[People Met Through Books] If You Want True Happiness, Strengthen Your Mind Muscle

Building Mental Strength Eliminates Fear
Automatically Solves Social Issues
Boosting Immunity Can Also Slow Aging
Through the So-Called 'Pyeonan Jeonhwal' Training
School Violence Prevention Is Also Possible

"The core of mental strength is to completely free oneself from all fears."

Professor Kim Juhwan of Yonsei University's Department of Media and Communication, who previously gained attention for 'resilience,' has now introduced the concept of 'mental strength' through his book Inner Communication. He emphasizes, "All physical and mental illnesses stem from fear," and adds, "Resilience does not come from an indomitable will or obsession to succeed at all costs, but from a mind that does not fear failure."

He has two main goals in publishing this book. One is a theoretical goal to establish the concept of inner communication and clarify how inner communication meditation can strengthen mental strength. The other is a practical goal to present specific inner communication meditation methods to enhance mental strength. Through this, he aims to propose a systematic and concrete way to develop mental strength.

To him, mental strength is also a key to solving the complex problems of our society. He believes that if people cultivate mental strength and live their lives happily and abundantly, problems concerning themselves, others, and society will naturally be resolved. We met Professor Kim, who holds such hopes, on the 9th.

Professor Kim Juhwan, Department of Media, Communication and Visual Studies, Yonsei University [Photo by the author]

- You teach inner communication, meditation, mental strength, communication skills, and resilience while working as a professor in the Department of Media and Communication. However, there seems to be some incongruity between the department name and the subjects you teach.

▲Many people misunderstand that I teach subjects unrelated to the department, but this is largely due to the department’s name being misleading. In fact, there is no academic discipline called Media and Communication as such. It was formerly called the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, and now goes by various names such as Department of Communication and Media Studies, but all deal with communication. The field is broadly divided into mass communication related to media and human communication dealing with speaking and interpersonal relationships. I teach in the human communication area, covering topics like 'the communicating brain,' 'communication skills,' and 'inner communication.'

- You emphasized 'mental strength' in your book. Is there a particular reason you chose this term?

▲Just as muscles grow stronger after being stressed and recovering, mental strength also grows when one overcomes adversity and bounces back. To build strength, you must first experience muscle soreness. Staying still leads to no development. But this does not mean you should grit your teeth and obsess over success. That leads to a fragile mentality. Instead of fixating on strong willpower, it is important to eliminate fear. If you cultivate mental strength well, anger, fear, and anxiety will not arise from the start.

- It feels like an essential element for modern people suffering from extreme mental distress.

▲It benefits not only mental health but also physical health. It strengthens immunity and can slow aging. It also enhances achievement capacity and performance ability. By stabilizing the amygdala and activating the prefrontal cortex-centered neural network, overall cognitive ability improves. Work performance and communication skills improve, enabling success in sports, business, research, creative activities, and more. The same applies to studying.

- I heard that mental strength has a greater impact on academic ability than genetic factors.

▲Genetic influence is probably about 5% at most. The other 95% is environment. Here, the role of parents is crucial, especially in not instilling negative preconceptions. For example, when a high school student is studying, parents should not say, "It's really hard, isn't it? Just hang in there a little." That makes even a student who was good at solving problems think, "Studying is boring, but strangely, I’m trying to make it fun. I have to endure it." (Even if that wasn’t the case,) parents should have the attitude of "I did well, so you will too." Try saying, "Are you solving quadratic equations? That sounds fun. Differential equations are even more fun later. Life is even more fun than that." This can help the child become a person with strong mental strength, high self-regulation, self-motivation, and interpersonal skills.

- Recently, school violence has become a social issue, and you said mental strength can positively influence school violence as well.

▲If an educational environment is created that stabilizes the amygdala and activates the prefrontal cortex, school violence can be prevented. Strengthening punishment is of little use. For the 'strict punishment of perpetrators' rule to be effective, children’s prefrontal cortex must function properly. Only then can they recall the strict punishment rules before committing violence, predict the pain of punishment, and control themselves by deciding not to commit violence. To achieve this, children’s chronic stress must be alleviated and habits that trigger negative emotions minimized.

- How do you train to stabilize the amygdala and activate the prefrontal cortex? Can effects be seen in a short time?

▲Training to stabilize the amygdala and activate the prefrontal cortex, called ‘Pyeonan Jeonhwal’ (편안전활) training, can improve these functions within a few months. The key is to relax the body, slow the heartbeat, and breathe slowly, which many traditional meditations include. Meditation does not require sitting with eyes closed. It can be done while walking, running, standing, or lying down.

- Could you introduce an easy meditation method for daily life?

▲Sit so that your back is not touching the chair back, and straighten your body in a straight line from the tailbone to the crown of your head. Then stay still for one minute. Place your feet neatly so that your ankles are just below your knees, and focus on the sensation of your feet touching the floor. Do not move at all. Then your attention, which was outward, turns inward, enabling body scanning and intensive use of the prefrontal cortex. If it’s difficult, you can move your head. Inhale while turning your head to the left, exhale while turning it to the right. It is important to regulate your breathing to match the speed of your head movement.

- Can it be said that activating the prefrontal cortex is the core of mental strength?

▲Building mental strength means activating the prefrontal cortex. Simply put, it means becoming happy. There are two types of happiness. One is the happiness felt when receiving a gift or winning the lottery, caused by dopamine release, which is not directly related to mental strength. The other is happiness felt when the prefrontal cortex is activated, which is true happiness. A quick way to activate the prefrontal cortex is ‘self-affirmation and affirmation of others.’ When I am satisfied with and respect myself while respecting others and wishing for their happiness, the prefrontal cortex is activated. Self-affirmation that occurs when feeling a sense of achievement brings pride and satisfaction.

- You said that training mental strength can naturally solve social problems. Does this mean individual change can lead to societal change?

▲To solve structural social problems, the mental strength of social members must first be strengthened. If you want to recognize and change structural social problems, strengthening individual mental strength is essential. Mental strength broadly consists of three types: the ability of ‘I’ to better manage myself (self-regulation), ‘I’ to better manage others (interpersonal skills), and ‘I’ to better manage worldly affairs (self-motivation). Changing the world is changing oneself, and only by changing oneself can the world be changed. Therefore, mental strength is not merely a personal issue.

- Although the book is extensive and not easy to read, it became a bestseller and gained great attention.

▲It is a difficult academic book that synthesizes various studies, so I am grateful and somewhat amazed that many people like it.

Who is Professor Kim Juhwan?

He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Political Science and completed graduate studies there. He earned his master's and doctoral degrees in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. He is currently a professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Yonsei University. He mainly teaches inner communication, meditation, mental strength, communication skills, resilience, persuasion, and leadership, and researches the effects of inner communication and meditation using neuroscience and brain imaging analysis techniques. He serves as an advisor for the Korean Society of Meditation Medicine, a research group of professors in psychiatry. Since 2017, he has been the mental coach for Yonsei University's baseball team, conducting meditation training. He began meditation practice in his second year of high school, deeply interested in Zhuangzi and the Heart Sutra. He completed the Kundalini Yoga expert course (Guru Singh, LA Kundalini University: RYT 200) in the U.S. and participated in the SRI (Summer Research Institute) program of MLI (The Mind and Life Institute), which leads scientific meditation research. He graduated from the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism’s monastic school (50th class). His publications include Resilience and Grit.