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you need to hear about this 72% of people are struggling with stress 70% have at least one feature of burnout and we are seeing a rise in mental health problems like we've never seen before
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what's happening so as a doctor I can tell you that doctor a did Nar is a Harvard physician nationally recognized
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stress expert who is understanding and combating modern-day burnout when I was a medical student working 80 hours a
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week I was in my own stress struggle and it was terrifying but I couldn't find a
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doctor who could help so I became the doctor I needed I uncovered all of these studies and found a solution that wasn't just try to relax we are seeing
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increased rates of depression Sleep Disorders fatigue or burnout because stress is higher than ever Studies have
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shown at least 60 to 80% of patient visits have a stress related component Jesus it's crazy and 60% of people with
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burnout had an inability to disconnect from work work and being addicted to work can can't shut off and checking
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your phone 2,600 times a day yes that is a statistic so you might be experiencing a
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typical burnout even 2/3 of parents have burnout that's crazy and yet even though
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we are all collectively experiencing it it's so isolating the now 330 million people go 2 weeks before speaking with anyone so what can we do well these are
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the five resets that are going to help you survive and thrive the first technique
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is quick one this is really really fascinating to me on the back end of our YouTube channel it says that
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69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the Subscribe
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button I just wanted to ask you a favor it helps this channel so much if you choose to just subscribe helps us scale
00:01:51
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enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching could you please hit the Subscribe button thank you so much and I will repay that
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gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better that is a promise I'm willing to make you do we have a
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[Music] deal Dr adti Nuka where does your story begin and when I say that I'm talking about the story that inspired the work you do on
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stress burnout there tend to be a catalyst moment in the experts that I speak to's lives where something
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happened which started a chain of events the first Domo that fell which led them to be sat here where does that story
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begin for you my origin story as a doctor with an expertise on stress started as a stressed patient who couldn't find a doctor with an expertise
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in stress and I became the doctor I needed at a time when I was in my own stress struggle what is the backdrop what is the situation of stress the state of stress in the world at the moment are we
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getting more stressed as a people we are seeing unprecedented levels of stress in the world it is affecting every single industry and no
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country or group including you know all ages all Industries all Races it is the great equalizer more now than ever so as a physician and
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clinician those of us who work in the medical field stress has always been a major problem we see it with our
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patients but now if there is one silver lining from the recent several years is that now mental health stress burnout the Lexicon has grown and it is something that people are talking about
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finally in the sea Suite in other areas where before it was you know there was so much taboo there still is but it is
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finally getting the recognition it deserves and stress right now is higher at greater rates than ever what are the what are those rates so typically 70% of
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people have at least one feature of burnout 72% of people are struggling with stress and approximately that same number have said that the past several years have been the most stressful of their entire professional
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careers what's happening a couple of things are happening so going back to my own
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personal stress story why did I have those palpitations at night as I was going to
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bed I was developing something called a delayed stress reaction and what happens
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is under periods of acute stress like the recent events that we've all endured collectively as a global whole during acute periods of stress we
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Shore up our internal reserves as a human being you often do not crack in that moment you keep it together at all costs I've seen this with my cancer patients they have a cancer diagnosis
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and they go through the treatment radiation chemotherapy all of it and they are fine they do not shed a tear
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then when they get that first clean bill of health from their doctors they are in my office sobbing and everyone is
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confused why now what's going on now same thing with all of us you may be feeling this way I may be too right now
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it's that feeling of like okay we've just lived through the pandemic we should be celebrating I'm sure you've seen every headline over the past
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several years at least I did the Roaring 20s are coming the post-pandemic era the guardian had a great piece on this and I
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remember seeing headline upon headline and I would just laugh because I would think that is not how the brain works
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the reason we are all feeling very much not the Roaring 20s is because our brains are built like dams so what
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happens is when you are going through a period of stress you Shore up your internal reserves and you keep it
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together at all costs that is just how the brain is built when that acute period of stress is over so in a cancer
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patient the actual cancer treatment for me as a medical resident going through you know the difficult 30-hour workshift and going to bed and for all of us collectively going through the pandemic
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experience and the various things that have happened since we keep it together but when we have that moment of respit
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when that acute stressor is over then our psychological defenses come down and our true emotion can emerge and it's often a deluge and it comes out in
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different ways the manifestations of stress are different but it's this delayed stress response we are all
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feeling it which is why none of us feel like it's the Roaring 20s we are seeing increased rates of mental health issues
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anxiety depression Sleep Disorders stress related disorders and a general feeling of Mala or fatigue or burnout
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now even more than we were back in 2020 or 2021 it's the delay stress reaction what is stress we should probably Define that word and I'd also like to try and Define it against the word burnout are
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they different things are they the same thing do either of them exist great question there is a
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difference between acute stress and chronic stress under normal circumstances we function in resilient mode and we're governed by the prefrontal cortex the prefrontal cortex
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is the part of our brain if you put your hand here right behind the forehead and it is the part of your brain that is
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responsible for in scientific terms we call it General executive function or you know layman's terms adulting God
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mine's huge behind the skull okay memory planning organization this is what our strategic thinking you're really good at these things Stephen thank you thank you so much the
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prefrontal cortex is what governs all of that under stress we are governed not by
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the prefrontal cortex but by the amydala and the amydala is a tiny almond shaped
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structure deep in our brains you can't touch it it's not like the prefrontal cortex right behind here it's like
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between your ears deep down and that is our emotional center it's the lyic system and we often Call It The
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Reptilian Brain because that part of our brain has not evolved the way other parts of our brain have so it's that and the response that that amydala creates is the fight ORF flight response that
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stress response in our bodies so under acute stress we are not governed by the prefrontal cortex up here we are
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governed by our amydala our brains and our bodies are expertly designed to manage acute stress we are built for managing stress however nowadays so for
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example let's talk a little bit about the fight ORF flight response that the amydala governs right back when we were
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all cave people we were in the forest we saw a tiger you would either flee or fight and there's all of these bodily
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mechanisms that happen when you are engaged in the fight ORF flight response your heart beats faster your lungs start
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taking in more oxygen blood is shunted away from your vital organs and it goes to your muscle so you can either fight
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or you can run your pupils dilate there's so many biological physiological mechanisms that happen with the figh ORF
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flight response then when that acute threat is over so you either have fought or you have flown away from the tiger
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you have a moment to recalibrate modern day times there are no acute threats anymore that all of our tigers are chronic bills financial troubles marital
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conflicts or relationship problems health issues so there's this constant low hum of that fight ORF flight
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response in the distance and that is the problem so acute stress we are good at our brains and bodies are great at managing and it serves a role right of course it serves a role it's
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evolutionarily healthy and we can talk about the differences between healthy stress and unhealthy stress but when it
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starts becoming chronic that is when burnout sets in your brain doesn't get time to rest or recharge it's not like a
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tiger in the forest where you fight Fleet and then there's like a respit time so it's just ongoing in the in the
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background at a low hum at all times what are the symptoms of burnout then how do I know if I'm burnt out the
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interesting thing about burnout is that the definition is changing so earlier when you think about burnout you know what someone with burnout has or you might yourself might think
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like oh I know what burnout is I don't have it that's a lot of people feel this way classic typical symptoms of burnout
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apathy lethargy feeling unproductive not very motivated and the who in 2019 designated burnout as an occupational phenomenon and a clinical syndrome which was really validating for many people
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who are feeling that way this is 2019 way before the pandemic in 2020 2021 and 202 22 what burnout is looking like has changed so it is no longer these classic
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typical symptoms now we are seeing increasingly atypical features of burnout in one study 60% of people with burnout had an inability to disconnect
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from work as their main feature of burnout so it's not what you think when you're thinking about the face of
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burnout of someone who's really not interested in work you could be that person who is engaged in work and can't
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shut off and you're thinking to yourself this can't be burnout I'm totally you know engaged in work in fact I can't
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shut off my brain you might be experiencing atypical burnout atypical burnout because yeah when I think of
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burnout I think of like oh like not getting out of bed and losing motivation but you're telling me that my addiction
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to work might be a symptom and a sign of being burnt out that's right so how do I
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know because I'm addicted to my work I love my work you know when you when it is different from your Baseline being
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addicted to work you love your work yes but you also make time for sleep yeah relationships and connections with loved ones you feel a sense of Engagement in the world it is not interfering with
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your daytoday life so to speak okay so when you are feeling that sense of inability to unplug that means you're checking your phone multiple times per night because you feel like you have to
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keep up you are trying to keep up in in the hamster wheel situation where you just can't and so there are many
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manifestations of this atypical burnout but that is one and so often what's happening now is that people are feeling
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burnt out again unprecedented rise right in stress chronic stress and burnout and
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often people don't recognize that it's happening to them simply because the face and definition of burnout is
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changing how many people are burnt out do they know have they done any studies on that to figure out what that number
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we don't know I mean it depends on the sector so there are lots of studies on burnout and so one big study it was done
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on Parental burnout and found that two-thirds of parents have burnout 2third Jesus 6% yeah and that is probably underestimated and certainly
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underreported so typically we're seeing anywhere rates from 60 to 70% of people note burnout but again think about you know if you're if based on what we've talked about if you are feeling
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like I'm not burnt out so if you're self-reporting burnout and you're saying I don't really feel burnt out I'm very engaged in my work in fact I check my
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email 10 times a night you could actually be having burnout there's also a lot of stigma and shame on burnout so
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people don't want to come forward and say hey I might be stressed or I might have burnout if I have that atypical
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burnout why does it matter it matters because your brain and your body deserve a rest and to to
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function optimally you need to have spaciousness you need you you know to function
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optimally you need to have rest and when you feel that sense of burnout you are not thriving what if I don't feel it what if I'm one of those people that you just have said that's you know checking my emails 15 times a night I see I seem
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to be successful in my work I can't I'm kind of out of balance in my life I don't really have anything else going on
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in my life I'm just work work work work work work work but I don't necessarily feel like there's anything wrong so if I
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don't feel like there's anything wrong if I'm successful in my work then what is the case for making a change so I've
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had lots of patients I had a clinical practice in Boston and what you're describing is the you know young
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entrepreneur so many patients who are young entrepreneurs and the question I would always ask them is what's your endgame so is it a Sprint or a marathon
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are you looking to do this for two years and you love it and then that's it you're going to cash out or do you want
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to think about what your life is going to look like 10 20 30 years from now and so they would think about it Ponder and
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then say yeah I want to spend time you know I my endgame is that I want to lead a great life and I want to live until
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I'm 75 or until I'm 100 and so if you are on this fast track that you're describing you know burnout is not conducive with this idea of longevity
00:15:20
and having that long life that's what I was thinking I was thinking of uh case studies that I know of of people that I
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think probably check their email 15 times night and I like that and those that are out of balance I
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think as you say you can do that intensity but you can't do it consistently like it's possible to be
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that intense but it's not sustainable and it doesn't allow you to achieve the other things that life can offer you
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that will make you happy there's no way of being like that and having like a healthy relationship with your family
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building a family staying in shape and all those are other things and that for me is the really clear cost to that is
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you just play it out zoom out on your life in 10 years time something's going to be broken something's got to give you
00:16:03
know we don't have I mean I think that's a good segue into this idea of toxic resilience it's like we don't all have human beings we don't have an unlimited amount of bandwidth there is a discret
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amount of bandwidth that we all have mental and physical and so if you are not getting the proper rest that you
00:16:20
need and you're not sleeping as much as you you know your body and brain need and it's not about you as in personal I
00:16:26
don't need sleep I only need 4 hours I've also had many patients who've said that to me but your brain and your body
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do physiologically and biologically need a certain amount of rest simply for the cellular function to continue but we've
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got those posters up in our kitchens you know not my kitchen obviously but some people have their posters up in the
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house the the Keep calm carry on that's like a a Hallmark of society today is to
00:16:51
just tough it out and Carry On and we're praised for that we're praised for our resiliency res resilience is a good thing right beautifully said Keep Calm and Carry On resilience the true
00:17:05
scientific definition of resilience is our innate biological ability to adapt recover and grow in the face of life's challenges but resilience doesn't
00:17:16
function in a vacuum you need stress for resilience to show itself without stress there can be no resilience so think of
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swimming you the swimming structure is the saying like you can make it to the other side and your resilience is what keeps your head up as you're swimming while your arms are flailing and then with time and practice it gets better
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what you're describing Keep Calm and Carry On is a manifestation of hustle culture and it our entire modern society
00:17:45
is built on this idea of toxic resilience and so what is toxic resilience you have heard the word
00:17:52
resilience over your lifetime and you had no real you know no real it had no real charart right like you would listen to that word and it would be like okay fine and over the past several years
00:18:03
specifically 2020 2021 it was used it was like a real buzzword at the start of our quarantine we're resilient we're
00:18:09
going to get through this and it has been misused and this is because of Corporations and large companies said you can work more you're working from home now take on an extra project you're
00:18:20
resilient it doesn't matter that you're doing child care and working you're resilient and so you hear these toxic
00:18:27
messages all of the time resilience went from being something that's true which is honoring your boundaries making space
00:18:33
and time for rest and to recharge focusing on a sense of self-compassion and understanding that you are a human being with limitations that is true resilience toxic resilience is
00:18:45
productivity at all costs a mind over matter mindset and what many of us think of as true resilience is in fact toxic resilience we are taught from a very
00:18:57
young age that dealing with discomfort and being okay with discomfort is what resilience is all about and I am here to debunk that because absolutely not resilience is our innate biological
00:19:10
ability but it also needs rest and Recovery it is not meant to be toxic but being resilient is that a good thing in your view being a resilient person resil being biological context I mean the
00:19:24
psych being psychologically resilient being resilient is an excellent thing to be it is something that we can learn how
00:19:31
to be better at and yes true resilience is wonderful the challenge right now is that many of us hear the word resilience and we bristle at it I do when I hear
00:19:43
you know the messaging of toxic resilience no one calls it toxic resilience when they're giving you that messaging they just say hey it's a
00:19:49
resilience it's cringeworthy right like you hear it like oh be more resilient and so yes true resilience is a gift it
00:19:56
is our innate biological ability we all have the power and the aptitude for True
00:20:02
resilience but toxic resilience is what we often see and what is often promoted and that is something that needs to stop do you think uh people are getting more or less resilient with the nature of the
00:20:15
way that the world is I often have the conversation about whether you know the boomer generation are more or less resilient than the genz or whatever it's
00:20:27
coming next what's next is it like Alpha I think it's generation Alpha these new generations and the argument the
00:20:34
stereotypical argument is that because the boomer generation were working in factories and mines and they were doing
00:20:39
harder labor and they had less comparison because they didn't have social media and they didn't see you know the mate down the road having a
00:20:44
Chua fra L yata during their lunch break and doing yoga sessions whatever then they are more resilient and the genz they got it easy they're all doing like you know breath work and yoga for six
00:20:56
hours a day that is is that true I would say no because we know that with jenz and other younger populations we're seeing a rise in mental health burnout stress like we've never seen before and
00:21:09
I don't think it's because they're quote unquote less resilient they are managing lots and lots of onslaughts you know
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they've lived through something really awful they've had a sense of collective trauma their minds are still young they
00:21:22
haven't had that lived experience of you know Decades of going through stuff so no I don't think so
00:21:28
and of course the older generation is going to say that I remember when I was in my medical training you know people
00:21:34
would say ah 80 hours it's all you're working because we worked 120 hours because there was some reform in terms
00:21:40
of like how many hours we could work as medical residents and 80 hours felt awful to me and so I think it's
00:21:47
important to validate and normalize people's difficult experience and it's not about what happened to you you know
00:21:53
like so in this example about prior Generations it's about helping people people feel a sense of validation
00:22:01
because if you you need to name it to tame it and so for example when you are going through a difficult experience
00:22:07
like a young person there are there's such a rise of anxiety depression stress related conditions Sleep Disorders mental health challenges physical health challenges in the younger population
00:22:19
it's not because they're not resilient it's because they're living in a hyperconnected world and that is causing
00:22:24
all sorts of issues down the road for them both Mental Health and physical health so I reject this idea that the
00:22:31
older generation was more resilient they had less stimulation and they had you know different they had different challenges but I think it's important to normalize and validate the difficult
00:22:44
experience that people are having I want to go through your book now which is called the five resets which is released
00:22:49
January 2024 very exciting um which really aims to take on how we deal with stress how we manage stress there's sort of shap of neuroplasticity and how we can change our our responses to stress
00:23:02
but I guess this first question about the canary and the coal mine why did you write about that what's that got to do
00:23:07
with stress it has everything to do with stress because stress is something that is so individualized and that's
00:23:14
something that we were talking about earlier right like some people who feel a sense of stress have physical
00:23:20
manifestations like I had palpitations you had palpitations someone else might have headaches neck pain shoulder pain
00:23:27
back pain P GI upset gastrointestinal issues dizziness fatigue sleep problems irritability anger the list goes on and on it's it's like NeverEnding list and
00:23:41
the canary and the coal mine is my way of personally it's my way of really explaining this idea of the physical manifestations of stress so my canary in
00:23:54
the coal mine was palpitations what is that phrase I've never heard the phrase the canary and
00:23:59
the coal mine well I've heard the phrase before but I've just kind of been one of those people that pretends they know what it means the canary and the coal
00:24:05
mine is a historical reference back when there were coal miners they would bring
00:24:11
a canary a bird down into the mines with them the bird would sing its Canary song
00:24:18
when the air got bad the workers were just working right like 12-hour days and continued to work when the air got bad they the canary would stop singing they
00:24:29
were in their mode they didn't understand you know they weren't paying attention and when the canary stopped singing that was the first tell that the
00:24:36
air is bad before any physical or mental health ramifications for the workers and
00:24:42
so the coal miners when they stopped hearing the canary song they would leave the mine with the canary and it was the
00:24:48
first tell of something going arai and so everyone has a canary within them that tells them a signal a song that is telling them that there is something
00:25:01
happening with their stress I didn't pay attention to it it took a the palpitations to occur every single night
00:25:09
for two weeks before I sat up and took notice all of the physical manifestations of stress that I've
00:25:15
mentioned of course you need to see a doctor like you and I did got the full workup and been told stress is often
00:25:21
what we call a diagnosis of exclusion meaning you rule out any organic problems and then you say okay this is
00:25:27
because of stress so seeing your doctor and getting that full work up is important I have to say that as a
00:25:32
medical professional because I believe in the medical system and I'm part of the medical system and so the canary and
00:25:37
the coal mine is this idea that we all have a song a stress song and our body is trying to tell us something and understanding that Canary symptom for
00:25:50
you you know takes a little time to dig through but once you kind of figure it out then you can use that we all have
00:25:56
our Achilles heel of something that is the tell so when if you have a medical condition like say peptic ulcer disease that's easy to understand you know you feel like oh I have stomach pain and so
00:26:08
I can't eat certain foods and I need to take care of myself and there'll be a flare and then you manage that symptom
00:26:13
and it goes away and you know you know what that tell is of peptic ulcer disease stomach pain but for stress
00:26:20
often things are happening to your body and you're not even aware of what that physical manifestation is that's not to
00:26:25
say that it's you know your headaches are cused by stress but they're certainly worsened by stress so when you have a certain symptom happening to your
00:26:32
body understanding that hey that could be my canary song I think everybody intuitively knows what their Canary is I
00:26:38
think everybody knows what their I've got a bunch of different ones um whenever I'm stressed and you I I don't
00:26:45
even know when I'm stressed but I don't know why but I don't I don't know consciously that I'm stressed but
00:26:50
certain things start to happen I have this really weird one where on my tongue I'll get a little bit of like a not like
00:26:56
an ulcer it's kind of feels like I've got a spot on my tongue I get that whenever I'm stressed my skin gets worse
00:27:02
so I get like spots in my face when I'm stressed um there's a few of them I I I'll get a cold pretty much exclusively
00:27:09
when I'm stressed which happens about one time once every six months or so I think generally I manag stress well
00:27:15
generally but I'm not immune I Once Upon a Time thought I was immune I thought stress and all these other things and
00:27:21
mental health or happen to other people turns out happens to me too that's right you know and I think I really pushed
00:27:27
myself for a good five six seven 10 years you know I was a CEO of a company that had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of employees um and I was 25 23
00:27:35
24 25 26 27 so I pushed myself very hard and I think for the first couple of years I withstood it but then as time went on you know I was not able to
00:27:46
outrun the inevitable um and that's that resilience myth you know that like resilient people don't get burned out it can't be me of course of course I'm not stressed I someone like like me couldn't
00:27:58
even fathom being stressed and I have seen thousands of people who have said that very thing I said the exact same
00:28:04
thing during my stress struggle stress doesn't happen to people like me it's you don't want to admit it either because there's a there's an element of
00:28:09
it where you go I don't want to be [ __ ] weak I don't want to be the weak person if I'm if I'm experiencing stress or I'm burnt out then that makes me
00:28:16
inadequate in some way so I don't want to talk about that you know but I I I think I've been a victim of that like
00:28:23
that Pride that ego especially as like a as like a man and like a CEO and all things that are stereotypically
00:28:29
toxically associated with strength um I've never wanted to admit that I was stressed ever I don't think I've ever
00:28:35
actually said the word to anybody but I've definitely been stressed and I know because my body told me and it tells me
00:28:40
in a very predictable way that Canary stopped singing so I just think that's important because it's Your Mind Body
00:28:47
Connection and once you see it you cannot unsee it it's like gravity it's all around you it's working in the
00:28:54
background all the time and then suddenly you start paying attention and it's like oh my God and on that point of
00:29:00
it feeling like evidence of your inadequacy it's actually evidence that you're a human that you're perfectly normal that you're that you're not
00:29:06
broken versus this idea that it's evidence that you're broken um beautifully said Thank you really just
00:29:14
have you listen to this podcast before I'm joking I am joking for the record testing testing one two three I am a
00:29:22
Avid fan of this podcast and I have listened countless times and I this is the one podcast I regularly listen to on my morning walks and I have
00:29:33
shared on Instagram probably hundreds of lessons in my stories about what I've learned on this podcast thank you
00:29:44
so stress on the brain you WR about that in your book as well I know that stress
00:29:50
causes cortisol this is my very limited understanding of stress it causes C cortisol talk me through that and then I
00:29:56
have this other question that I wanted to ask you about the contagion of stress if I am stressed and Jack is over there
00:30:03
will Jack feel my stress so let's talk about stress and the main Highway of stress in the brain and the body it is the HPA axis H stands
00:30:18
for hypothalamus P stands for pituitary gland a stands for the adrenal glands the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis mouthful but the H and P part of the
00:30:30
axis is in your brain and the a part of the axis is above your kidneys the adrenal glands and that is the
00:30:36
information Highway that is responsible for our stress response it's all of the things that we talked about the figh ORF flight response it makes our heartbeat it makes you know it does all sorts of stuff The amydala Works in that HPA axis
00:30:52
as well and other parts of the brain the prefrontal cortex Etc so when when You'
00:30:57
have that experience of stress and this we're talking about acute stress this is what is happening to you your brain and
00:31:04
your body are sinking up and reacting there's a Cascade of hormones that happens in the body and that is what you feel as wow I'm stressed or like you
00:31:17
describe this discomfort or familiar feeling of like wait a second I know what this is It's that thing that I have
00:31:23
when I'm under pressure under situations that are tense and that is the stress response and that is essentially what is happening to our bodies when we are feeling that figh ORF flight syndrome
00:31:37
unfortunately what often happens with the amydala is that while it is helping with this figh ORF flight syndrome and
00:31:43
the HPA axis it with chronic stress does not shut off and that is the problem so
00:31:50
those hormones are just flowing through that high highway all the time and cortisol is our stress hormone and it's
00:31:55
all part of that as well because cortisol surges during you know adrenaline neur adrenaline all of these hormones are working through our bodies
00:32:06
and surging through our bloodstream cortisol is also a stress hormone and so when we have chronically elevated levels
00:32:12
of cortisol all sorts of Badness can happen is stress contagious because I was on I was on Google and I T typed in
00:32:18
is stress contagious and it says that in a workplace stress is contagious stress is not contagious in
00:32:26
the way that you think of a virus or microbes are contagious as far as I am aware now there might be emerging data to suggest otherwise but it is not like a microbe where like it's going to
00:32:38
spread like the a virus that it's going to spread from me to you for example but
00:32:43
CU there are hormones aren't there that spread like pherom is it pheromones pheromones but that's different that's like you know that's more for like like
00:32:51
attraction sex and other things like Charisma Etc what is kind of contagious and I want to use that word Loosely is like emotion so yes creating a toxic environment right like we call it in pop
00:33:05
culture like a Vibe like that person just didn't have a good vibe what's really interesting and there it's
00:33:11
anecdotal there isn't a ton of research to support this but I find this fascinating that the heart has a
00:33:18
electromagnetic field that extends 15 ft that's something that one of my early mentors had told me and so that is that vibe that you sense from people like you feel that goodness
00:33:33
right like when you meet someone that you just really like their heart you know it's like heart
00:33:39
expansiveness so and other people we're five feet away from each other so your heart its electromagnetic field is
00:33:48
overlapping with my heart's electromagnetic field right now so they say now I've heard this in lots of you
00:33:56
know know lots of people say this but I have also dug deep into the science of like does this even exist is that is
00:34:03
this even a real thing and I'm not sure if it's a real thing because I haven't found like multiple scientific studies that show robust data that yes this is a
00:34:10
real thing but it is a fascinating thing to think about as a mind exercise not So
00:34:15
Much from the scientific perspective but like from a human lived experience perspective of you know and I try to
00:34:22
think about that when I enter a room certainly when I'm with a patient we call it the therapeutic presence or the
00:34:28
therapeutic encounter and it's this idea that when you are with a patient or right now I'm talking to you and I Am the Doctor talking to you right not your doctor of course but it's this idea that
00:34:40
you have that you can have a therapeutic experience I try to engage in the therapeutic encounter at every talk anytime I'm speaking to an audience I
00:34:51
want people to leave feeling a sense of healing healing and cure are two different things by the way so I'm not
00:34:57
saying like I'm you know we're going to talk and then it's like you're going to be cured of whatever illness wait I
00:35:02
can't wait of some of those tongue spots but it's like it's this idea of like feeling that sense of healing and it's
00:35:08
the therapeutic encounter there is science behind the therapeutic encounter and what that simply means is that
00:35:14
doctors who have that sense of therapeutic presence you know exactly what I mean you might not call it that
00:35:21
and then you also have had lots of doctors who've had no therapeutic presence and you know what that feels like too how does one get a therapeutic
00:35:28
presence it's something that needs to be cultivated of course it's something that you know you can have but then you
00:35:34
cultivate it with training and practice Etc but the therapeutic presence that therapeutic encounter has been shown to
00:35:40
actually have health outcomes so greater adherence you know to medication tighter
00:35:46
glucose control decreased asthma flares like real concrete Health outcomes when you have a therapeutic encounter with in that doctor patient relationship so
00:35:59
there is some magic secret sauce happening in that encounter and what is it how do I cultivate it are there any
00:36:06
tricks any any tips tricks is there like a body language thing maybe I don't yes so as a doctor I can tell you that there
00:36:14
is lots of studies there are lots of studies which show that it's not really the amount of time you spend with
00:36:19
someone it's your body and so for example they've been they've done studies on doctors who stand for let's say s minutes and talk to the patient
00:36:30
versus a doctor who sits down makes eye contact and is at the same level or a lower level than the patient the patient
00:36:37
has a perceived sense that this doctor cares more and is more engaged and has a therapeutic presence no difference in
00:36:43
time I think that's the great myth that people say you know oh I need to spend more time to create a therapeutic
00:36:50
presence it's not about the time spent it's about how you are spending the time and the quality of time so that's like
00:36:57
one trick that you could try eye level you mentioned eye level there being at the same eye level or lower because it's
00:37:02
a power Dynamic think about when you're seeing if you were in the hospital and you were lying in a hospital bed and
00:37:08
your doctor came in and you're lying there and the doctor is speaking above you does that feel therapeutic in any
00:37:13
way not really but if the doctor came pulled up a chair sat next to you and looked at you eye level that's why when
00:37:20
you're talking to a child it's better to bend down and make you know get on their level and talk to them and if I'm a
00:37:26
meeting and my chair is maybe a little bit higher and I'm speaking to a client and I want the client to do a deal with
00:37:31
me it's best for me to get down to their eye level it depends because in that situation you know again this is like
00:37:39
what you were talking about earlier like there's times when you want to show a sense of like power and therapeutic
00:37:44
presence is not a sense of power right it's a sense of equality compassion empathy are these the qualities that you're trying to create in a business interaction I don't know maybe well one
00:37:56
of the we've learned from I don't know I've been making content for about 10 15 years now for a long time making lots of
00:38:02
videos one of the things we've learned is that the engagement goes significantly up if you are on the ey line of the camera so you'll notice in
00:38:09
the D of a CEO we don't shoot from above we don't shoot from below we go to Great Lengths
00:38:14
to make sure that the camera is is on eyeline and we just see that the engagement numbers are higher and actually the more down the barrel it is
00:38:20
especially looking into this camera here the more down the barrel and the more on eyland I am the better the engagement with the video we've just seen that over
00:38:27
thousands and thousands of videos we've made so that's why the the podcast is set up like this where there's we're
00:38:33
we're on your eyeline and we're on down the barrel as much as we possibly can be without you seeing too much of the back
00:38:39
of my head there and the same applies for this one because it just makes for some reason the engagement with the audience is better we see it in the
00:38:44
numbers interesting and there's so many tricks that you could use I mean like sitting down eye level is one um
00:38:51
mirroring also something else this is not related to stress but it's like mirroring so for example as I'm talking
00:38:56
to you as you're talking if I do this if I do this and then you're like oh this person is like totally following your mind but it's like if I start doing this
00:39:09
you just did this and so I did this so there's like mirroring is something that you you know there's lots of ways to dry
00:39:14
that but again it has to by science yes it the key is authenticity though right like you can do all of these things but ultimately authenticity and the human the really fascinating thing about
00:39:25
podcasting by the way and any sort of connection with another human being is the voice so we as children as infants we are highly attuned to voice it's one
00:39:39
of our first Primal instincts right like hearing our mother's voice or our caregivers Voice or our parents voice and we can our BS meter with voice
00:39:53
is high so if someone isn't authentic authentic and that is why the audio version like so listening to a podcast the reason like you can always sus out
00:40:04
like who is uh for example I don't know like who's telling the truth and who's not and it's not like something that you
00:40:11
can explain you just like you're like oh I don't really like this person or I really like this person it's because they lead with authenticity
00:40:17
vulnerability all of these things that you know the likability factor is high it's because our brains are primed to
00:40:26
recognize and register the human voice in a way that's very different from the physical so yes we of course like we see someone and you get the whole picture yes but when you hear them in your ear
00:40:38
there's like something that is deeply intimate about that experience and that you know evolutionarily and even like in
00:40:44
our own life it's um very poignant and it's an intuitive thing we don't necessarily know what it is about a
00:40:51
voice that's authentic it's just a feeling you feel it and you know it because when you hear someone on a podcast you immediately are like oh yeah
00:40:58
I like this and you don't know why you like it or you know you feel that connection it's like the voice is a very
00:41:04
primitive thing and it's also like it's it was because we formed those connections and synapses in our brain
00:41:10
preverbal right like when we were infants same thing with smell you know you smell something and
00:41:15
it takes you right back to that moment I was so fascinated I remember where I was
00:41:21
when someone told me about pheromones that there's these chemicals that like leave our bodies and then inter my chemicals will interfere with your chemicals I just thought that was
00:41:32
absolute Witchcraft and I'm a very like logical science based person so I need science and evidence to believe anything
00:41:37
and then when I heard this rumor that like you know if you put a a my mother and my sister in the same house their
00:41:44
menstrual cycles would sink up that's right I Googled it to check if it was true Google told me it was true and then
00:41:51
I thought [ __ ] I now believe in witchcraft do you know what I mean like if well have you read the book The Red Tent I
00:41:57
mean it's like very much along those lines of like Biblical times they had a red red tent for women menstruating
00:42:05
women and then it would just like the whole tribe would like sink up and they'd be in The Red Tent during menstruating times they've done studies
00:42:11
with um t-shirts and attractiveness so you will smell a t-shirt that you know they've done studies with women and men have worn the t-shirts and then you smell the t-shirt and you say like I
00:42:22
like this scent or I don't and it's not body odor it's fair phones and um they've matched it with like the phermones that you like and then you see the visual and there's a match like this
00:42:34
person is attractive and then you smell the fairmon and there's like a match it's that person's fairmon um often they
00:42:40
say like you you described your mother and your sister for example they say that like genetically the more different
00:42:46
the more attractive right because we're always trying to so if you of course there's like a
00:42:52
comfort thing of like you know your mother and like that's different because phermones are mostly for um
00:42:58
attractiveness and mating behavior so it's not about comfort you know I guess there
00:43:05
might be some studies about comfort and maternal comfort and um self- soothing or soothing with your parent or
00:43:12
caregiver but most of the fairon research that I am aware of is um like sexuality attractiveness Charisma um but
00:43:20
mostly due to mating behavior um so going back to this subjective stress I get stressed now I kind of
00:43:27
understand the difference between acute stress and sort of chronic stress which is a very bad thing in your book you
00:43:32
talk about the resilience rule of two yes the resilience rule of two is how our brains make change possible so when we are undergoing a change even
00:43:49
a positive change in our life like let's say you know I've had a patient who came to see me and had a binder filled of
00:43:57
things that he was trying and it was like the kit everything but the kitchen sink approach and so he came to see me
00:44:04
and was like Doc I've been doing a great job it's been a month and now I'm in month two and I don't want to do any of it and I'm
00:44:11
done and he was under a lot of stress and he was trying all sorts of things we've all been there we've tried lots of
00:44:17
different things and then you just say okay I'm done can't do any of it why our brains even when we're making positive changes like let's say you recognize like yeah I think stress is a
00:44:29
problem in my life I'm going to make a change I'm going to start eating better and I'm going to start exercising and sleeping better and I'm going to spend
00:44:35
time with friends and I'm going to do less work I'm going to do all of these things to help my life and you know make a big lifestyle overhaul and I'm really
00:44:42
stressed it will not last because our brains have the ability to make two new changes at a time because even positive
00:44:48
change like all of these things that we're describing right now are a stressor to your brain how do we know
00:44:54
that how do we know we can only make two changes at once the basis of the rule of two is based on a seminal Landmark study
00:45:01
in the 1960s by two psychiatrists doctors Holmes and rahy they looked at 5,000 people and looked at 43 common conditions like life events that happen
00:45:15
in people's lives the most common ones graduation getting a new job buying your first home a outstanding Personal Achievement getting married having a child getting a divorce death of a loved
00:45:29
one 43 of the most common conditions and when in every single condition good and
00:45:34
bad got a score they studied 5,000 people and found that the more life events someone accured and it's not
00:45:41
about like age or you know chronology of age it's just the more life events a person accured the greater their stress
00:45:48
the greater the likelihood also that they would develop an illness later in life and that Holmes and Rahi study is
00:45:55
the basis of this rule of two because what they discovered is that positive life changes are also a stress to your brain and your body and that is because
00:46:07
there is a certain level of adapting you know there's a certain level of human adaptation that needs to happen with
00:46:14
something positive and fantastic that happens in your life to regain the stability that you had before think
00:46:20
about your own life there are probably so many examples I recently moved into a new home everyone was like
00:46:26
congratulations this is amazing a new home and it was wonderful for a few months and then like also incredibly stressful and then of course I had the delayed stress reaction 3 months later
00:46:39
right like where you're running on adrenaline initially and everything is great and then that stops and then
00:46:44
you're you know having sleepless nights about all the various stressors so the rule of two is based on this idea that
00:46:50
positive life events things that you think might be really helpful to you to manage your stress if you do them all at
00:46:56
once chances are it's not going to stick so instead aim to do two new things at a
00:47:02
time build them into your life over time in the five resets I offer five mindset
00:47:08
shifts 15 science back strategies and every step of the way it's about two small changes at a time you work with your biology of stress rather than against it and competing against it that
00:47:21
is how you make change possible in clinical practice when I was a med medical resident learning how to take
00:47:27
care of patients my mentors would do the same thing so this is 50 years later after that study they T taught me that
00:47:35
when I'm seeing a patient you know a patient will come in with a laundry list of symptoms or they will have six seven
00:47:40
eight medical conditions you always focus on two things because if you say to the patient I really think you should
00:47:47
stop smoking here's some suggestions let's work on your weight and get your weight better let's work on your
00:47:52
cholesterol how about your blood pressure how about minimizing chances of cancer too overwhelming for the brain to
00:47:59
sustain instead let's focus on getting you to stop smoking and let's focus on lowering your cholesterol these are two tangible things that you can work on it takes about 8 weeks to build a habit
00:48:12
once you are engaged and that has become a habit for you then you add two new things let eight weeks go by then two new things so over time you do address
00:48:24
that laundry list of symptoms or in this patient's case you know all eight medical diagnosis in the other patients
00:48:30
case who came in with everything but the kitchen sink approach to managing his stress we eventually did get all the way
00:48:36
to the finish line of fixing his stress and addressing all of the issues but it only happens two small incremental steps
00:48:44
at a time the five resets the first of those resets is to get clear on what matters the most when you are feeling a
00:48:51
sense of stress you are living in survival mode you are governed by your amydala its focus is self-preservation you are literally living in the moment
00:49:05
your prefrontal cortex is the area of your brain that like we said behind the forehead that governs Forward Thinking
00:49:13
planning organization when you tell someone who is deeply stressed and in a crisis or
00:49:21
fight ORF flight mode oh just figure it out you know make a plan figure out what's going to help you and just do it
00:49:27
mind or matter none of that helps it is also biologically impossible to think five 10 steps ahead when you are living in fight ORF flight mode governed by your amydala the first reset get clear
00:49:42
on what matters most offers three concrete science back strategies that can help you when you are feeling a sense of stress and you're in fight ORF flight mode to help get out of your own
00:49:54
way create a road map appap and a plan forward so it actively through going the go by going through these strategies you slowly get out of that amydala mode and
00:50:06
back to letting your prefrontal cortex take over so how do I figure out what matters to me most is there a system yes
00:50:14
most is an acronym m o s t and the book has a whole strategy of how to figure out what matters to you most because
00:50:26
it's not so much what's the matter with me it's what matters to me most so when you shift that framework and stop blaming yourself and criticizing yourself of like this you know what's
00:50:39
the matter with me why do I feel like this instead have an external why we know that when you have a why you can
00:50:46
get through things right like you have a Nord star of like how do you want to get to that place and so my job is to hold
00:50:52
up a mirror and say this is your why because you f you figured it out using the strategies the first reset will get
00:50:58
you a clear plan and road map to that destination so I'm going to do the first reset um so you have a stress score that you sort of initially do with your patients right so you figure out how
00:51:10
stressed they are that's right there's some questions I think in the book which I'll put up on the screen for anyone that's watching the video these are
00:51:16
questions you ask your patient to help them figure out their stress score yes and then the first reset is really
00:51:22
figuring out what matters to them which is the acronym you're talking about about most motivating objective small
00:51:28
And Timely that's like a what am I doing with that so I'm setting myself a a goal
00:51:33
or understanding what matters what goals matter to me and I want those goals to be motivating objective which means um
00:51:41
can you objectively and easily monitor this goal's progress small is the goal small enough to guarantee success and
00:51:48
timely is the goal time sensitive can you achieve it in the next 3 months I've had so many patients when I was seeing
00:51:55
patients in Boston I have had so many patients who have been stressed and they want to feel better but they don't know
00:52:04
why because they are consumed with what's matter what's the matter with me what's the matter with me rather than
00:52:10
what matters most to me and so this is a way to reframe that internal dialogue and the conversation to what matters
00:52:16
most to you and so you figure out what your most goal is and there are many examples throughout the book the book is filled with patient stories real life people who've had lots of different
00:52:27
experiences and they're examples of most goals you know some most goals have been
00:52:32
I want to throw I want to teach my grandson how to throw a baseball I want to go this summer on a hike and my knee's not hurt how does that help me with my stress because you have
00:52:43
something to look forward to okay it takes me out of the present moment and it also gives you something measurable
00:52:50
you know when we stress can often feel like this vague nebulous thing that's happen happening to us right but we need
00:52:57
a metric to measure our progress and the book is filled with metrics and so the most goal is your first sort of like
00:53:04
Nord star of this is where you want to go and then there are various other strategies throughout the Book of like
00:53:10
how to get there and what to measure we do this with I don't know we do this with every single we do this with blood
00:53:16
pressure we check to see like if you have high blood pressure we check like oh your blood pressure is getting better
00:53:22
with these interventions but we don't do anything when it comes to stress we just say like are you feeling better yes or
00:53:27
no and stress is not a yes or no question there are degrees and shades of stress in there so you need a quantifiable metric to say yes my stress
00:53:38
is getting better why because I wanted to walk 20 blocks and guess what I could walk zero blocks when I started with you
00:53:45
but now I can walk five blocks and that is good so whatever that goal is for you
00:53:51
of like you're feeling a lot of stress because you've had a medical issue or you know whatever that most goal to you
00:53:56
is finding that goal post to say like okay that's my destination and this is where I am today and then finding a way to get there in um this this team here there's about 30 of us at the D Co and
00:54:07
we we have a group inside the company which is about exercise and fitness and we do that because so many members of
00:54:13
the team love to exercise I mean even the team here in New York City they went out for a long run all of them together
00:54:20
um in the morning and I think you know we do that because we have goals for fitness and we like exercise whatever
00:54:25
else what is the evidence that shows exercise helps with Stress Management what is the research reams of research on exercise helping with stress and the
00:54:37
real misconception is that you have to do a lot of exercise to manage stress and that is unequivocally false even a
00:54:46
little bit of exercise can help because it gets you out of your head and into your body a few minutes here and there
00:54:52
can make all the difference Park far away way when you're driving someplace and you're going to a restaurant or
00:54:57
you're going into a mall a shopping Center Park far and walk if you can build it into your day throughout the
00:55:04
day take the stairs if you can it is just small incremental changes over the course of a day aim for 20-minute walk it has lots of health benefits it gets you out of your head into your body it
00:55:15
gets you into that daily habit of movement initially when you are a sedentary person and a lifelong non-ex
00:55:22
exerciser going into the gym to exercise is like a complete deterrent I remember
00:55:28
as a medical resident when I was going through my stress struggle I had a state-of-the-art gym in my building I
00:55:34
remember being incredibly stressed and you know I'm a doctor I was like oh yeah exercise is good for me I walked into
00:55:41
the gym I saw the mirrors I saw all of the fancy equipment the Techno music blasting I walked right out walked right
00:55:48
out I then started a walking regimen simply because it was nice out one day and I walked around the block and and then I was like oh that felt really nice next day I walked around the block and then some did a 5 10 minute extra walk
00:56:01
and then the next day it was manageable it was a low lift it was easy for me to do it wasn't like all this complicated
00:56:08
equipment so I walked a little bit more and I just gradually moved up over the course of a week or two to 20 minutes
00:56:13
and then I committed to a 20 minute walk over time my self-efficacy which is that ability of of you to know like oh I can
00:56:20
do this it increased and that's what happens when you exercise and you do something like this something small a
00:56:25
little bit every day your sense of self-efficacy increases so you feel like oh I can do this and your inner critic
00:56:32
starts silencing and I started just the Walkers you know not the extreme exercises just
00:56:37
the Walkers you're telling me there's research that shows those people have are less stressed in their lives and more resilient per se it's not so much
00:56:45
that Walkers are less stressed it's that movement when you go from being sedentary to moving that daily physical activity even at low levels can help
00:56:58
decrease your stress so it's not like at why and how so many reasons so the first
00:57:04
reason is because something like walking is something that's a very natural phenomenon that all of us do we don't
00:57:09
really feel like walking when we are feeling a sense of stress you just want to be still but science shows that you
00:57:17
know you've heard of the expression sitting is a new smoking you've heard of that expression but a research study
00:57:22
found that sitting can also increase your sense of anxiety so it's not so much that sitting is the new smoking per se yes but it also has a tremendous
00:57:33
impact on your actual mental health and that movement is a antidote to that so it's not necessary that you have to do excessive exercise but even just a simple walk getting out lowgrade
00:57:48
exercise has been shown to help with longevity it's been it's been shown to help with so many markers of Health just
00:57:56
a simple walk and yes your team you know people like to run I'm not saying that like you don't you could you can
00:58:03
continue running but that's someone who is like a Avid exerciser and so they run
00:58:09
some people walk it doesn't really matter what you do it's that you do something you enjoy a little bit every
00:58:15
day I want to talk about social media and in your book you use this term popcorn brain
00:58:21
which I for a second when I read what popcorn brain men started to think maybe I now have a popcorn brain what is a popcorn brain many people most people have
00:58:33
popcorn brain popcorn brain is a biological phenomenon a real biological phenomenon cor coined by a man named Dr
00:58:41
Levy a psychologist and it is essentially your brain circuitry starting to pop based on
00:58:49
over stimulation so it's not like your brain is actually popping but it's that sensation of
00:58:55
popcorning because of spending too much time online it is hard to disengage from
00:59:01
what's Happening online because there's a constant information stream and it is difficult to live fully offline where
00:59:08
life moves at a decidedly slower Pace popcorn brain is an Affliction that nearly every single person has right now think about what you do when you're waiting in line at the grocery store
00:59:19
you're not just like letting your brain wander pondering things you are on your phone what are you doing at the bank on
00:59:25
your phone at a car wash at a traffic light pedestrians walking across the street they're not looking up at the
00:59:32
light in fact it's like one of the hazards a public health hazard of you know pedestrians having near Miss
00:59:37
accidents because they're looking down on your phone I see it in Boston all the time a busy street and people are looking at their phone most people
00:59:43
listening now will be like on a tube somewhere on a train on a plane looking at their phone well they're listening to
00:59:49
this but we rarely give our brains a moment of rest so popcorn brain is different a lot of people will ask me is popcorn brain internet addiction no
01:00:01
internet addiction is a real it's called internet addiction disorder it's a DS sm4 criteria and it means that's our diagnostic criteria in um medicine and
01:00:13
it's a real disorder but what really defines internet addiction and popcorn brain is that internet addiction interferes with your life where you're unable to do certain things popcorn
01:00:26
brain on the other hand is ubiquitous it's everywhere it is what defines Modern Life those two are very different
01:00:32
things and when we are feeling a sense of stress we are especially prone to popcorn brain why because when we feel stress we talked about the amydala right
01:00:44
like that part of our brain that is focused on survival and self-preservation back evolutionarily
01:00:51
when we were all cave people there was a Night Watch Person and that person would sit by the fire
01:00:58
the tribe would sleep and that person would scan for danger to keep the tribe safe in modern times we have all become that night watch person and we scroll
01:01:11
incessantly when we feel a sense of stress because it is our Primal urge it is the way our amydala feels a sense of safety because we are scanning for danger we are no longer in a tribe we're
01:01:23
not cave people anymore so what do we do we scroll that is how we are scanning for danger especially when we are
01:01:28
feeling stressed in recent times there has been a lot of bad news in fact it feels like the onslaught of bad news one
01:01:35
thing after another whether it's a climate disaster or a conflict in a certain part of the world or something
01:01:41
or the other is always happening now the information stream it is rapid and unprecedented and so we are constantly scrolling and scanning for danger and it's that Primal urge to scroll so how
01:01:53
do we the goal is really not to limit our social media use or media use because we know Studies have shown that
01:02:00
it is not about abstinence because that actually doesn't have an impact a positive impact on our mental health or
01:02:06
our well-being but what does have an impact on our mental health and well-being is decreasing our Reliance to
01:02:15
our phones you know most of us check our phones 2,600 times a day that is a statistic 2,6 17 times a day is the average number
01:02:26
of times a person looks at their phone think about that right the other thing you want to think about is when you're
01:02:33
thinking about like huh do I am I do I have a Reliance on my phone it's like the goal here is to reconsider your relationship with your phone it is not
01:02:44
about abstinence we're not trying to become digital monks here it's about creating digital boundaries in every
01:02:51
relationship in your life you have boundaries you have a boundary with your partner with your children with your
01:02:57
colleagues because relationships need boundaries right to thrive why don't we have a boundary when it comes to the
01:03:04
relationship we have with our phone there is no boundary it is simply porous we check in the morning we check at
01:03:10
night what's the first thing you do when you wake up before your second eye is even open you are
01:03:17
scrolling studies show that 62% of people check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up and about 50% check
01:03:24
them in the middle of the night I'm guilty of this like I'm not going to pretend I'm some Saint here I'm that
01:03:30
person I'm on on the upper end of that scale I'm glued to my phone glued to my phone and you know what when I'm stressed I'm even more glued to it that is facts I tell you when I'm stressed I
01:03:43
got some bad habits it's your Primal Arch to scroll it's a feedback loop you want to feel safe out the
01:03:49
window you know all kinds of bad habits that are about the diet piece we can't talk about but we can talk about the diet piece for some reason if there's ever a time in my life where my diet
01:04:00
slips it's when work is hard or when I'm you know when something's difficult in my life that's when I I just can't get
01:04:06
out of that bad diet up for just you just a moment so we can do a small caveat because I think the social media
01:04:12
piece is really interesting and what people like everyone loves hearing about that the reason that you crave high
01:04:20
so emotional eating is what you're describing when you're saying that your diet goes out the window and you're feeling a sense of stress and that is
01:04:27
because you're amydala when you're amydala like I said it's like I'm like a broken record when I say your amydala is
01:04:34
focused on survival and self-preservation your amydala doesn't recognize a famine coming or bills or
01:04:40
work stress right it's The Reptilian part of your brain and so it is focused on survival and calories equals survival so when you are stress eating or
01:04:52
emotional eating your body body craves high fat high sugar foods that's just biologically what your body craves and that is why instead of berating yourself
01:05:03
and letting that inner critic really instead of berating yourself and letting that inner critic really take off like when you're craving you know chocolate
01:05:10
cake or my guilty pleasure is tortilla chips I just can't get enough when I'm under stress what's your stress food your business carrot cake oh my God I didn't
01:05:24
listen I can't get carrot so you know carrot cake is not easy to get you can't bake it yourself very easily but um I'd
01:05:30
say like just things like that like sweet Foods my probably my my thing when when I'm really stressed and sometimes I
01:05:36
go through these periods maybe once every like three to four I'm like really I think generally if you see what I eat I think I'm really healthy I think I I
01:05:44
do what I say but there are moments you know and it should be that way because you're a human being and it es and flows
01:05:50
and so you're not a robot you're a mere mortal as am I and so even though I know all of the science like put a chocolate
01:05:57
cake in front of me when I'm stressed and I will of course it's my biology anyway so we can talk about social media
01:06:02
if you wish but that is an important caveat because I think people often when you're stress eating and you're feeling
01:06:07
a lot of stress like you even said right like I hate myself when I'm my diet is off I start beating myself up I'm like
01:06:13
Steve listen you got bloody podcast there people that follow you that like you know I think like you got you got to live what you say and then I'll just go
01:06:20
through that moment of it's like it feels like most most of the time I've got my hands on the steering wheel and
01:06:26
I'm in charge and then once in a while I'm in the back seat and this car is on autopilot and and we're just flying down
01:06:32
the motorway and I'm I'm like Jesus I'm I'm trying to get back into the front seat and I'm struggling against I don't know the wind the windows are open
01:06:37
shit's flying everywhere and then eventually I get hold of the steering wheel again with one hand and then I can
01:06:42
kind of pull myself back onto the steering wheel and we have another good couple of months you know dis returns and that ability that you have that
01:06:50
where you are able to get out of the back seat get your whereabouts and get back into the front seat and the driver's seat that time for you is
01:07:00
likely maybe a week maybe two weeks Max yeah and because you have all of this knowledge and you've done this before it's a muscle right it like grows that sense of agency and like I can do this I
01:07:15
know how to get this back on track yeah for others who may not have the the practice that you have or the knowledge it takes a longer time and that is what I am trying to work on is like closing
01:07:26
the gap between knowledge and action understanding by the way that your brain it takes 8 weeks to build a habit and
01:07:33
falling off the wagon is part of habit building so how how do we close that Gap some there's going to be people listening to this now that heard everything you've said they want to implement better habits in their life to counteract the stress they're
01:07:44
experiencing they want to get away from that red velvet carrot cake whatever um but they don't have that sense of agency
01:07:51
or they struggle to a more extreme extent you don't have to have a sense of agency in fact my favorite patients have been the skeptical patients and people
01:07:58
were like I don't believe any of this stuff when you follow the five resets and the 15 science spe strategies your
01:08:04
body it's all based on the biology of stress so when you start the process and you go through the first technique and the second technique your brain and your
01:08:11
body will just know what to do because you will be doing the work it's all about the work of doing and when you do
01:08:17
better you feel better that's the Mind Body Connection your brain and your body are constantly speaking to each other they're inextricably linked what's good
01:08:23
for your body is good for your brain and when you do better you feel better but it's all in the doing and getting yourself into that moment of action when
01:08:31
you have the information but you need to act it's all about small keeping it smaller than you think it is so it's not about going to the gym for an hour every day when you're stressed forget it your
01:08:42
amydala and prefrontal cortex will be duking it out for that one no way you're not going to go it's like you're waiting
01:08:48
through molasses to put your sneakers on but if you start small and say I'm going to go for a 5 minute walk today you'll
01:08:55
do it but sometimes it's so small that it's almost humiliating it's so small that it seems trivial that's how it
01:09:01
feels right for two minutes what's that going to do two minute walk that's that's gonna do nothing trust the
01:09:07
process I'm not going to lose any belly fat with two minutes it's not about losing belly fat so the Cosmetic promise
01:09:13
of Fitness has never propelled any of my patients from going from lifelong non-exercisers to exercisers taught muscular physiques never the reason
01:09:28
people exercise people start exercising because because those are all aspirational things it's like they're Out Of Reach most people who exercise at least in my experience who I have been
01:09:40
able to convince to exercise they exercise because of the mental health promise not the physical health promise in turn they might have some weight loss
01:09:51
you know we know that even if you exer exercise on a regular basis and have no weight reduction whatsoever you are
01:09:58
still improving your cardiovascular health your metabolic Health all of the other profiles you can still improve
01:10:03
even without any weight change what my thing is about stress right like so mental health so that's just the
01:10:09
physical health aspect of it even just a 155 twom minute walk can make a difference in your biology of stress I read in there was a study in your book about how just taking even a 10-second
01:10:23
break from your work and have an impact on your stress levels that study was done by Microsoft Labs you know how we say you you'll
01:10:33
often hear like oh just take a break and you know take because we often when we're feeling a sense of burnout an
01:10:38
atypical burnout and inability to disconnect from work right and then it's like how are you going to get yourself
01:10:44
back on track I call it the goldilux principle I talk about it in the five resets human productivity functions on a
01:10:50
curve it's not linear it's not like okay like I'm going to just keep being productive there's actually a
01:10:56
bell-shaped curve for stress as there is a bell-shaped curve for human productivity and so if you think about
01:11:02
one side you know the the Y AIS as human productivity and the x axis as stress it's a bell-shaped curve so when we are to the left of the curve we're not feeling very motivated we're bored we're
01:11:17
apathetic chances are you're not going to be very productive when you are to the far right
01:11:23
of the Cur cve you're highly stressed you're anxious many of us are feeling this way you're not going to be very
01:11:29
productive there is a sweet spot of human productivity right in the middle of that bell-shaped curve and that is
01:11:36
the Goldilocks principle the just right part of stress and human productivity now many of us are to the right of the curve we are anxious and keyed up and
01:11:48
stressed out and we're not very productive so how do we bring the science into everyday life and apply it
01:11:54
to our life we can't just like chill out and like go for a month to Bali for a surfing holiday wish I could can't do it can't you know spend six months eating my way through Italy or hanging out in
01:12:06
the Himalayas in a retreat all of these things are my dreams you have Financial constraints you have constraints with
01:12:13
your family obligations all of these things and so we can't do all of those things to suddenly scale back into that
01:12:20
sweet spot of human productivity so what can we do we can honor hour breaks and there was a study by Microsoft done not too long ago which showed that even taking 10minute breaks like three to
01:12:32
four 10 minute breaks throughout the day can have a cumulative impact on your stress and can help with your mood productivity sense of Engagement so it's
01:12:43
not like oh breaks are nice to have they should be an essential part of your workday because it helps manage your
01:12:49
stress in the workday it is a way to honor your breaks to get back into that sweet spot of human productivity so that
01:12:56
you can have just right stress and with that idea of Just Right stress I want to
01:13:02
make a point that not all stress is bad stress isn't the enemy our cultural perception of it is there is good stress
01:13:09
and bad stress good stress is adaptive stress that's the scientific term for healthy good stress bad stress is maladaptive stress that is the
01:13:20
scientific term everything good in your life was created because of a little bit of stress like you started this podcast
01:13:27
something really positive you met your girlfriend also something positive you may have made a new friend as an adult
01:13:33
wonderful and positive cheering for your favorite sports team also a positive thing now when we think of the word
01:13:39
stress in modern culture we think about bad stress bad stress are all of the things that we already know right like
01:13:45
the feelings that we've talked about but the goal of life is not to live a life without stress because that is
01:13:51
biologically impossible our brains and our bodies need stress to survive it is to live a life with healthy manageable
01:13:57
stress it's to move away from unhealthy stress back to healthy stress I my calendar and people see my calendar a lot because we have this um Vlog Channel my calendar is full of just like back to
01:14:10
back to back to back meetings I actually had a conversation with my assistant the other day I was like um when you look at my calendar there's actually not a a
01:14:17
60-second gap between meetings which means I'm continually like late because meetings always run over and also you
01:14:23
have to travel between one meeting to the next or at least you might have to load up Zoom or something which takes like 30 seconds so I'm going to be 30
01:14:29
seconds late because there's not a gap and when I was reading in your book about this Microsoft study that compared
01:14:34
brain scans of people who were in back-to-back meetings with those who took short breaks and they found that
01:14:39
the group taking short breaks experienced significantly less stress it made a lot of sense to me because when
01:14:45
I'm back to back to back to back to back to back to back it's kind of like your Kettle example you have the I'll put it
01:14:51
on the screen the the kettle analogy of stress I just feel like it's filling up with steam you know and then in the
01:14:58
kettle analogy when the steam comes out of the nose of the kettle that's kind of when you like let some of the stress out
01:15:04
so taking those gaps opening the lever oh you can open the Le that also lets the stress out um that's what I don't
01:15:11
have in my day I don't have breaks like when this podcast ends right people will
01:15:18
come through this door over there one by one and they have and Jack's laughing cuz he knows he one of them he's he's
01:15:24
wait he's he's closest so he gets in first I have like 17 things that I need to do for these people I won't even be
01:15:29
able to make it to the toilet because someone's going to want me to review something and that's my day every day
01:15:36
you have to build in breaks and even if that means that you're putting it in your calendar again this study was 10
01:15:42
minutes you can do as little as 10 seconds that research has shown why because neural consolidation again a very fancy scientific term but it's simply means that when we are on the go
01:15:56
and moving moving moving we are not always learning and so when do you want to learn neural consolidation means that
01:16:03
there's information floating in our brains and it consolidation your brain lays down cements the information into
01:16:11
knowledge right so there's information and knowledge and neural consolidation is the process of the cementing of new
01:16:17
information and taking a break helps to do that wait so if I'm listening to a podcast and something profound just gu
01:16:23
said I should pause the podcast and just wait 10 seconds to help with the neural
01:16:29
consolidation that would be wonderful interesting as you know this podcast is sponsored by whoop and people often ask
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01:18:32
of the things I came to learn about was this gut brain connection yes I think Tim was one of the first people to
01:18:37
talked about that but many of the guests have have built on that knowledge and now if it wasn't for this podcast I
01:18:43
wouldn't understand the importance of the gut I thought the gut was just where the food goes in chemicals attack the
01:18:48
food processes it poop comes out the other end what I've come to learn which is really surprising and amazing is that
01:18:56
much of my mental health can be attributed to my gut that is incredible isn't it isn't it it is newly emerging science honestly every month we learn
01:19:07
more and more about the gut brain connection the microbiome which is an ecosystem of healthy bacteria that
01:19:14
govern the gut brain connection and what you're speaking about specifically an even newer entity called the psycho
01:19:21
biome which are a dedicated group of healthy bacteria in your gut whose sole function is to manage mood and other mental health what so the the bacteria
01:19:34
my gut first of all I thought bacteria were bad you know people always say get that bacteria off your hands to have
01:19:39
some of this but you're telling me there's bacteria in my gut trillions trillions trillions of healthy bacteria
01:19:48
and microbes living in your gut and they are very active it's an ecosystem and they have many different roles besides digestion we are learning honestly every month a new finding what the what the
01:20:03
microbiome can do it can help regulate blood glucose the microbiome and be we say it for the microbiome because we're talking about it as a one large entity but what is actually the microbiome and
01:20:16
what constitutes the microbiome is trillions and trillions of healthy bacteria right so but we when we use the
01:20:23
word microbiome we're saying it just because it's easier to say in parament like when we're talking in your book I
01:20:29
learned about serotonin in the gut yes three to five times more serotonin receptors in our gut than our brain now when you think about serotonin Stephen like of course serotonin it's a brain
01:20:41
chemical right and yet what does it do serotonin is like the Happy hormone for like mood and stress mood stress like you you know about the this um very
01:20:54
popular class of drugs called ssris selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors they are used for anxiety and depression and lots of other mental
01:21:06
health you know conditions and we always think of Serotonin it's we call it a neurotransmitter or a brain chemical when in fact we have more serotonin
01:21:17
three to five times more in our guts than our brains which just goes to prove how important the gut is it's truly our
01:21:26
second brain so we can reset our stress by resetting our gut brain connection yes and how do I reset my gut
01:21:33
brain connection is it something that I have to eat or so a lot of your microbiome and the health of your gut
01:21:40
and your microbiome is governed in the same way of many things that we've talked about so sleep of course yes diet
01:21:48
exercise stress reduction there are many many ways to help your microbiome Thrive
01:21:54
but yes food is also one way so focusing on Prebiotic and Probiotic foods um there's you know there's many different Avenues to that okay so a
01:22:06
question then if I wanted to be this is flipping the coin if I wanted to be really really stressed and really really
01:22:13
anxious right and I wanted maybe throw in some depression I if I wanted Stress and Anxiety how should I
01:22:21
live that's a great question get on your phone make sure it's on high brightness
01:22:27
and scroll through every social media platform every news platform watch graphic content of videos of horrible terrible things happening in the world
01:22:38
at midnight keep doing that off and on until 4: 5 a.m. your cortisol Spike usually happens around 6:00 a.m. um you know give or take for people that cortisol spike is is a natural thing
01:22:53
that happens it's part of your circadian rhythm it's what prompts you to get up out of bed um of course make sure that you are
01:23:01
you know you check your phone right away right when you get up out of bed and continue
01:23:07
scrolling um this is a really fun exercise of what not to do rather than what to do um it doesn't always happen it like it won't be one day because you do have
01:23:18
some reserves but if you did this for one month I would say instead of like one day I'm going to do it for one month
01:23:24
yeah 30 days 30-day plan to maximize anxiety and stress no movement whatsoever just stay in bed stay in bed or sit you know as
01:23:36
sedentary as you can skimp on your sleep as much as you can yeah in every possible way sleep late keep waking up
01:23:44
throughout the night and make sure that you get as little sleep as possible for as long as
01:23:50
possible um don't spend time with anyone spend you know don't stay on your phone
01:23:56
day and night day and night day and night no movement um what else do I go outside
01:24:02
okay I can't go outside cu no you're just going to sit window no don't even be near natural light okay just sit in a
01:24:08
chair if you can um make sure that you have if you're on your phone great but if you have a TV on make sure it's on in your bedroom too on full volume all
01:24:19
night long is that that's going to make me stressed yes it will keep it on like a News Channel all night long okay so you know we're joking about this of
01:24:29
course but um what I have experienced in my clinical practice is you know we are
01:24:35
of a younger generation where we engage on our phones but many of the older generation people in their 60s and 70s
01:24:42
many of my patients in fact um were using we're getting their news from their TV and I've had so many patients over the years who have told me that they used to just watch TV that 1 hour
01:24:54
of news a day then it morphed into two hours and 3 hours and I've had patients who sleep with the TV on all night long
01:25:02
and they didn't start off that way but it just happened that way again talk about you know it's not the Primal urge to scroll so to speak because they're
01:25:09
not scrolling on a phone but it's that night Watchman phenomenon and so they are watching the news all night long
01:25:15
they're not sleeping they're you know really in bad shape and so moving the TV out of the bedroom is one of the first
01:25:21
inter itions that I suggest to patients like that I'm hungry what do I do eat eat at all hours of the day and night
01:25:29
don't even think about it the more processed food the better don't even read anything about the Mediterranean
01:25:36
diet no fruits and vegetables Ting reading no no water lots of other beverages besides water more additives the better um and no regular meal times
01:25:49
erratic food lots of it what's that got to do with stress erratic meal times well just because our brains like compartmentalization and structure and so when you have a sense of structure
01:26:00
throughout your day it helps you plan better it helps get out of the fight ORF flight mode and you know creates a
01:26:06
little bit more of a balance and um that's that's really the main reason what about multitasking you say in the
01:26:13
book multitasking is a myth I think that I'm multitask sometimes 98% 100% of people think they are excellent multitask but in fact the science shows that only 2% of human brains can
01:26:26
effectively multitask multitasking is a scientific misnomer there is no such thing when we multitask what we are actually doing is Task switching doing
01:26:39
two different tasks in Rapid secession the opposite of multitasking is monotasking and the reason we want to monot task is because multi multitasking
01:26:52
task switching has been shown to decrease and weaken our prefrontal cortex it decreases our ability to solve complex problems it impacts our
01:27:04
concentration mood engagement and a whole host of other things at this time in our lives in the world and the state of the world as it is we cannot afford
01:27:15
to multitask because the world is filled with complex problems that need to be solved instead
01:27:25
monotasking is how am I going to get everything done I need to multitask you don't need to multitask it's a myth
01:27:31
you're actually not multitasking you're doing task switching which is detrimental to your brain and your prefrontal cortex so the antidote to
01:27:38
multitasking is monotasking and the way you do monotasking is time blocking in fact I wrote the five resets doing time blocking it's the technique that I use for everything that I work on I I
01:27:51
started doing it in medical school cuz I had to consume vast amounts of information
01:27:57
and how did I do that so what I would do is what is time blocking it's the Pomodoro Technique you may have heard of
01:28:03
it it was developed in the 1980s Pomodoro means tomato and um an Italian researcher developed this technique and used a tomato shaped timer which is why
01:28:14
it's called the Pomodoro Technique and it's essentially time blocking so you set a timer for say 30 minutes or
01:28:21
initially when you first start off 20 minutes 25 minutes and then you do whatever task you're doing one task and
01:28:27
then you take a 5 minute break then you come back and you do another 25 minute section of work the next task and then
01:28:34
you take a 5 minute break 25 minute 5 minute break 25 minute 5 minute break so at the end of like an hour hour and a
01:28:40
half you have completed all of your tasks but you have been monotasking not task switching so you're protecting your
01:28:47
prefrontal cortex strengthening your prefrontal cortex and not decreasing are making it difficult with attention memory concentration Etc that
01:28:57
multitasking does multitasking make you more stressed then multitasking makes you more stressed yes
01:29:05
because it decreases your sense of self-efficacy because most people aren't good at multitasking so then at the end
01:29:10
you haven't really completed you've done a lot of different things your attention is all over the place you're on your
01:29:16
slack Channel you're trying to do five different tasks at once you're not doing any of them well so at the end of that hour and a half where could have been
01:29:22
monotasking using the time blocking technique you feel you don't feel that sense of accomplishment or completion we
01:29:28
know that when we feel that sense of accomplishment and completion we are just feeling less stressed because you
01:29:34
have a greater sense of agency saying like oh I can do this you know it's like that same feeling of getting out of the back seat going into the driver's seat
01:29:41
what prompts that it's like yes I have the ability to get out of the back seat and go into the driver's seat that takes
01:29:47
some hoods Spa that takes some agency and self-efficacy so many people listening to this and you talk about
01:29:53
this in chapter five of your book where you're talking about um the third reset so many people have that subtle you
01:29:58
talked about it at the start as well that subtle humming of stress and anxiety in their life it's just kind of like a background noise of their life I
01:30:05
have that sometimes often I have that subtle angst one of the things that's really
01:30:12
helped me which you talk about in the book is breathing and learning some practical breathing techniques because
01:30:18
you don't need to go to I know a therapist or go to some yoga class to do breathing on your own especially sort of
01:30:24
short breathing techniques what is the most effective breathing technique that anybody listening to this right now that has a little sense of angst could adopt instantly and repetitively as a habit in
01:30:34
their lives that you've seen and that has been proven to be most effective in reducing that subtle angst two first
01:30:43
diaphragmatic breathing it's how we all breathe as babies and somewhere in our adulthood or young adulthood we lose our
01:30:50
ability to innately do diaphragmatic breathing but if you watch babies diaphragmatic breathing is belly
01:30:56
breathing or deep belly breathing when people say belly breathing I need you to explain this to me how do I know if I'm doing it right put your hand on your
01:31:02
belly yeah one hand on your heart or one hand on your belly or both hands on your belly since we're doing diaphragmatic
01:31:07
breathing and then you're going to take a deep breath in let your belly expand here you're expanding your chest
01:31:15
but what I want you to do is expand your belly and then let it out with your lips purse your lips and get it out so you're always inhaling through your
01:31:29
nose and exhaling through your mouth or your nose but you're doing it very slowly so what you did initially is that you went with my chest with your chest
01:31:40
and that's not diaphragmatic breathing per se what you're trying to do is just expand your belly and then let it fall
01:31:47
and you want to get into somewhat of a natural breathing pattern you're forcing it right now because we're doing this
01:31:53
like you know immersive instructional moment but you can then as you get better at it you can put
01:32:00
your hand on your belly both hands and as you're hanging out talking to me just let your belly rise and fall is there a
01:32:07
speed in which I need to Exhale not necessarily you want to be as slow as possible some people you know in some
01:32:14
yogic traditions say like the exhale should be doubled and the inhale the reason the reason that breathing is
01:32:22
truly a GameChanger when it comes to your stress response is because the breath is the only physiological mechanism in our body that is under
01:32:33
voluntary and involuntary control so as you're writing down right now you are breathing your body is breathing you're not even thinking about it and then suddenly if I say Hey Stephen want to
01:32:46
try diaphragmatic breathing again you can voluntarily start breathing again it is the only bodily mechanism that is under voluntary and involuntary control your heart can't do that your brain
01:32:58
waves can't do that your digestion can't do that it's all involuntary right it's
01:33:03
just happening but the breath is the one thing that you can control and then let
01:33:09
go and it does it on its own and the reason the breath is so powerful at mitigating the stress response and decreasing it is because when you are feeling a sense of stress and the
01:33:21
fighter flight response your breath involuntarily is short in your chest and Rapid it's like this right you're stressed your heart's beating and that's also a physiological mechanism because
01:33:33
your body is trying to get oxygen and you're anxious and your catac colomines and your cortisol and your heartbeat is racing so you're breathing quick and
01:33:40
that is called Fight or Flight that is the sympathetic nervous system your sympathetic and Par sympathetic system can't be on at the same time so when you start forcing yourself to take deep
01:33:51
belly breaths you switch your mode into the parasympathetic system and that is called the rest and digest system and then that is what starts calming down your stress response in the
01:34:03
moment and the second important breathing technique that I would really suggest people try is stop breathing be
01:34:10
it's a way to tap into your Mind Body Connection and it can be really helpful and the way you do that is and I it was
01:34:17
the first technique I learned and you essentially just stop whatever you're doing
01:34:23
breathe and be it's 3 seconds typically it's done I did it when I was first starting in my in a busy as a busy medical resident I did it when I right before I would knock on the patient's
01:34:35
door of the exam room and I would turn the knob so I would stop breathe and be I would knock and walk in you can do it
01:34:41
right before your Zoom meeting mundane repetitive tasks is when stop breathe and be works best you can do it
01:34:46
throughout the day you tap into your Mind Body Connection you get a sense of presence you take that mental break and
01:34:52
then you go on so for you Stephen with your crazy schedule of not having even a moment you could try stop breathe be
01:35:00
after before or after every single meeting as a book as a book end and what would that do to my brain that will
01:35:06
immediately set off that it will go from sympathetic to parasympathetic so it will switch the it will flip the switch
01:35:14
and it will decrease your stress response in the moment it will prime your brain and body for what's next it
01:35:19
will also help you in the moment because it will make you feel grounded and a sense of presence in the moment so it will you stop you breathe and you be and you can say that whisper that to
01:35:30
yourself as you're doing it and then as you get better you know um you won't have to say that to yourself I do it
01:35:36
constantly I did it right before I walked into this building right before I sat down as we were getting the mic
01:35:43
fixed stop breathe be just keeps you grounded and in the present moment it helps with the runaway train of stress
01:35:51
and it keeps you in right here right now and keeps your mind where your feet are
01:35:56
we talked about speaking to people when you have you know you're experiencing stress but one of the things I read about in your book is the importance of
01:36:03
writing therapeutic writing and how that plays a a really wonderful role in limiting our stress um is there any
01:36:10
research that supports the fact that if I just go home and write that I'll I'll experience less stress and if so what is
01:36:17
the research and how what's going on there yes there's plenty of research a a wonderful researcher psychologist named
01:36:24
James pennebaker from the University of Vanderbilt um developed a technique called expressive writing also known as
01:36:29
therapeutic writing and the instruction is essentially for 4 days write for 20 to 25 minutes set a timer and just right no one's going to see it just write
01:36:40
about a traumatic event that happened to you so whatever that trauma may be I talk about it in the book it's like one
01:36:46
of my patients who had a traumatic event or if something's gone on this week for you that you want to work work out it doesn't have to be some deep-seated
01:36:53
trauma it can be like you had an argument with your girlfriend you had something come up at work you were
01:36:58
stressed about a project or you're getting into an argument with your parent or your child or whatever it may
01:37:04
be you just set a timer on your phone if you wish or a you know oldfashioned alarm clock or your you know your oven if you don't have if you don't want to use your phone set a timer for 20
01:37:16
minutes or 25 minutes sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and just start writing about the event and then when
01:37:25
the timer ends you stop and then the next day you do it again four consecutive days you might notice an uptick in your distress on day two or
01:37:31
day three and then it will just decrease that therapeutic writing has been shown to be effective for so many things it
01:37:40
can be helpful for your mood and sleep and anxiety and irritability it's been shown to be helpful in studies to increase your GPA to decrease Hospital admissions it's been it's wild what
01:37:55
therapeutic writing has been shown to do it's called expressive writing and what's going on there in the brain
01:38:00
what's going on in the body what's making the it so therapeutic I think one of the things that is happening is that
01:38:07
there is we you mentioned this earlier I think one of the things that's happening is likely cognitive reframing so first
01:38:13
you are on day one and I've done this many many times I practice therapeutic writing on a regular basis on day one as
01:38:19
you're writing it's your amydala spe speak right it's like your self-preservation and survival and your
01:38:25
inner critic and you're like blasting whatever issue is happening and then as you go through day two three and four I think there is you're creating a safe space you're processing a lot of your
01:38:37
emotions it's very important to process a lot of your emotions and you're not keeping them stuck you're you know
01:38:42
expressing yourself and then I think you're coming to your own conclusions so there's probably many many things active
01:38:48
things that are happening in your brain you are moving away from amydala to prefrontal
01:38:54
Cortex because you're thinking strategizing organizing your ideas you're expressing yourself we know that
01:39:00
writing and just you know journaling is also very helpful why because it is a way to express yourself and let these
01:39:07
nebulous ideas become concrete words and thoughts and feelings um and then I think there's an element of self-efficacy in a sense of agency happening too because you are solving your own issue or figuring out a new
01:39:19
angle A New Perspective persective and you're looking at yourself hopefully by the end through a lens of
01:39:25
self-compassion which is also something that happens it made me think that you know it explains why if I send a message
01:39:32
or an email when I'm stressed it's never a good message I always regret it you know like when you're having an argument with somebody or like you know you might
01:39:38
be with your girlfriend or your boyfriend and they've triggered you in some way maybe you're tired and then you start responding very bad time to send
01:39:44
messages very bad time to send anything just stress stressed people are going to send the worst emails aren't they
01:39:50
because the AMD is writing the email that's right take a beat do it the next day that's why they say sleep on it
01:39:55
right sleep on it if it's a good idea today it'll be a better idea tomorrow interesting wanted to talk to you about this last thing which is live a lifetime in a day I've never heard this before
01:40:07
but you say this technique is the antidote to hustle culture often when you hear the term live a lifetime in a day it sounds like hustle culture it's like cram it all in
01:40:19
in a day make it count no it's the antidote when we are going through life on autopilot and we are doing a million things we often go to bed at night and
01:40:31
we're like What did we just do what was the point of all of that right like human beings are meaning seeking
01:40:36
purpose-driven creatures and live a lifetime in a day is my Universal prescription to patients
01:40:44
it is helpful when you have 70 years to live if it's helpful when you have seven days to live and what it essentially
01:40:50
means is that there are six areas of what make up the Arc of a long and meaningful life and the prescription is to bring those six areas into one day
01:41:03
even for a minute or two so when your head hits the pillow at night you have a sense of fulfillment of meaning of purpose the six elements of live a lifetime in a day our childhood spend a
01:41:16
few minutes every day in a sense of wonder and play whatever that may mean to you work for most of us it's hours so
01:41:25
that's easy right like doing something whether it's paid or unpaid that gives you a sense of meaning and
01:41:30
accomplishment Solitude spend some time alone to reflect and really think about we know that spending time alone is helpful for our mental health and well-being also for creativity vacation
01:41:41
that's an easy one spend time even if it's a few minutes a day doing something you love and the example of that that is
01:41:47
the most common that I've seen with patients is people love playing a musical instrument let's say the guitar and this is one particular patient I'm
01:41:53
thinking about and she loved playing the guitar and I asked her when was the last time you played the guitar and she said
01:41:59
oh my God it's been like six months and I have three guitars at home and I said why she said because I like have three
01:42:04
kids and I have lots of stress and I have a job and my husband I said well what about just like 2 minutes every day
01:42:10
like you know bring that into your life you just do it for the joy of playing the guitar and so she did every single
01:42:16
day and she played a song and then over time she played two songs and then she started playing 30 minutes a day but initially it's like that you know cuz we
01:42:23
have that All or Nothing fallacy so we don't do it at all vacation so build that in a little bit something that
01:42:28
brings you Joy then family doesn't mean you have to have a family but spend time in community with loved ones engaging
01:42:35
with some people whether it could even mean a quick phone call and then finally retirement spend a few minutes taking
01:42:42
stock of your day figuring out what worked what didn't and then that is the prescription essentially to lead a wonderful fulfilling life so when your
01:42:53
head hits the pillow at night you feel that deep sense of satisfaction you've hit all six areas even if it's a minute
01:42:59
or two you're like oh yeah I spent some time in childhood I spent some time you know and that is the antidote to hustle
01:43:04
culture because when we are feeling stressed and burned out and always on the go and living with our amydala we
01:43:11
often will be doing so much during the day and then we go to bed at night and we don't feel a sense of accomplishment
01:43:16
at all and then you wake up and you do it again the next day and so how do you bring and that sense of joy and meaning
01:43:23
and purpose into our life every day that's one way what is the most important thing that we've
01:43:31
missed so we talked about popcorn brain and that's what happens when we spend too much times on too much time on our
01:43:38
phone there is also this concept of brain drain what happens to us and our brain power even when our phone is close by but not in use because of the sheer
01:43:48
potential for distraction so our phones are really powerful they are not benign devices one antidote to popcorn brain
01:44:00
and to brain drain is a media diet and there are really three ways that you can instill this media diet into your life to help with your Primal urra scroll the
01:44:11
first is time limits 20 minutes a day in set a timer if you have to for engaging and consuming bad news the second is
01:44:19
geographical limits during the day keep your phone 10 ft away from your workstation if if you can Out Of Reach
01:44:25
Out of Arms Reach and at night off your nightstand keeping your phone off your nightstand could be the biggest game changer because in the morning when you
01:44:35
wake up like most people checking their phone instead you aren't just scrolling you're getting up maybe brushing your
01:44:41
teeth using the bathroom and then you can engage with technology but that one small shift could be key and the third is to set some logistical limits so create creting some sort of boundary in
01:44:52
a Digital Boundary could make all of the difference in your relationship with your phone thereby improving your stress
01:44:58
and mental health there's a lot going on in the world right now there's a lot of
01:45:04
bad news there is Wars there is I mean in the whole sort of two decades that I've been on the internet social media I have never lived through a moment maybe
01:45:14
the pandemic was somewhat similar but I think this is maybe even more extreme where I go on my Instagram and I
01:45:21
see videos and photos of dead babies not that far away from where we are in Europe relatively and there's a
01:45:32
there's a sort of trauma involved in that so much so that the other day I walked into the uh into my kitchen and my partner was sat there and she's just
01:45:42
crying and she's looking at her phone and she's crying and you know I put some things on her phone just to make sure
01:45:48
that she wouldn't accidentally stumble across those things things again and then the next day we had the same situation happen where she was in the
01:45:54
kitchen and she was very very upset she was again tears coming down her face she's like struggling with it for multiple days in a row and it just made
01:46:01
me think that's an extreme example but yeah I mean like it's not an extreme example I had the same thing happen to me I knew all the I know all the science and yet I was also weeping and I think
01:46:13
many people are feeling exactly like your girlfriend and the science supports this you know we're experiencing in many
01:46:20
ways it's like the cycle of trauma and a researcher who I spoke to from my book roxan silver who is a psychologist in
01:46:28
California has shown through multiple studies that your risk of PTSD increases when you consume graphic images even if the thing that you're
01:46:41
consuming is happening thousands of miles away like the wall like any conflict any climate disaster anything if you you start consuming graphic
01:46:52
images and videos you increase your risk of PTSD your own personal risk even though you have not had any direct trauma because it's indirect trauma that you're seeing and so it's a cycle the
01:47:05
more videos you consume or the more graphic content you consume your amydala gets fired your Primal urge to scroll
01:47:11
starts going haywire and then you scroll some more and then you scroll some more because you don't feel safe you don't
01:47:17
you know so this is a common occurrence it is not uncommon it is your biology working as it should because it is your biology of stress and clickbait and doom scrolling are both powered by the same
01:47:30
biology that governs the fight ORF flight response and there is actual data to show that it increases your risk of
01:47:38
PTSD and increases your risk of getting mental health conditions later in life so years later when I think about all the things that are going on in the world I'm conflict right because you
01:47:51
can't ignore those things but at the same time those things are giving you PTSD that's right well the key is and I
01:47:58
work in journalism I'm a medical correspondent it's not about censorship being an informed citizen is critical at all times especially now you have to be an informed citizen but you have to
01:48:10
create some digital boundaries so you're protecting your sanity and protecting your mental health there are also other
01:48:15
ways that you can get involved by supporting various causes and donating and taking action we know that that is
01:48:21
also very helpful but you want to limit your engagement with graphic content you
01:48:28
can also limit your engagement with looking at videos and looking at images and instead read about it right like follow certain accounts that you trust and read about what's happening in the
01:48:39
world it is not about censorship because the news and journalism and I am speaking from the perspective of being a journalist or correspondent it's vital
01:48:51
it's vital to democracy it's vital to functioning Society but there has to be a line between being an informed Citizen and protecting our mental health and our
01:49:01
sanity and understanding that if you are having difficulty sleeping if you notice any alarm signs like mood disorders if
01:49:08
you're having an uptick in anxiety depressive thoughts thoughts of hurting yourself hurting others that you should
01:49:14
seek counseling and seek medical attention because these are not benign thoughts like you you know it's very
01:49:21
easy to say oh but it's happening far away I shouldn't be feeling like this don't should yourself right instead seek
01:49:27
the help because this data shows that you are at risk if you are overc consuming there is a fine line between
01:49:34
consuming and overc consuming the news at any time especially now but really at any time you wanted to show me something
01:49:40
on the paper I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this idea of we are all hyperconnected we've already talked about all of the data about you know we look at We Touch our screens our phones
01:49:52
2,617 times a day we you know think about like how many times we breathe in an hour it's 960 breaths that we take an hour and some people are touching their phones like that much and if you want to
01:50:04
check your Reliance on your phone it's very easy to check you just like keep your phone far away three or four hours
01:50:11
and take a piece of paper and do a tick mark every time like a tally every time you feel like you want to check your
01:50:16
phone and see what that impulse is and you'll you'll be shocked at how often you're check in your phone I want to
01:50:22
kind of talk a little bit about this idea of hyperconnected and that we are all hyperconnected but we are
01:50:28
disconnected and I write about this in the five resets the loneliness epidemic it's really a pandemic globally loneliness levels are higher than they
01:50:38
have been in years and one statistic 330 million people globally go two weeks before speaking with anyone family
01:50:50
friends anyone loneliness is something that is a real concern because we know that when we are not spending time with people and
01:51:02
we feel a sense of loneliness and that's different than being alone by the way when you are feeling a sense of
01:51:08
loneliness it actually has a health outcome loneliness has been found to be equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day it increases your it increases your risk of
01:51:20
heart disease by 30% it increases your risk of Stroke by 30% and it shortens your lifespan so um all to say that we
01:51:28
are spending more time alone now than ever and you could be an introvert you could be an extrovert it's not about
01:51:35
necessarily your personality type it's about feeling that sense of connection and community and that is really an
01:51:42
antidote for stress we have a closing tradition on this podcast the tradition is that the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for and the question that's been left for you
01:51:56
is this is a great one for you I think what idea that you once held to be true turned out to be entirely
01:52:08
false I love this question and I've thought about it so often because I one idea that I used to think was true
01:52:24
is that people's internal experience and external presentation match up so if you
01:52:30
see someone who's really confident and put together it's because inside they feel confident and put together and
01:52:36
through my own lived experience as just a human in this world as a doctor treating patients as a speaker speaking
01:52:43
to tens of thousands of people I so deeply know that that is not true that people people will often look a certain way and look put together and confident
01:52:54
and happy and smiling but they are struggling inside and so I try to do this it's a you know corny cliche but be kinder than necessary because everyone
01:53:06
is fighting a battle you know so little about thank you so much thank you so much for both the wonderful compliments you've given us on and off camera about what we do here but thank you for helping us build the show make it even
01:53:18
better the things that you about in your book is so timely you know the subject matter of stress and burnout and
01:53:24
resilience and all of these things are so timely and reading through the book has helped me to reframe both my
01:53:32
perspective but maybe even more interestingly some of my terminology because there is certain
01:53:38
loaded terminology that we all use and there's certain ideas we have about stress and resilience and stereotypes
01:53:43
that are completely unhealthy that I'm I'm 100% guilty of um using and furthering you're also a wonderful Communicator I think the way that you approach this
01:53:54
subject matter is through a very empathetic lens and you're able I think to bring both sides of the conversation
01:53:59
and the argument per se with you and when I say both sides of the argument I mean the people on the the one side who
01:54:06
think that um all stress is great and that you know the hustle culture side but also the other side that think we should never do anything that stressful whatsoever there's a there's a nuanced
01:54:17
Middle Ground which you approach so articulately B Bas on science and the the work that you've done for the
01:54:22
entirety of your life and it's such important work it's increasingly more important work um and hopefully more of
01:54:28
us can realize that chronic stress is not natural it's not to be glamorized per se and it is not a sign of success and really there's something else we should be aiming at in our lives which will get us closer to the happiness
01:54:41
fulfillment connection that we're all seeking and that's what your book Endeavors to do and does so well so thank you for being here today and thank
01:54:47
you for the the wisdom and the gems that you've given me cuz I'm sure it'll change my life and nudge me in a better direction thank you so much Stephen like
01:54:54
I told you before I am a fan and you're such a great interviewer and this is Testament like you're reading back the book to me and it just is you know it is
01:55:05
so beautiful and you really get at the heart I think what you do so so well and I've noticed this when you are doing your interviews is that you really get to the heart of the person's work that
01:55:16
you're talking about but you also get to the heart of who the person is and I really admire that because ultimately while we all do our work we are humans
01:55:27
doing this work we are mere mortals of Flesh and Blood and I think that's something that you do so well is that you really show the humanity in each person and their work but it's so much
01:55:39
deeper and I think that's why your podcast is so successful you share your own humanity and you bring out the
01:55:45
humanity and the people you speak to so thank you thank you thank you honestly you know people say to me all the time
01:55:51
they're like oh you must get sick of hearing this and all that stuff but every single time I get feedback it really does I there's not been a time
01:55:58
someone has given me feedback on this podcast that I don't feel like I've learned something and in that what you just said there I learned something
01:56:04
again you know and it's rein reinforced something that I believe so thank you so much for showing that you didn't have to
01:56:10
and thank you for being here and this is the start of our relationship and I'm looking forward to the rest of it thank you it's really rare to be a fan of
01:56:18
something and then do it and have a greater esteem for it afterwards and that is what has happened today my friend wow oh wow thank you come give me a
01:56:29
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absolutely love another recent episode we've done so I've linked that episode in the description below I know you'll
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enjoy it [Music] a