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This is the Fox News Rundown Extra. I'm

0:21

Dana Perino. Best-selling author

0:23

and psychologist Meg Jay recently joined

0:25

me on the Fox News Rundown.

0:27

She specializes in 20-somethings and has

0:29

been offering help and advice to

0:32

this misunderstood group of young adults

0:34

for over two decades. She

0:36

also gave one of the most watched TED Talks

0:38

ever. Meg Jay's latest

0:40

book is The 20-Somethings Treatment, a revolutionary

0:43

remedy for an uncertain age. Dr. Jay

0:45

and I had a great conversation about

0:47

her career, her new book, and

0:50

the advice she gives young adults who are looking

0:52

to their careers and their lives during these

0:54

turbulent times. We made

0:56

some edits for time and thought you might want to hear

0:58

the whole thing, especially since

1:00

there is a lot of great stuff we did

1:03

not include in our original segment. Thanks

1:05

for listening. And if you haven't already,

1:07

please subscribe to the weekly Fox News

1:10

Rundown podcast. You can

1:12

also find my podcast, Perino on

1:14

Politics, every Monday by going to

1:16

foxnewspodcast.com. Now here's author

1:19

and psychologist, Dr. Meg Jay, on

1:21

the Fox News Rundown Extra. Dr.

1:28

Meg Jay, it is such a pleasure to talk

1:30

to you again. Thank you so much for doing

1:32

the podcast. Always a pleasure to

1:34

talk to you, Dana. I think

1:36

I want to start at your beginning in

1:38

your 20s and your experience

1:40

there. And then that transition

1:42

as you write in the new

1:45

book, The 20-Somethings Treatment, you

1:47

refer back to that several times in the book.

1:49

Why so? Well,

1:51

I was a 20-something once myself. So

1:53

I learned not just from working with

1:56

20-somethings for 25 years, but also from being

1:58

one. many 20-somethings today.

2:00

I struggled when I was in my

2:02

20s also. There were times I felt

2:05

anxious and depressed and overwhelmed,

2:07

and I think it's important for 20-somethings

2:09

to hear this is really common and

2:11

that you don't necessarily need to panic

2:14

when these aren't turning out to be the best years of your life.

2:17

In one of the stories that you tell, a

2:21

young man goes through a breakup, and

2:23

he's depressed. And I was thinking

2:25

back into my very early 20s, this

2:28

guy that I've never even talked to again, he

2:30

dumped me, like, it

2:33

was so bad. And we didn't

2:35

know the term. It usually is. We

2:38

didn't know the term ghosted back then. Right,

2:41

right. I was totally ghosted. I remember I

2:43

got the flu. I was

2:45

just miserable. I couldn't think or

2:47

sleep straight. And my college roommate,

2:50

Andrea Aragon, I remember her

2:52

being like, you're going out tonight, and we

2:54

would go eventually, like, getting back in the

2:56

swing of things, we would go and do

2:58

things. And you write about how sometimes

3:01

now, people in their 20s, because you can

3:03

go on Google right away or Reddit

3:06

and self-diagnose, you think, oh my gosh, I'm

3:08

never gonna get better and I have to

3:10

go on medication. But you say

3:12

something to him about, in three months,

3:14

you're gonna get better. And I was thinking

3:16

back on that, and it was about three months. Yeah,

3:19

the number one precursor to depression in

3:22

young adults is a breakup. So oftentimes,

3:24

young adults will come into my office,

3:26

they'll say, oh no, I'm clinically depressed.

3:28

And I'll say, well, what's going on?

3:30

And usually, they've had a significant loss.

3:33

Usually it's a breakup, but it could

3:35

be the end of a friendship or

3:37

something going on with family. But I

3:39

think it's really helpful for young adults

3:41

to understand your grieving. This is

3:44

normal. This means you let yourself care, you

3:46

let yourself love someone. It's healthy to be

3:48

upset about it. That means your heart is

3:50

working, your attachment system is working. It does

3:52

not mean you have a mental health disorder

3:54

or that you'll never get better or that

3:57

you need medication. So your other

3:59

book is The Defined. decade, which I

4:01

recommend to every graduate and their parents.

4:03

And it's about how you have to

4:05

really put in the time and effort

4:07

in your 20s because

4:09

then the rest of your life gets better.

4:11

And I've known that that's

4:13

been true certainly for me as

4:15

well. I remember writing in, everything

4:17

will be okay, that my hope for

4:20

everybody was that they wouldn't worry their

4:22

young life away, that everything

4:24

eventually would be okay, but that I did work very

4:26

hard in my 20s. Right. Well I

4:29

thought was very interested in reading your book

4:32

and knowing both of them is that from

4:34

the defining decade to the 20-something treatment, enough

4:37

time passed that there were some big differences

4:39

in new material that you could use. Could

4:41

you talk a little bit about that? Sure.

4:44

Well the 20-something treatment is really about

4:46

young adult mental health and doing this

4:48

for 25 years I have been talking

4:50

about young adult mental health but mostly

4:53

behind closed doors because culturally it wasn't

4:55

a conversation we were having. Now

4:57

everybody's talking about mental health. I think some

4:59

of those conversations are more useful than others.

5:01

So I really wanted to share the facts

5:04

about young adult development, about young adult

5:06

mental health, what I've learned from doing

5:08

this for 25 years. But in

5:10

a way the message with mental health is

5:12

similar, that mental health tends to get better

5:15

across the lifespan from 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s,

5:17

but you've

5:19

got to put the work in in your 20s

5:22

and that means you know learning skills and

5:24

not just looking for answers with pills. So

5:27

you talked about, and I love the first part

5:29

of it, something called the

5:31

nocebo effect and I thought

5:33

I would give you a chance to explain what does

5:35

that mean. It's not a placebo, it's a nocebo. Right,

5:38

so if the placebo effect is the

5:41

power of positive expectations of I

5:43

think I'm going to be okay, I think

5:45

things are going to get better, then they

5:48

tend to get better because often we're not

5:50

so overwhelmed we can put the work in

5:52

and help them get better. The nocebo effect

5:54

is the power of negative expectations. So oftentimes

5:57

what happens with young adults is life

5:59

will be difficult, they're feeling depressed or

6:01

anxious, they'll go online, they'll see

6:04

that they very easily meet the criteria

6:06

for some mental health disorder or another,

6:08

and then they come into my office and they say, oh

6:10

no, I have a mental health disorder, I'm going to have

6:12

this for the rest of my life, I'm going to be

6:14

anxious forever, I'm going to be depressed forever. And

6:17

so that's the power of negative expectations, is that

6:19

they feel like this is abnormal, there's nothing

6:21

they can do, it's always going to be

6:23

this way. So I have to

6:25

shift toward what the data say, which is

6:28

really the power of positive expectations, mental health

6:30

does tend to improve across your

6:32

20s, 30s, 40s, we can all look back

6:34

on our 20s and most of us

6:36

would probably say that was a mental health

6:38

low point and my life has gotten better

6:41

and I think 20-somethings need to be hearing

6:43

that more rather than labeling themselves for life.

6:45

What do you think is the scope and

6:47

scale of the mental health problem for 20-somethings

6:49

today? Scope

6:53

and scale, that's a good question. I will

6:55

tell you that in the 25 years I've

6:57

been doing this, that young adults have always

6:59

been more likely than older adults to feel

7:01

depressed, to feel anxious, to feel suicidal and

7:03

to struggle with substances. Are

7:05

they feeling that way more now than 10 years

7:08

ago? Maybe although it's really

7:10

difficult to untangle that from talking about

7:12

it more, people relying on diagnoses more,

7:14

but it's always been the decade when

7:17

people were most likely to struggle. People

7:19

have often said, why do you work with 20-somethings?

7:22

Not really understanding that from a mental

7:24

health perspective, that's actually where the action

7:26

is. So I always expect it to

7:28

be a difficult time, but I think

7:30

the more important conversation is how do

7:32

20-somethings feel better? Pull up

7:34

a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy and

7:36

me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy

7:38

as we share our perspective on

7:40

the discussions happening at kitchen tables

7:42

across America. Download from the kitchen

7:44

table to Duffy at foxnewspodcast.com or

7:47

wherever you download podcasts. This

7:49

really stuck out to me because I feel

7:51

like I'm guilty of this and maybe like

7:53

all of us in the media maybe are,

7:56

but you talked about how

7:58

young adults can be true. trivialized

8:01

and criticized and

8:03

that we confuse We

8:07

confuse Developmental problems with

8:09

generational problems. So we'll say oh

8:11

the snowflake generation like oh

8:14

that they're certainly not the greatest generation are

8:16

they and I Realize

8:19

it. I know a lot of people in their

8:21

20s who are thriving and doing great and they're

8:23

not snowflakes And it made me really

8:25

think that I shouldn't do that I

8:29

Yeah, you probably should it so yeah, I You

8:33

know, like I said that the 20s had

8:35

long been you know From a mental health

8:37

percepts perspective the hardest decade of life and

8:39

we were talking earlier Something

8:41

that might sound silly to a 30 something

8:43

or a 40 something or 50 something like

8:45

a breakup if we all look back in

8:48

our 20s that was devastating to go through

8:50

a breakup. It's a first significant loss. It's

8:52

difficult I'm not saying that people can't learn

8:55

to manage That's actually the point of those

8:57

early difficult work experiences or love

8:59

experiences is learning how to cope

9:01

and become stronger as you grow

9:03

That's normal, but I don't

9:05

think that most 20 some things are snowflakes. I think

9:07

it's really hard to be a 20 something I think

9:09

it's harder to be young than it is to be

9:11

old. I wouldn't go back to my

9:13

20s. I don't know. I agree I

9:16

never want to be 14 again Exactly.

9:19

That was the worst one. Um I

9:23

was I was taken by the passages

9:26

about medication and over

9:29

prescription And also people

9:31

thinking that that will be the answer But then it

9:33

leading to other problems like if they give you a

9:35

medication for one thing it might lead to you not

9:38

sleeping Well, so you take a medication for something else

9:40

and it's hard to get off of that carousel Right.

9:43

Yes. I mean, I'm very

9:45

clear in the 20 something treatment that for

9:47

some people medication is useful or necessary But

9:51

medication is not always the best medicine. It's

9:53

not for everyone I had a client come

9:55

in the other day and say my roommate

9:57

has something and she loves it. She's doing

10:00

great. And I said, well, you and your roommate don't

10:02

have the same brain or the same problems. So

10:04

I don't know if that's the best medicine for

10:06

you. I think that in, unfortunately,

10:09

most of the prescribing for

10:11

mental health meds that happens for young

10:13

adults happens in GP's office, nothing

10:15

against GP's, but they're trying to do a lot

10:17

in a short period of time. And

10:20

so often they're not able to ask the

10:22

questions of what's going on in your life

10:24

that's got you feeling this way. What are

10:26

other ways we could tackle this problem besides

10:28

medication? They also often don't have time to

10:31

really educate 20-something about the dangers

10:33

and the side effects and the downsides of

10:35

medication. So I try to address that. Could

10:37

you talk a little bit about those dangers

10:39

and side effects? Yeah.

10:41

So SSRI, so antidepressants are

10:43

the most commonly used prescription

10:46

medication for adults age

10:48

20 to 60. So it's not

10:50

just 20-something, but most 20-something when

10:52

they start, antidepressants don't realize that

10:54

they have downsides. So those can

10:57

be weight gain, sexual dysfunction, both

10:59

of which are significantly developmentally

11:02

difficult for 20-somethings. Even

11:04

more important, what I hear 20-something start

11:06

to complain about once they're on the

11:08

medication is the emotional numbing. So antidepressants,

11:11

they make the bad days less

11:13

bad, but often the good days

11:15

are less good because they're really

11:17

sort of emotional constrictors. And

11:20

so for many 20-somethings, the upsides

11:22

don't outweigh the downsides, especially when

11:24

what they're dealing with is developmentally

11:27

normal and not something that they

11:29

actually need a medication to get

11:31

through. Do you

11:33

think that social media has also

11:36

exasperated the problems that were already

11:39

there? I

11:41

do. I mean, I think watching other people

11:43

appear to have the best life ever is

11:45

going to make you feel stressed and anxious

11:47

and depressed, although you have some control over

11:50

how much time you spend watching that. So

11:52

I urge all my 20-something clients to give

11:54

that a hard look. But I

11:56

also think back to the placebo effect that

11:58

it has led to a 20-something to

12:00

hear about diagnoses that they think

12:02

they meet criteria for. And

12:05

so it has led them to conclude

12:07

that they have three or four or

12:09

five mental health problems when actually they're

12:11

having a hard time and that the

12:13

20s are hard, but feeling depressed or anxious

12:15

or stressed or overwhelmed is very common.

12:18

And what that is, is that your brain

12:20

and your environment saying, hey, there's some things

12:22

that you need to work on, some areas

12:24

that you need to gain confidence and skills

12:26

and competence. It doesn't mean that

12:28

you're disordered. And

12:30

I like also learning a little bit

12:33

more about the social anxiety of even

12:35

meeting new people. And I know

12:37

that that's not easy. And

12:40

I write in a couple of my books with mentoring, like the

12:43

idea that you have to force yourself to go to

12:45

one mentoring event a month. To

12:48

me, I feel like that's like a baby step, right? But for

12:50

some people, it's like, oh my gosh, how am I going to

12:53

do it? What's my opening line? And

12:55

it can become so overwhelming as the first thing

12:57

that you will cancel off of your schedule. What

13:00

are some ways that you talked about in the book that can

13:03

help young people or the parents that care about

13:05

them get them to be

13:07

willing to go out and meet new people? Right.

13:09

Well, one is I really try to go

13:12

for a reframing of, quote,

13:14

social anxiety. So to give you

13:16

a little background, so social anxiety

13:18

disorder really

13:20

is, you know, fear of worry about

13:22

meeting new people, worry about being judged, how

13:24

you're going to perform. 50%

13:27

of young adults, quote, meet criteria for

13:30

this, which means the developmental criteria,

13:32

you know, are not appropriate for

13:34

20 something that every 20 something feels

13:36

anxious and nervous about this. So it's exactly

13:38

what you said. Put some

13:40

things on the calendar, you know,

13:43

small baby steps. I'm going to go to

13:45

one thing that's outside of my comfort zone this week.

13:47

I'm going to talk to one new person in that

13:49

meeting or that class. I'm going to raise my hand

13:51

one time in class or I'm going to speak up

13:53

one time in a meeting. You just start with one

13:56

and then let it add up

13:58

from there. Yeah, I really love that. I

14:00

thought that was good. One thing I thought about that, and

14:02

it was kind of a two-part question, is that for

14:05

me, when I was in my 20s, one of the most

14:07

rewarding things that I was a part of, and I look

14:09

back and I think, wow, thank God I had this group.

14:12

I went to the Lutheran Church of the

14:14

Reformation. It was right behind the

14:16

Supreme Court. And we had a young singles group,

14:20

and we would meet on Wednesday nights. And

14:22

there'd be like a little potluck thing, a little Bible

14:24

verse, a little conversation. I'm

14:26

still friends with people from that group to this

14:29

day. And I remember when I met

14:31

my husband on an airplane at the

14:33

time, so it was such

14:35

a time of, I

14:37

was 25, I was having my quarter life crisis.

14:39

I had dated in like two years, and now

14:42

I meet this guy. He's older than me, he

14:44

lives in Britain. My career was just

14:46

starting to really take hold. Like, could I actually make

14:48

this leap of faith? But having

14:50

faith and a belief, I know

14:53

helped me, but

14:56

it also was a part of my way to be

14:58

social. We all know

15:00

that across the board, across

15:02

around the world, in most places, especially

15:05

Europe and America, attendance at

15:07

churches way down, but it

15:09

can be a real lifeline for people.

15:11

It was for me. Absolutely,

15:13

I was just interviewing a new

15:16

client last week, and we were looking for

15:18

areas where she could expand and meet new

15:20

people. She's living in a new city, has

15:23

exactly zero friends so far. She'd

15:25

actually gotten up the nerve to join a walking group,

15:27

which I thought was really cool, but I was asking

15:29

her, well, what are other things that are important to

15:31

you? What are your values? And

15:34

are you political? Are you religious? Where are

15:36

groups where you could join and meet other

15:38

like-minded young adults? I think those are wonderful

15:40

places to start. Yeah. Tell

15:42

me a little bit about the section

15:44

about learning to cook and why.

15:49

Learning to cook, that's an important one. Actually,

15:51

this week for Mother's Day, my

15:53

teenage son is taking a cooking class with me.

15:55

So I walk the talk. I'm not just telling

15:58

other people to learn to cook. kids

16:00

are learning to cook. 20-somethings need to

16:02

learn to cook. Two reasons. One is

16:04

we're just starting to hear about, but

16:07

it's absolutely true, that what you eat

16:09

affects your mental health. So, fatty,

16:12

sugary, starchy, processed

16:14

foods, the data showed those people

16:16

are more, the more you eat that, the

16:18

more that you're likely to feel anxious or

16:21

depressed. So, what you put in your body

16:23

and your brain matters. We

16:25

also know that people who cook are more

16:27

likely to eat more healthily, but from

16:29

a really practical standpoint, I hear from 20-somethings all

16:32

the time, I want a recipe for how to

16:34

do well at work. I want a formula for

16:36

how to do well in love. Cooking is one

16:38

of the few places in life where there actually

16:41

is a recipe. There are instructions, and if you

16:43

follow them, you can have a win in your

16:45

life every single day. You can say, look, look

16:47

at me, I made dinner. If

16:50

you know how to cook, you're also more

16:52

likely to have people over socially and host

16:54

a potluck or take someone to chicken soup

16:56

when they're sick. So, there are so many

16:59

benefits, but I think it

17:01

really just boils down to feeling like

17:03

you're a competent adult day-to-day. We had

17:06

on one of the shows last week, we were talking about

17:08

bringing back home ec. And I

17:10

thought I learned how to make an egg soufflé

17:12

in home ec. I can still do it. I'm

17:14

all for it. Don't get me

17:16

started, Dana, on all the things that I

17:18

would bring back and put into colleges specifically,

17:21

but the absolutely cooking. And men and

17:23

women need to know how to cook. Just

17:26

a couple more areas. I wanted to talk to you

17:28

a little bit about decision-making. It's

17:30

so critical, and I loved Trey

17:32

Gowdy's book. It's called Start, Stay,

17:34

or Leave. And I

17:37

think it's one of the best books about decision-making

17:39

that I've ever read. And one

17:41

of the things that you say is that you

17:44

don't necessarily have to get all the answers right

17:46

in your 20s. There's a lot of decisions that

17:48

you make, but especially if

17:50

you're an educated American, you

17:52

can really reverse course. Like, okay,

17:54

I tried to go into the insurance business.

17:57

That didn't work. Let me try going into

17:59

automotive parts. whatever it might be. Right.

18:02

Yes, and as a matter of fact, young

18:04

adults on average are gonna have nine different

18:06

jobs by the age of 35. So

18:09

I have many, many 20 somethings in my

18:11

office agonizing over should I take this job,

18:13

should I take that job, which one's right,

18:15

which one's wrong. We obviously know there's no

18:17

right or wrong, but I remind them this

18:19

probably isn't your last job. This isn't the

18:21

last time you're going to get to decide

18:23

this. So you make the best decision that

18:25

you can based on the information you have.

18:28

And then you check in with yourself

18:30

in one year or two years and you

18:32

say, do I want to sign up for another year or

18:34

two of this, or is it time to change course? Right,

18:37

that it's okay to experiment a little bit. Absolutely.

18:40

I wanted to kind of end with

18:42

this because whenever I'm reading a book,

18:44

I'm thinking of the potential people who

18:46

might love it. So there's a lot

18:48

of different people who will listen to

18:50

this podcast. And I was thinking about

18:52

three different groups of people that would

18:54

benefit from reading this. So I'll

18:56

mention them and then let you talk about

18:59

why you think the book is good for them. First

19:02

of all, would be 20-something's

19:04

themselves. Absolutely,

19:06

that's who I wrote it for, primarily,

19:08

yes. If

19:13

they were to be able to take a

19:15

couple of things away from this, when you imagine

19:18

your reader, the 20-something reader at the end of this

19:20

book, how do you want them to feel? I

19:23

want them to feel helped and I

19:25

want them to feel hopeful that actually this

19:28

book is a big, big message of hope,

19:30

that it is normal to struggle in your

19:32

20s. Let's not panic,

19:34

let's not pathologize, let's not

19:36

catastrophize. Let's problem solve and figure

19:38

out what does it mean about the changes you need

19:40

to make, the skills you need to build, what

19:44

else you need to learn. But in general, we

19:46

know that life gets better as you go. If

19:48

your 20s turn out to be the best years

19:50

of your life, something has gone wrong, life should

19:52

get better and it will. What about

19:55

for those who are reading it

19:57

that are parents of 20-somethings? Similar

20:00

message, I think that parents

20:03

of 20-somethings will be relieved by reading

20:05

the book to see that it's very

20:07

normal for their kids or other kids

20:10

to struggle, to see some of the

20:12

trajectories around that, that people do get

20:14

better over time, especially if they gain

20:17

the skills that they need. I think

20:19

it's also really important for parents

20:21

not to panic or pathologize. I

20:23

think a lot of parents are really quick to

20:28

panic when their kids are having a hard time.

20:30

It's very normal to struggle at work. It's very normal

20:32

to be devastated by a breakup. It's very

20:35

normal to have a lot of trouble making

20:37

these big decisions that don't have right answers.

20:39

That doesn't mean that there's something wrong with

20:41

your child or that they're never going to

20:43

feel better. The third category,

20:45

same question, how about the employers

20:48

and managers of 20-somethings? I

20:51

would love for employers and managers

20:53

to read this book because I'm

20:55

a big proponent of work, that

20:57

work is the single biggest driver

20:59

of growth and change in young

21:01

adults, more so than your relationships,

21:03

more so than your past. I

21:07

think that not enough employers know

21:09

what a steep learning curve so many

21:11

young adults are on and how they're

21:14

really contributing to their development in a

21:16

very, very positive way. I

21:19

love the book. I love both of your books. I

21:21

think it's going to help all of those people and

21:24

more. I

21:27

did have maybe just let me add

21:29

one other thing because when we're talking

21:31

about employers, do you have a strong

21:33

feeling at all about whether 20-somethings should

21:35

try to work in an office rather than work

21:37

from home? I

21:39

do. I think that, like

21:42

I said, work is the biggest driver

21:44

of learning and growth and change in

21:46

your 20s. You

21:48

should put yourself in a position to learn

21:50

and grow and change the most. If you

21:52

can pull that off from your screen at

21:54

home, then more power to you, but most

21:56

20-somethings that I know are going to

21:58

learn and grow and change. more if they're

22:01

exposed to a variety of different situations,

22:03

a variety of different growth situations. And

22:06

usually that's going to mean putting on

22:08

the better clothes and showing up for work and

22:10

doing in-person conversations and

22:13

presentations and everything that goes

22:15

along with work life. Well,

22:17

congratulations to you. Dr. Meg Jay, you've written

22:19

a book that I do think will be

22:21

helpful and hopeful to all who read it.

22:24

Thank you so much. Thank you, Dana. Thank

22:26

you. Good to speak with you? You've

22:31

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