable. But it is it's a good way to make connections. And I think especially during the pandemic, it's been a prime source of connection for people to be able to log on to their online tutorial or to do a group project on the zoom. Amelia, I wonder if we could come to you on that topic as well, because you've got that experience with people with lived experience. If you could say a little bit more about some of the strategies that you think people can take away from today and maybe use for improving mental health on an individual level. Sure. I guess being someone with lived experience. I'll tell you a little bit about some of the things that I've actually used to manage my own mental health. We know it's really important to sort of stay connected with people, particularly during these times of lockdown when you might be feeling quite isolated and lonely. So some of the things that I've used to connect with people during this time is I've sort of make times to call my sister. So we sort of make a time to go for a walk together and we'll both put our headphones on and we'll go for a walk and we're both in different cities, but it's kind of like a virtual walk together. And so that's sort of been a really nice time to sort of catch up with each other and, you know, get some free exercise, I guess, while you're at it. So I guess it's just nice that even though you can't really be with people, you can kind of make these solutions out of things, you know, to sort of give you that sense of social connection. The other thing I've been doing, and this is another exercise because I'm really into exercise, I joined a yoga class. So there's been some online Zoom yoga classes and things like that that have been offered. So there was a teacher in Sydney who, when she couldn't teach face to face, just set up some yoga classes on Zoom a few months ago. I have to admit I wasn't very good at yoga and I didn't even think I would like it, but I thought this is something to try, you know, there's lots of other people here. And it was just nice to be able to do something sort of with a group of people and feel kind of connected in that way. Just doing it at a set time sort of makes you feel like, you know, you're doing something with others. And she also said that it's been really great for her because it's kind of given her a sense of purpose during this time as well. So it's kind of nice that there's a two-way benefit. And I guess the last thing I've been doing for my mental health is sort of playing. This is kind of embarrassing, but at Dungeons and Dragons came online. So sort of getting together with a group of friends and just sort of chatting and playing a game online. I've also tried joining other things like joining online trivia groups. Sometimes there's some live trivia, you know, via Facebook or something like that. And that can feel really nice like you're part of something and you can interact and you can send messages and things like that. Also, if you sort of don't have anyone to talk to sometimes even listening to podcasts can be really helpful. And it sounds really silly, but sometimes when you're listening to these over a period of time, you start to feel like you get to know the hosts a little bit. And I know that sounds really silly, but it can actually feel almost like a social experience, I think, as well. So even trying things like that, I think, can also be helpful sometimes. I guess just that sense of connecting with people is just so critical for our mental health at this time. So even if we have to use some of these solutions in the meantime virtually, I think that's an okay substitute for a while. Thanks. It gets me thinking of my family giggling together, watching Google Box. And we know those families on the TV as they react to what they're watching on TV. I wondered, Hugh, if you might have some things to add, especially around what we can do if we're feeling lonely. Yeah, a couple of points. Thanks very much, Michelle. I'd like to start just by emphasising something that Teagan said. Looking at the total health perspective of this, we talk so much about diet and exercise. And I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that it's a three-pronged thing. The recipe for good health and well-being, particularly into older age. Diet, yes, exercise, yes, and social connectedness, yes, yes, yes. So we are talking about not just something to be nice to have. But as Teagan said, we're talking about something which if it's taken away can actually reduce the prospect of longevity as associated with hypertension, inflammation, sleep disturbance, vulnerability to addiction, all sorts of quite apart from loneliness, anxiety and depression that flow from this. So it is, I think of this as a huge responsibility we have towards each other. The extent of the responsibility, I think, just to introduce another figure in addition to those that Andrew mentioned, the Australian Psychological Society and Association with Swinburne just a couple of years ago, pre-pandemic, discovered that 25% of Australian adults report feeling lonely for most of every week. So what that means is when we're moving through our neighbourhood, our communities, our workplaces and so on, the probability is that about one in four of the people we encounter are going to be suffering from loneliness, which is a form of illness. So what can we do? Well, three things. Teagan mentioned the difficulty for people like GPs and social workers to know what to do about this. But there is this emerging phenomenon, which I hope is going to catch on in Australia. It started in a city called Froome in Somerset in the UK, but the phenomenon of social prescribing, where a GP will actually write on a prescription pad, not a drug that you should take, but join a choir, ask the neighbours in for a drink, get hooked up with the community garden, go to a, join a book club. In other words, prescribing to a person who's suffering from the illness we call loneliness, ways of strengthening their social connections so loneliness is likely to diminish. I think that's something we can do. Another thing I think we all need to be extremely alert. And I think I hope the pandemic has heightened our alertness to this, but we all need to be extremely alert to the people who are vulnerable, the people who are at risk of loneliness in our street, in our apartment block, in our local neighbourhood, in our extended family. Look out for people who may be a bit vulnerable and reach out to them especially. If you're feeling reasonably robust and connected, well you're beautifully equipped to reach out to someone who isn't. And I would respectfully differ slightly from something Leanne said when she talked about avoiding people who drain you. The people who drain you might desperately need your support and your encouragement and your listening ear. You might have to go off and recover after you've spent time with them, but it's one of the things we do for each other. We are capable of being kind and supportive even to people we don't like, even to people we could never agree with, and even to people who do drain us. Small doses, but they need us too. But the other thing just to come finally to the third strand of this, Michelle, is if you yourself are feeling lonely, there is really only one way out of it. You've got to connect. You can take it on yourself to go next door and say I'm just checking in is everything all right. Recognizing there's a 25% chance that the person who lives next door is also feeling one way. If two lonely people talk to each other, then neither of them are lonely. But I think it's hard, of course, because loneliness becomes a very self-absorbed state. As depression does, as anxiety does, those three epidemics all have the effect of discouraging us from reaching out. But often the solution is in our own hands to make a connection, to look out for someone in our street who we think might be at risk of social isolation. Go and knock on the door when you're allowed to, or take a basket of lemons from your tree or something, any kind of thing that will connect you. But do it more formally as well. Find a local book club, find a local choir, or a current affairs discussion group. Join U3A or some other thing that will connect you in spite of your hesitation, in spite of your resistance. Thanks for you. Teagan, I wondered if you might like to say a little bit more about tackling loneliness, maybe at the more sort of population level or within mental health care. Are there other things that we could do to reduce loneliness in Australia at the moment? Yeah, thanks, Michelle. I was thinking, as Hugh was speaking, actually about some of our work around Neighbour Day, and I know Hugh's been involved with Relationships Australia a bit as well, who organised Neighbour Day. So I spoke before about Groups for Health, and while I'm excited about what the program offers, at some level it's still a small group program for people who are already experiencing issues, yeah. And what we need is whole of population change. We need things that are going on at the public health level and in our whole community that are going to make the difference to what is going on at the moment in terms of loneliness and mental ill health. And that's where Neighbour Day comes in. So it's a grassroots community-led campaign, which encourages people to reach out in their local communities, to build social connection, to combat loneliness, to form new connections and a sense of community in the area that you live. Although Relationships Australia are kind of a supporting organisation around that, they don't actually run the events. They empower local community members to run the events. They provide resources to make it easier if you want to run a community barbecue, for instance, around Neighbour Day. So people do things like they set up a WhatsApp group for their street, or they run a little craft store, or they organise a play for the kids in the park. So these are all very informal type activities that are designed to bring people together. And I think one of the reasons why this is exciting as a model for how we could be boosting social cohesion in our communities as a whole is that we know it's already got great reach. So pre-pandemic in 2019, Relationships Australia estimated that over 300,000 people were involved in Neighbour Day. And so we know it's already reaching way more people than any new clinical method is going to be able to reach. So what we did in 2019 is we evaluated what effect being involved in Neighbour Day had on people's loneliness, their sense of connection with their neighbourhood and their wellbeing. And we had over 400 participants, and they came from right around Australia. So 344 different suburbs were represented in that sample, including some of the most disadvantaged communities in our country, as well as some of the more advantaged ones. And what we found was that from before Neighbour Day to one month after, people experienced a significant increase in their sense of identification with their neighbourhood, so that sense of community. And that predicted reduced loneliness, improved social cohesion, and up to six months later, improved wellbeing. So just that one-off event led to this sustained improvement in that sense of belonging that had those flow-on effects. So I think that's really exciting as a model for what we can be doing, not just in small groups, but as a whole nation to do something about this loneliness issue. It's inspiring, isn't it, to get thinking about what can we do on all these different levels to improve the state of affairs? I wanted to come to you, Andrew, because you've been looking into some of the things that Australia's been doing well during the pandemic, in particular, in terms of holding on to our optimism, holding on to social cohesion where we have. Do you have some ideas about things we could be doing better? I think, you know, in terms of this discussion, a better recognition of problems so that, you know, we're basically better able to address the needs of different segments of the population. And one particular segment that I'm involved in researching are immigrant communities. And that would include refugees and asylum seekers. And to recognise some of the issues also at a socioeconomic level as well. So there's a risk that we assume that everybody's gotten zoned and everybody can use it. Everybody can use the technology. They can actually afford to use the NBN if it's available. That's a mistake to assume that. And I think we also need to recognise that people who've come from a traumatised background and we're thinking in terms of refugees, asylum seekers and others as well because trauma obviously is not restricted in any way. If then they're faced with the issues that we've been faced during the pandemic of, you know, lockdowns and food shortages and unable to have face-to-face contact, these issues will have a different valence. So I think in terms of your question, what can we actually do better? It's to better understand needs. And one of the things possibly that's happened during the pandemic because we've done interviews as well as part of our work is the communication. There's been lots of learnings about communication. The communication is not handing, you know, submitting written instructions on what to do. But also to use media that is more accessible to people and this might actually include using YouTube and podcasts and so on. So obviously I could go on with that. But in terms of what we could do better, it's recognition of the different segments of our populations and the different needs and the different impacts within those segments. Great. Thank you so much. So we've reached the point in our conversation where we can start to take some questions from our audience and there's already some coming through. I'm going to throw this one to the panel. Somebody anonymously has asked, can't choosing a relatively solitary life be healthy too? Can the quality of our connections with others matter as much as running with the herd? Can I say something about that, Michelle? Look, I think it's a really nice point. And one of the things I'd say about being a member of a social species is that we all desperately need solitude. I mean, I think we have a biological obligation to nurture the species, to nurture the communities that the species will thrive on and that biological responsibility turns into a moral obligation. I think we have that moral obligation, even if we're disinclined, even if we're introspective, even if we're introverted, which I would certainly describe myself as being, we have to get over that. Sometimes we have to play our part in engagement. However, for some of us more than others, the process of engaging, the process of being a good listener, the process of being a good neighbour, the process of hearing someone who needed to talk to you, even though you disagreed with everything they were saying. This is very demanding. It is a tough gig being a human. So I think every day we need to take time out for some people at several hours a day, for some people at half an hour a day, but some of the things that Amelia was talking about earlier too, just things we can do that look like self-indulgence. We're just doing this time out, a bit of meditation, singing, reading, walking, whatever. It's not self-indulgent at all. It's the necessary replenishment of our resources to get back into the fray to be a fully flourishing human, which means a person who's engaged. Absolutely. Someone else on the chat has said, my observation during lockdown is that extroverted people have a much harder time dealing with loneliness than introverted people. Have there been any studies looking at the different ways that introverted and extroverted people cope with being stuck in lockdown? Tegan? I can take that if you like, Michelle. Others might want to add to my thoughts. But I think this does build a bit on the question that Hugh was just answering. I think that loneliness is a subjective concept, and so no one should be listening to us talk today and thinking, oh, maybe I am lonely and I didn't know it. No, no. If you feel like your social needs are being met, then you are, by definition, correct. There's no official amount of social connection that you should have to be getting for your health. It's all about quality rather than quantity. And so if people feel like their needs are getting met, then that's great. And they're not in that category that we're talking about where we have this issue in Australia and these concerns. So I'd reassure people that it's okay to be seeing people less often and feeling good about it. That's totally fine. In terms of extroverts and introverts having different preferences for the way they socially interact, I think that's definitely true. Introverts probably don't like to get their social connection in large parties, whereas extroverts might enjoy that more stimulating and kind of crowded and energetic, noisy social environment. But that doesn't mean that we don't all have social needs. I think that's something that is across every personality type and is really, as Hugh says, part of the human condition. It's more about how you might have different preferences for meeting those needs. There's another request here for some advice from the panel. And it's around the concept of being in a room full of people but still feeling incredibly lonely. And this person says that they often, due to a lack of genuine connection, that that can happen. And they don't feel it is as simple as just connecting with anybody. Anyone got thoughts on that? But I throw something in. I'm sure others will have other things to say, especially Leanna. Sorry, Leanna, I started talking. No, look, I think another crucial point. It's very important that we understand that loneliness is not directly correlated one-to-one with social isolation. There are people who are socially isolated and don't feel lonely. Writers, poets, plenty of people love being on their own for vast tracts of time and don't feel lonely, even though they may be socially isolated and conversely, as this question has rather poignantly put it, it's possible to be in a crowded room and feel lonely. Lonely is the sense that I don't belong here or that I'm not connected with the people who are here, even if I'm surrounded by them. So I think it's important for us to acknowledge that. It's a real problem. People can live in a large family even and feel like the odd one out and feel lonely with their own kith and kin. It's a widespread human phenomenon. So we have to acknowledge this again to be very sensitive, to be very attentive to the people in our midst who might... The expression on their face will usually tell us, this is a person who's not engaged, not feeling included. I mean, let's in passing acknowledge that what I think the deepest of all the social needs that humans have is the need to be taken seriously and that means to be heard, to be acknowledged, to be included, to be noticed, to be understood, all those things. And if people, even if they are in the crowded room, feel as though no one's listening, no one's taking them seriously, no one knows what they're going through, et cetera. Of course, they'll feel lonely and frustrated and that will often bring out the worst in us, all the way up to feeling angry, violent, et cetera. So again, what a responsibility we bear, those of us who don't feel like that, to be really alert to the needs of someone whose face is saying to us, I'm here in this crowded room and we're not part of this. Thank you. Leanne, did you want to add anything on that one or should I go to the next question? Well, I thought that was awesome. Thanks, Hugh. And actually what I was going to say was that you can be a solitary person and not feel lonely. I think though, the other thing that we need to kind of dispel a bit to is that I think the idea of connection is also has a qualitative component to it so that you can be all working together on a project that's painting a house or something and be very connected. It isn't about sitting around talking about your deepest, darkest feelings as well. That connection can be about being with people and belonging in a group doing stuff. It doesn't have to be about something that's processing the connection together as you're talking. So I think people sometimes set a standard about in their own minds about what connection might be and sometimes it's cooking something together or it's sitting together and talking about going to the zoo, doing something like that. It doesn't have to be about sharing personal issues. Thanks. So we've got another anonymous one who says, lockdown for me has been like a warm blanket. Any tips for the socially anxious introverts on coping with the prospect of exiting lockdown and returning to normality? I'll answer this one because I feel exactly the same way. So I guess I would just say you're not alone. There are quite a lot of people for whom the experience of being in lockdown hasn't been fully negative, that they've actually found some more time to do things, that they wouldn't only get the time to do, sort of experience life without all the stresses of having to interact with people or go to work and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I guess I would just say the way that I'm going to approach it is just to sort of ease gently back into it. Just the same way that they're going to sort of change restrictions very slowly. Sort of let yourself ease back into it. If you can go back to work part-time at first, that would be great. If you can't, I guess, you know, once you get home from work, give yourself some time to sort of decompress and just sort of really do some things that you find really relaxing, just to sort of like setting yourself again. But yeah, I would just say you're not alone in that experience. There are a lot of people who have actually found this time to be quite beneficial to their mental health. So the thought of going back is actually quite stressful. But yeah, it's interesting. We have another person who's written in on a very similar thread saying, do you have any advice for people who have found working from home a salve and dread returning to a busy open plan work environment? Did any of our other panelists want to contribute on that one? Thanks, Tegan. I can speak to that a little bit. Actually, I have a PhD student I'm working with. I think I saw her in the audience, Jess Monson, who's just collected some really interesting data on this. I've been looking at people who are socially anxious and with the experience of lockdown. And what we're finding, which I think is really interesting, is that that sudden disconnection from other people has not benefited people's social anxiety in the way you might sort of initially think it would. In fact, it's definitely contributed to it worsening over time. But I think there is a lot of anxiety about kind of reentering society if you like post lockdown and seeing people again. And we think there's a couple of things going on there. One is that for people who do find social interactions a bit anxiety-provoking, and let's be honest, we all fall on a spectrum there. Everyone finds it a little bit nerve-wracking at times. Doing it repeatedly, having that constant exposure to social interaction, is a kind of therapy. It's an exposure in itself that helps keep our anxiety under control, helps us to habituate to this is actually not so dangerous and it's not going to be as bad as I fear it might be. Whereas if we are, through no fault of our own, unable to have those social interactions, then we're not getting that feedback that it's not as scary as we think it might be. We also have more time to anticipate how scary it will be when we do go back to the office and kind of think about all of the ways in which it might go wrong. So what that leads to is this kind of spike in anxiety if you like just before we have to spend a lot more time with people. It doesn't necessarily mean that any of those fears are going to play out in reality. And in fact, what most of us will find is as we are having those social interactions again, they are much more enjoyable than we feared they would be and the worst does not happen. So I guess I'd just sort of normalise that experience and say, as Amelia suggested, if we do it gradually, we'll probably find that it's actually got many pros, not just cons. Lovely. I'll just add something to that, Michelle. Just very, very briefly. Very obviously that's what Teagan was just saying. But I do think one of the lovely prospects, one of the silver linings of the pandemic is the prospect that we will take a much more flexible approach to working from home and going to the office. Already we're seeing around the world lots of large organisations reducing their office space because they're not going to have everyone present at the same time. And that can be, I mean, one of the things we've learned through the pandemic is that we can de-stress, we can simplify, we can be a bit more flexible. And I think we can look forward to, provided we have a sympathetic employer, we can look forward to the prospect of a more flexible working arrangement, which will involve some reduction of stress. But yes, just to echo what Teagan is saying, for those who are reluctant about even the one or two days a week when they might have to get back into the office, we just have to square our shoulders and say, hang it all, I'm a human. I have to do this. We've got another interesting anonymous one here saying mental health might be improved with the level of hope in the broader community. How can leaders assist with securing positive prospects of hope across our communities? That's a big question. Anyone got some thoughts on how our leaders could feed hope? And for me maybe to start off. Thanks, Andrew. Like it's interesting what happened in the first phase of the pandemic in that the government recognised the degree of dislocation and brought in a range of policies, JobKeeper, and a range of assisted packages. Not everybody, of course, was eligible for, but substantial segments of the population were. So, I mean, that indicated the power of government to deal with problems. And I would think that one way of creating hope and optimism for the future is a sense that they're actually going to be tackling real, substantive issues that people face. And obviously a big issue coming out of the pandemic is the climate emergency. So, I would think that if governments create that sense that one of the learnings is that there are problems and we can actually deal with the problems as a community, that I think would enhance hope. Can I jump in there, Michelle, as well, just to endorse that and also absolutely endorse that, and also just picking up on what Hugh said before about one of the things that we all need is to be heard, listened to and heard. And when governments understand a problem and act on it, it does create a sense of optimism in the community and that would be something we'd particularly want to see around future concerns that young people have about how the pandemic might have impacted on their futures and particularly around employment and study and so on. We're seeing high levels of concern in young people in Australia and how they tackle the next steps. And so I think there needs to be some really strong leadership that recognises and acts on some of those particular problems that we know are there. Tegan spoke about how frustrating it is that there's this strong link between loneliness and social connection and yet we don't do stuff about that. Maybe there's a climate component to that too. We know there's a problem, need to do stuff. And one of the really important things is putting in place responses. So for example, Mental Health Australia has been advocating for a year in collaboration with the Royal College of GPs and the Consumer Health Forum that we have a national rollout of that social prescribing program that Hugh talked about before, which has been developed and researched and evaluated in the UK and is a really useful program for drawing people together. So we need to see some action actually rather than talking. We need to see some action around that. Fantastic. Speaking of issues and things that might give people hope, we've got somebody else here who's raised the issue of waiting lists for seeing a psychologist for people who do want to reach out and seek help. They're wondering are there any initiatives in place to reduce the waiting times or provide other professional or specialised support to those in distress or in need. They're saying free helplines are not a replacement for one-on-one therapy. Anyone want to speak to that? I guess I'll briefly reflect that I 100% agree that this is a huge problem. It's happening right around the country at the moment. The load is getting shifted onto GPs certainly locally because people just simply can't get into psychologists. It's a huge problem. I think without answering the question of what individuals should do in that situation, I think at a broader level we as a community need to be investing more in preventative care and things that stop people from needing that one-on-one therapy in the first place. Community-based and group-based solutions, things that when we talk about a mental health intervention as being cost-effective, it's not because we're trying to save pennies, it's because we're trying to make the very few number of health professionals we have who are qualified to provide that care go further. Because that's a real issue at the moment. I know, certainly speaking locally, the ACT government recently announced a lot more investment in mental health, but a lot of that money is going to community organisations who are going to struggle to hire people with the skills to actually provide the care. So the problem goes down the chain rather than necessarily getting resolved. So I absolutely agree. That's a huge issue. So there is the Federal Minister for Health announced a workforce, National Mental Health Workforce Strategy piece of work last year and that's been underway. Just recognising that there is, you know, there's a huge issue around health workforce generally and mental health workforce in particular and in some particular areas like rural and remote communities and so on. One of the things that has helped is the Access Fire Telehealth and Telemedicine that came as a result of the pandemic. But this is a really big issue that we will need to grapple with as a community because there and understand that there are a range of people who could probably provide care who are not the ones that we're always used to going to. So there are, you know, people with lived experience have an enormous opportunity to walk alongside people who are struggling and there are also people who we don't think of as part of the mental health workforce if you like but who do amazing things like teachers and, you know, sporting clubs and so on where people connect and have a chance to sit alongside and get support. But the professional workforce is a really big concern and the waiting times is a huge problem. Absolutely acknowledged. Can I just say something quickly as well, Michelle? I just want to sort of say, obviously this is a really huge problem right now, the shortage of clinicians, but this is actually nothing new. We've had a shortage of clinicians in this country for a really long time and something, I'm obviously a huge advocate for online mental health. I've been working in that space for about 15 years and we know that, you know, these online mental health programs are not necessarily a substitute for face-to-face care but they can be really, really useful when they're used as an adjunct to face-to-face care and also something that we think is really important is using them perhaps while you're waiting for an appointment. So a lot of these programs, they provide evidence-based treatment in lots of different types of therapies and there's been a huge amount of research done in many research centres around the country demonstrating that these programs work for lots of different problems. I've done quite a few of them myself and whilst they're not the same as talking to somebody face-to-face, they can give you some really, really good help and particularly if you are waiting for an appointment, it can kind of give you some relief in that time. So I would highly recommend that people look online. I don't know if we can post sort of a link to somewhere that people can go to look in the chat or something like that but I would strongly suggest that you have a look at some of those programs because they can be really, really helpful particularly while you're waiting. Fantastic. The other thing I'd chime in with, seeing as I'm from ANU counselling is don't give up. Do contact us and ask for an appointment if you're an ANU student because we can get you in. We, in fact, keeps the mixed-day bookings available to squeeze people in and special appointments for new clients so that people don't have to wait too long. So I know it's not a miracle that there is definitely still a shortage of clinicians but don't let it stop you from reaching out and getting on those wait lists or reaching out and asking for an appointment. So we've just got time for probably another one question before we start to wrap up. I'll go to this one. This person is anonymous also and they say it seems like the hardest thing about lockdown is that it feels difficult to express our frustration. There's no one to blame for this situation and everyone else is going through the same thing. Most of us might perceive ourselves as quite privileged compared to other people's situations in lockdown but it seems like this makes people think like they're not allowed to be sad and this seems unhealthy too. What are some productive ways that we can express our grief and frustration? Can I just say a couple of quick things, Michelle? I think others will have more profound things to say about this but pick up the phone. I mean, let's not forget that there is a phone and that, in fact, the intimacy of a phone call is far greater than the intimacy of a Zoom connection even though you can't see a face. You can't get much more from the intimacy of a phone call so I think that's important. Another little observation I'd make is almost a side issue in a way but this word lockdown. I think it is extremely unfortunate. Same as the term social distancing. I mean, I noticed a lot of people are moving to physical distancing which is a much better term to use but lockdown, I mean lockdown, that's what they do in a prison if they're going to lock everyone in their cells. Now, that hasn't happened anywhere. We're not in lockdown. We're being asked to stay at home except we can go out for two hours a day and exercise and we can go to the doctor. We can go to the supermarket. If you live alone, you can have a bubble with someone else who lives alone. You can visit. I mean, this is... I think we have actually contributed... I'm not saying this is a huge factor but I think a contributing factor to people's mental and emotional difficulties during the pandemic has been the very word lockdown. I'd like to ban it. I'm really conscious that we're coming towards the end of our time and I wanted to make space for us to just go briefly round the panel one more time and give everybody just 30 seconds or so to say one thing that you particularly hope that people might take away from today's discussion. I'd like to go first. Andrew, thanks. Just very quickly. Reflecting on what we've been through and asking the right questions and coming up with the right answers is the trick, I think. There was a lot of work done post-global financial crisis. So we're talking, say, 2010, 2011, the level of government in thinking through what people went through. And on reflection, then, people said, you know, the economic indicators actually came back reasonably quickly in many countries. What we failed to understand was the emotional impact of what people had been through, not so much in Australia but in many countries. And because we didn't recognise that emotional aspect, we actually didn't necessarily deal with the problems at the level that they needed to be dealt with. So there's been on some people, many people, huge emotional toll and part of the process of coming through that and moving through to better societies that we would want is recognising the impact that's had on different segments of the population, including the care providers, you know, who've been working 24-7 for a very long time. So it's that recognition that I want to draw attention to. Thanks, Andrew. Can I go next to you, Leigh Ann, just for 30 seconds? Sure, I'll be quick. I guess I'd really like to circle back to the fact that we have World Mental Health Day on Sunday, that we have some lovely, encouraging messages on our website and videos from people who are really giving some, you know, some really helpful ideas about how you can look after your mental health and also that just to underline how important keeping connected is, even if it's hard and even if there are barriers, that keeping connected is an important, just underline what Hugh said really. It's such an important part of just being a person and really encourage people to keep connected. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks, Leigh Ann. Amelia, can we come to you? Sure. I guess what I'd say to people is just that you're not alone, you know, that there are a lot of people out there who have been finding this time really difficult, myself included, and just to reach out for help if you need it. If you're the kind of person who doesn't feel like talking to someone on the phone, there's some really great chat services available as well, where you can just sort of chat with someone and they can give you some tips on how to cope during this time as well. So I would just say seek help. You know, there are a lot of us that have had a difficult time lately. Thanks, Amelia. Tegan. Thanks, Michelle. I think for me, the big lesson here is think creatively. I mean that both at an individual level. So when I'm trying to work out how to stay connected with the people and the groups that matter to me, you know, right now, we need to think creatively. We need to come up with ways to connect with them that are meaningful, that give us that sense of belonging and community that we need, that might not be the way we used to do it. You know, I didn't used to go bird-watching with my friends, but that's what I do now because that's a way we can connect. So thinking creatively about what you can do to stay connected and to do that now, not once you're already seeing mental health impacts of isolation is a really important thing. But I would also say let's think creatively as a society about how we tackle this problem because the old ways of doing things have got us to where we are now and we need new ways of tackling social connection and mental health that are a whole of population and keep people well. Thanks so much, Tegan. Good to you, Hugh. Thanks very much, Michelle. What I'd say is never waste a crisis. And by that I mean the pandemic, like bushfires, floods, heart attacks, depressions, all sorts of crises that we face, do tend to bring out the best in us in that they remind us of our essential human nature. And I think the pandemic has been true to the crisis pattern. It's reminded us of the importance of connecting with the people who are at risk of social isolation. It's reminded us of our natural disposition to be kind to each other, even people we don't like, et cetera. So what I'm hoping is that we will turn the crisis into a revolution and start acting post-pandemic as we've learned, we have a hunger for during the pandemic and to maintain this way of living. Thanks so much to all of you. Keep bird watching, Tegan. Keep bird watching. It's been such a rich conversation and I want to thank you all because it's been really inspiring and I hope it's left everybody with some wonderful ideas about how to go forward from here. If anybody would like just a tiny bit more in terms of tips for looking after your mental health, there's some links in the chat to some videos that our partner, Mental Health Australia, how we look after our mental health. And I'd like to now invite our Vice Chancellor back, Professor Brian Schmidt, to wrap up today's event. Thanks. Well, thank you. And I certainly have found that a really interesting set of conversations. And I think we've gone from just the really foundational understanding of how we as humans work to some of the evidence that's underpinning interventions that we can make and some hopefully useful tips that each of us can use in dealing with our own issues or helping others deal with theirs. And I am still doing my best to try to instill hope in the ANU community. I wish I could print money like the federal government could. It would make life a little easier. But there are many reasons to be hopeful. And I think, as Hugh said, Vice Chancellors need to make sure we don't waste crises, although I will say I prefer not to have any crises to waste. But from my perspective, it's a chance to think about how to look at social cohesion and how can we take the opportunity to use this world-leasing expertise that we have here at ANU and beyond and try to put that practice into our community. And certainly one of the things we have a strategy for is actually a social cohesion strategy that it'll be nice when we can coalesce back on our campus in the months ahead to try out. Amelia, finding out that you play Dungeons & Dragons, can I suggest a bunch of physicists for you? Because they love to hang out with you, okay? And Michelle, it's good to see that you're demonstrating that there's nothing better than a pet to provide companionship. They have nothing else. Antigua and I have been going out bird-watching my entire life and it is really therapeutic. So I'm glad to see you've joined. Andrew and Leanne, thank you for joining us virtually from afar. And again, we welcome you to our campus in the future. And Michelle, thank you for being a great host today. And also thank you for your efforts at ANU Counseling, a really important but challenging job. And we really appreciate the efforts of you and your team. And everyone's expertise here to help us have great fulfilling and healthy lives. And so the university will continue to learn from our own experts and try to implement what we know ourselves and make sure that we're a place of best practice. So thank you all. Wish everyone the best of luck. Enjoy the weekend and you will see that I have just given everyone at ANU at least an extra holiday because I think we all do need one more day off sometime that'll be the first to November. So look forward to enjoying that day off myself. Thank you once again. Cheers.