Science-Based Tools for When You're Stressed, Obsessed, or Overthinking | Dr. Jenny Taitz

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This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody.
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How we doing? This episode is a bonanza, a bonanza
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of practical and evidence-based advice for dealing with stress, anxiety,
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and overthinking. Simple tools you can knit into your life,
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both for when you're actively freaking out and for preventing
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future trips down the anxiety toilet. I personally got a
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lot out of this conversation. My guest is Dr. Jenny Tates.
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She's a clinical psychologist and an assistant clinical professor in
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psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her latest
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book is called Stress Resets, How to Soothe Your Body
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and Mind in Minutes. We talked about the difference between
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stress and anxiety, Jenny's take on the use of benzodiazepines,
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drugs or medications such as Valium or Klonopin, what she
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means by negative core beliefs and how to untangle ourselves
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from them, how to prepare in advance for stressful situations,
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the benefits of giving yourself a deliberate panic attack, and
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why stress, while uncomfortable, is actually a big part of
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a healthy and meaningful life. Dr. Jenny Tates, welcome to
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the show.
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Thank you so much, Dan. I'm so excited to be here.
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You're writing about stress, and maybe it makes sense to
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start with some definitions of How do you define stress
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and what's the difference between stress and anxiety?
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Stress is when we feel like we don't have the
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resources to meet the demands that we're facing. It's when
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we're feeling like those times where it's just too much,
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I can't. And measures of anxiety really ask you questions
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about your level of worry or physical symptoms like panic.
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And while there's a lot of overlap between the two,
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a lot of times stress comes from an outside trigger.
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But that being said... stress can certainly easily create anxiety
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if you don't intervene early. So one of my favorite
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things is really helping people manage stress so it doesn't
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lead to an ongoing struggle with anxiety.
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I don't know if I took away the right lesson
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from this, but not long ago, right here on the show,
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we talked to a guy named Dr. David Ross-Marin, who
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runs the Center for Anxiety at Harvard. And I recall
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thinking that the way he delineated between stress and anxiety,
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which sounds like it's basically the same way you are,
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is stress is a little bit more reality-based. Like you
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are expected to do something that you don't have the
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resources to do. Anxiety may be more psychological in that
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you are creating a disproportionate response to a threat that
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may not be as real as you are perceiving it
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to be.
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That's totally correct. And I would also just add to that,
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that we still can, even if something is external, we
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can still increase our bandwidth to face what's in front
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of us.
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Say more about that.
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Yeah, so let's say I'm about to give a big
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presentation and I'm telling myself I need to calm down
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and I need to be the best presenter that this
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audience has ever heard. That's going to really amplify my stress.
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But if I say I just need to show up
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and live according to my values and share information, that
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automatically will make the situation less stressful. And so much
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of our stress really has to do with getting caught
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in really negative thoughts or, you know, big expectations of
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ourselves that we can't possibly meet. That creates physical sensations.
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And then a lot of times we, you know, lose
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ourselves in this cycle of big expectations plus physical symptoms
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kind of colluding against us. And then we cope by avoiding.
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And so if we can learn to think more flexibly,
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allow ourselves to experience the physical sensations, this potentially helpful
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or not judging them, even if they're uncomfortable, and then
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strategically lean into opportunities, we can kind of move from
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it's too much I can't to yes, I can. Yes,
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I will. Here's my plan.
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So it might be worth dwelling on some of what
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you just said there, because this toxic troika that you
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just described, you also go into this in the book.
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You basically say that where people get tripped up when
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it comes to stress is part one, we get stuck,
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or the word you use is mired in negative thoughts.
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The second is that we start feeling physical symptoms of stress,
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and instead of just looking at it like the body
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preparing us to act, we freak out and judge these symptoms.
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Oh my God, my heart's racing. This must be really bad.
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And then the third is we try to bail or
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avoid whatever's going on instead of dealing with it. And
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bailing or avoiding might feel good for a nanosecond, but
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actually sets you up for more suffering down the road.
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So is that a roughly accurate recapitulation?
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Dan, that was perfect.
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That's what I was looking for. Gold star. Thank you.
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Yeah. And if we think about it, that's like exponentially
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increasing our stress. But the good news is that when
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we have this opportunity to reduce our stress threefold by
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thinking more flexibly, and which we could certainly talk more
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about how to do that, and learning how to allow
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our physical sensations to be there and even prepare ahead
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of time for them, and then really focus on how
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to help ourselves in those moments so we're not avoiding,
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but we're strategically, systematically approaching.
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I want to go into great detail about how we
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can talk to ourselves in these moments and prepare ahead
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of time for the physical symptoms, which you just mentioned
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right there. But let's just stay with the problem for
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just a second. You have a whole section at the
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beginning of the book about overthinking and ruminations. What do
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we need to know about that? And what's the difference
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between overthinking and rumination, or are they just synonyms?
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I think you could use them synonymously, and some people
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even call it perseverative cognition. That's what stress researchers call it,
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the technical term. But the thing that we need to
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know about overthinking and rumination is that that is what
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turns acute stress, something that's temporary, into chronic stress, something
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that is long-lasting. And so this is mind-blowing, but if
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we can think about this, you can have an ongoing
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stressful thing in your life, say caregiving or so many
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examples of things that can be chronically stressful. But if
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you're able to put down the overthinking, you could transform
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something chronic to something temporary. That said, we can also
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take something that's temporary, like an upsetting incident at work,
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and make it chronic by playing it over and over again.
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And one of the things that I love to think
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about is A story that Sharon Salzberg, a good friend
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and I know a good friend of yours, shared with
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me that, you know, this is such a powerful story
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that I think really illustrates this point. You know, a
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man was trekking in Nepal and he had a blister
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on his foot and he would anticipate the blister before
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he stepped down, experience the blister when he stepped and
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then replayed it. So we could experience our own distress
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once or threefold. And so the reason that stress becomes
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a problem in our lives is because we're carrying it
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with us, replaying it, taking something that took 20 minutes
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and marinating in it for many, many hours. And of course,
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it is likely something that was very legitimately upsetting. But
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the most thoughtful thing we could do in those moments
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is be kind enough to ourselves to learn how to
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unhook from the incessant re-experiencing, which also creates a cascade
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of physical effects. Yes.
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And then those two do a toxic duet, the thinking
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and the feelings. But yeah, I mean, as I'm listening
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to you talk, I just think about how many times
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I've re-upped the negative emotion by making a little mental movie,
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both of what happened in the past and what's going
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to happen in the future over and over and over again,
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sort of compulsively.
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Yeah. And the crazy thing is, is like if you're
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hooked up to all sorts of physiological stress assessment measures,
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even something that happened 20 years ago, your body can
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easily go back into re-experiencing in the present. And that's
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how stress goes from something that's unpleasant to leading to
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something that's really destructive.
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You mentioned Sharon Salzberg, her roommate. the guy she shares
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a house with, although it's two houses that are connected.
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But Joseph Goldstein, another amazing meditation teacher, he often talks
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about how we can experience all of this stress and anxiety,
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but what we're reacting to is often not something that's
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happening in the moment. We're reacting to a thought. That's it.
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It is a quantum burst of energy in the mind,
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as Joseph says, barely more than nothing. And it is
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producing this cascade of physically and psychologically for us.
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Absolutely. And that's why I want to, I think one
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of the biggest things we could all do is get
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really good at playing with our thoughts and seeing them
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almost like Play-Doh rather than cement. Yes.
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Okay. That's another thing I want to make a note
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to follow up with you on playing with our thoughts,
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but just staying on the, on the flow of the
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book here, you have a tool that you use in
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your book called your abbreviated guide to breaking up with overthinking.
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Can you take us through some of the steps?
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Well, first of all, since overthinking can be something that
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most of us are really good at, rather than deciding
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today that you're going to stop overthinking in general, which
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is really ambitious, to actually develop a specific clear goal,
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like I'm going to not think about work between six
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and eight when I really want to be with my
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partner or my family or enjoy a little bit of
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me time. So to create like a kind of a
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smart goal, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time sensitive, something that's
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within reach. And then rescheduling, ruminating. A lot of times
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our minds just run and ruin our lives. We can
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be thinking all the time, but what if you had
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a set time that you opened up all of your worries?
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Let's say 4 to 4.20 was your rumination time or
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your worry time. Rather than a news ticker that's constantly
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going in the background, if you actually sit with it
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with your full attention, you go from kind of an
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all-day stress habit to a mindful... it's called stimulus control.
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You kind of control it and then it has like
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parameters around it rather than being incessant and endless. And
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a lot of times people find that like, if they
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have a set time and they really train themselves to
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be really, you know, obviously if something's immediate that you
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can deal with, like, oh my gosh, I'm going to
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get a ticket if I don't feed my meter, then
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obviously deal with that. But if it's something like, what if,
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what if, what if I can never afford a house
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or what if, you know, to actually have a set
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time to do that, because during that time, You might
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find it boring or forget to get into it. And
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you might take something that's kind of like going on
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in the background, background noise for hours over the day
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that you can just condense into like a 20 minute
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mini session.
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Yes, that makes a lot of sense. There's also on
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your list, write it out.
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Write it out is a wonderful technique by James Pennebaker.
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He's a professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
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And a lot of times people confuse ruminating with processing.
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And so I really want people to have like the
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full range of ways of dealing with it, like pushing
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away things that don't need immediate attention, problem solving things
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that do, but we also need to allow ourselves to
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feel our feelings. And so if you journal in a
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very specific way that allows you to process your emotions,
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so really going deeper, for example, in a research study
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where college students were asked to write about something that
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was very distressing with their full emotions and then how
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that event affected their lives and in the past and
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how it's currently affecting their lives, really going through the
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process of allowing yourself to feel. People that did that
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for three days had significant reductions in rumination and depression
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six months later. And so sometimes we think like ruminating
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is kind of like grieving or processing, but we're barely
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scratching the surface. And so actually giving ourselves the sufficient
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amount of time and headspace to go a little bit
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deeper and to kind of store something that's kind of splintered.
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I'm picturing a journal that says, use this to freak
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out constructively.
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It's not even freaking out. It could be like self-validating.
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Like this is another thing that I talk about in
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stress resets. Like a lot of people confuse replaying something
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upsetting with like normalizing. Like, of course, this is really upsetting. Like,
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of course you feel this way, but Self-validating allows for
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closure and improving how you feel while ruminating is like,
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I don't know, letting the suffering win. Right.
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That makes sense. There is a difference. And of course,
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I like being a little glib, but I do see
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the difference between a miasmatic, diffuse freak out that is
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generalized and running in the background of your mind, like static,
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as opposed to a focused processing that actually, as you
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said before, can be validating because the stuff you're worrying
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about isn't necessarily bullshit.
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Yes. Different situations call for different ways of coping. And
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so if I know that there's just like background noise,
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you know, I used to get into this thing when
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I was in graduate school about like worrying how I
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would do on a exam when I always did fine,
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like that could be good for my worry time or
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rumination time. But if I was really dealing with like
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a loss, that would be better for the expressive writing,
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the actually allowing yourself to feel. And so I want
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people to have the right tool for the right time.
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What's going to work is based on what you need
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at the moment.
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Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Just so I
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don't miss another tool on your abbreviated guide to breaking
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up with overthinking is get absorbed in something else. Are
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you basically saying change the channel in your mind?
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And this is the craziest thing, but this is true.
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People in a study were asked to talk about the
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most upsetting thing that happened to them. And then half
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of the participants were able to eavesdrop on researchers talking
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about something else. And people like eavesdropping to strangers were
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suddenly able to stop thinking. But the people that didn't
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have the opportunity to eavesdrop were still thinking. huffing and
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puffing about the most upsetting thing, understandably. And so doing
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something very simple, this is so crazy that these very
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simple things work, but like looking at like a screen
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of colorful balls, like could stop ruminating. And so the
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very simple things, I mean, we go big, we like
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think we need like postmates and, you know, big things,
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but like very small things like, you know, noticing three sights,
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three sounds, three sensations, um, I mean, and we all
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know this, if we get a call right in the
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middle of a, you know, a stressful moment, we might
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totally be in a different headspace by the time the
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call is over. But being able to know what are
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the ways that you can kind of reenter the moment
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and having concrete ways of doing so, even if you
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don't have someone juicy gossip to eavesdrop to.
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I mean, we are ridiculous creatures. There's a line I
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heard from the comedian Theo Vaughn, like, We're amazing. Humans
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are amazing. And we're also straight Muppets. Like the fact
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that we are so distractible can be used to our advantage.
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And that's kind of hilarious. It's I always think about
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that movie Up where there are these bad guy canines
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who are chasing. I think it's up. They're chasing the protagonists.
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And every once in a while, the dogs will get
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distracted by a squirrel. And like, that's us.
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Yeah. And what I want people to know is it's
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kind of like going to the gas station. You just
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need to like refuel yourself. You don't want to like
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live in distraction. You know, if you're stuck on something,
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you need a quick reset, not the rest of the
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day out of office and then a big pile up tomorrow. Yes.
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You keep mentioning the word reset and we're going to
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get to your actual resets and buffers coming up. But
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let me just ask you about your story. You referenced
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worrying about your tests in college, but What else about
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your biography got you so deeply interested in stress?
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Yeah, I mean, there's so much I can say about this.
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I think genetically, I probably run a little more on
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the stressed side, but I really found that so many
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of the things that I learned in training as a
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mindfulness-based behavioral therapist really changed my life. And one of
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the things that really breaks my heart and continues to
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really move me is the fact that so many people
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are really struggling and can't necessarily afford research-backed help. And
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also not everyone needs a full course of therapy. A
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lot of people could benefit from smaller doses of self-help materials.
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And during the peak of the pandemic, when there were
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so many articles about people struggling with their mental health
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and not being able to access care, a colleague of
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mine at UCLA mentioned to me that there was this
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study that run by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania,
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that found that people that were going into surgery, half
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of the people were given benzodiazepine and half of the
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people were offered the chance to listen to a song
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called Weightless by Marconi Union. And remarkably, Dan, the song
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worked almost as well as... the benzodiazepine and obviously songs
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have no side effects. And this got me really thinking
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a lot about what are the simple ways we can
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improve how we feel without downsides. And I wrote an
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article about the song and other similar strategies for the
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New York Times and it went viral. And then I
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wanted to kind of expand on additional ways we could
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all improve how we cope in difficult moments and also
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how to create a life that feels more like a buffer.
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But these are also certainly things that I am always
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applying in my life. I have three little kids and
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I work with a lot of people that are in
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crisis back to back. And these are all kind of
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the beads that I put together like routinely in my
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own life. And they've been incredible catalysts for change in
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my life. And I want everyone to have access to them,
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even if they can't meet with a professional. Yeah.
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Just to quickly say, if anybody's wondering what a benzodiazepine is,
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it's a class of anti-anxiety drugs that includes Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium,
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et cetera, et cetera. And just back to you, it
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sounds like your goal here is, yeah, some people need
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a therapist. Many of us do. And almost all of
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us are stressed and some decent subset may not actually
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require therapy. So for those folks- for the worried well,
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this book.
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Yeah. And some people that have been in therapy, they
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need something to turn to in a tough moment. A
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friend of mine, she did a course of DBT, which
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is one of the therapies I specialize in. And she
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has Post-its all over her house of like DBT skills reminders.
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And so we all might need a quick reminder. And
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I think one of the ironies is even the concept
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of a book on stress, because like when you're stressed,
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who's going to sit down and start flipping through a book.
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And so this book is almost like a cookbook where
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you could turn to any page and find strategies, depending
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on what you need to improve the moment.
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That makes a lot of sense. And just to go
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back to Benzos, I know you write about them in
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the book. And a lot of people listening probably do
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take them or have taken them or might be considering
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taking them. What's your take on them?
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There's so much to say about benzodiazepines. I mean, maybe
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we could start with their history and then a little
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bit about their pharmacology and then a little bit on
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the irony in them. In terms of the history of benzodiazepines,
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I find this really interesting. And I learned a lot
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about this from Robert Whitaker, who wrote An Adam-Even Epidemic.
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He is a science journalist and he also runs a
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website called Mad in America. But he explained to me,
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and this is based on a lot of research, that
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benzodiazepines were developed by a pharmaceutical company that was trying
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to treat bacteria. And they discovered that mice on the
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verge of being electrocuted who were administered a specific compound
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behaved passively. So these mice are about to be electrocuted
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and their calms can be And then Arthur Sackler of
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the opioid crisis notoriety started marketing what turned out to
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be benzodiazepines to women who were really stuck by their
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days as housewives, as mother's little helper. And it's really
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terrible that a substance is being pushed as a way
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to cope with a dissatisfying life. And pharmacologically, you know,
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30 million people take these and they act on a
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neurotransmitter known as GABA, which is almost like the brakes
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of our nervous system. They bind to a GABA receptor,
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amplifying its breaking power. But then what happens to us
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is we naturally reduce our output of GABA. So we
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become dependent on these external sources of anxiety relief that
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are very sedating. And then we don't have that within us.
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And so when people try to discontinue them, it's really difficult.
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It's a really difficult withdrawal. And I just find it's
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so painfully ironic that when we need to be our sharpest,
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these medications really dull our ability to think clearly and
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to be energized to do the things that we need
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to do. And they perpetuate this belief that anxiety is
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something that we need to run from. And so a
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lot of people may not realize that to actually do
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behavior therapy, you need to work on some sort of
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benzo taper. And it's can be very challenging and you
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need to work with a professional on that, but it
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can also change your life and save your brain because
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long-term benzodiazepine use is associated with cognitive decline.
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Okay. One, one thing to say, and then some questions.
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I said what I'm about to say to you, to Dr.
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David Rosmarin in the episode I referenced earlier, by the way, listeners,
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I will put a link to that in the show notes,
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but Here's the way I use benzos and just be
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interested in your take as a doctor. I have panic disorder.
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I had a big resurgence of claustrophobia a year ago.
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I was having trouble getting on planes and in elevators.
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So for planes, when I really needed to travel for work,
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I really needed to travel. And I was in the
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throes of this, you know, really severe cycle of panic.
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And so I use benzos as a bridge. to get
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me on planes while I did exposure therapy, riding in
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an elevator with my shrink at the Westchester Mall and
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slowly tapering the amount of benzodiazepine that I took to
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get on the plane. So I used it as a
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bridge as opposed to something I just take as a
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standing dose all the time. And so in that way,
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I found benzos to be really helpful. Am I off?
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That makes a lot of sense. And I would certainly
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recommend for someone, let's say someone is... having to give
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a eulogy tomorrow and they are worried that they're not
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going to be able to sleep well tonight. There are
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certain instances a couple of times a year maybe where
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something like that could be helpful. And I don't want
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to presume arrogantly that I want to make broad recommendations
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for everyone, but I truly believe that there are ways
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to treat panic relatively quickly. And if you're taking a
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benzodiazepine a couple of times a year, a couple of
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times a month, that's okay. That maybe it's not going
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to be habit forming, but a lot of people... I've
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worked with have found that it works too well and
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they took it on the plane and then they want
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to take it tomorrow because there's going to be a
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stressful thing tomorrow and then they want to use it
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the third day to sleep and then it can easily
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become something more than that. And in relatively quick ways,
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there are alternative methods to treat panic that are really empowering.
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Yes, I have found that. I got lucky with benzos
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in that, and I do have an addictive personality. I've
439
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struggled with cocaine many years ago. I was taking Klonopin,
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which is a flavor of Benzo. It makes me feel
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like shit the next day. And so I was powerfully
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disincentivized because I didn't want to feel like shit the
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next day. So I just, I used it as minimally
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as possible. But I could see how it would be
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addictive because it feels good in the moment. It's like the,
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as I've written somewhere, that you could like march an
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army of chimpanzees with ninja stars through the room and
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I would not freak out. And that feels really good.
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as somebody who has like a baseline, you know, anxiety
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all the time. And I recognize, A, I don't want
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to be addicted to anything. And B, the price I'm
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paying the next day after I take a benzo is
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so high that I really, I want to cut it
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out as much as possible.
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Yeah. And I worry that even just taking it, and
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I really appreciate you talking about this because it takes
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a lot of courage and vulnerability to do that. But
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even just taking it has a little bit of a
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flavor of there's something wrong with feeling certain ways. And
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one of the things that we know is that really
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accepting is kind of the way out.
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I agree with that powerfully. One of the things, I've
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mentioned this on the show before, a thing I talk
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about with everybody, most especially my nine-year-old son, is I
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think the assignment of being alive is getting more comfortable
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with discomfort. And As Esther Perel has pointed out on
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the show and other places that we've created, I think
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her term is a kind of assisted living in modern
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society where technology has made so many things so free
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of friction that we freak out if we're freaking out,
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if anything's difficult. And so absolutely, I don't think for me,
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I don't take a benzo if I'm mildly anxious. I
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take it if I'm worried I'm going to have a
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panic attack and can't get on a flight with my kid.
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And Dan, when you worry about having a panic attack,
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can I ask what you're worried about happening? Like, what
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are the physical symptoms that scare you the most or
478
00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:20.549
that you most dread?
479
00:25:21.789 --> 00:25:25.009
Oh, what's so interesting is that, you know, and I've
480
00:25:25.029 --> 00:25:27.309
done a lot of work on this. And when you're
481
00:25:27.349 --> 00:25:31.349
doing exposure therapy, you know, you get questions like the
482
00:25:31.390 --> 00:25:34.380
question you just asked me. And What's so interesting that
483
00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:36.869
I kind of knew, but I never really had it
484
00:25:36.930 --> 00:25:39.869
pointed out to me explicitly, is that the thought I
485
00:25:39.950 --> 00:25:43.190
often have when I'm worried about getting claustrophobic in an
486
00:25:43.369 --> 00:25:46.470
elevator or an airplane is other people are going to
487
00:25:46.509 --> 00:25:49.819
think I'm insane. And I thought that maybe was idiosyncratic,
488
00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:53.279
but no, it is classic. And it makes a lot
489
00:25:53.319 --> 00:25:56.920
of sense because the number one fear, justifiably, for most
490
00:25:56.960 --> 00:25:59.079
humans is social rejection.
491
00:25:59.160 --> 00:25:59.460
Why?
492
00:25:59.549 --> 00:26:02.500
Because we evolved to be communal creatures and If you
493
00:26:02.519 --> 00:26:05.849
were rejected on the Savannah during the evolution times, you
494
00:26:05.869 --> 00:26:07.990
were going to get killed by a saber tooth tiger.
495
00:26:08.349 --> 00:26:09.869
I don't even know if they had saber tooth tigers
496
00:26:09.930 --> 00:26:12.710
on the Savannah, but some sort of predator. So that's
497
00:26:12.750 --> 00:26:14.410
a thing that goes through my mind is like, I'm
498
00:26:14.430 --> 00:26:15.970
going to freak out and everybody's going to point and
499
00:26:15.990 --> 00:26:16.490
laugh at me.
500
00:26:16.730 --> 00:26:18.630
And what would freaking out look like?
501
00:26:19.569 --> 00:26:21.910
Freaking out is I need to get off of this
502
00:26:21.950 --> 00:26:25.000
fucking plane right now. Like I am trapped and I
503
00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:27.059
need to get out. I'm going to start banging on
504
00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:28.960
that door, even though we're on the tarmac and the
505
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:31.490
door won't take me anywhere. because we're not hooked up
506
00:26:31.529 --> 00:26:35.039
to the sky bridge anymore. I am trapped. I'm in hell.
507
00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:36.539
That's what I worry about.
508
00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:38.119
And what's the hell in your body?
509
00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:41.220
Just so everybody knows, this is what happens if you
510
00:26:41.259 --> 00:26:44.500
go to a doctor when you have panic disorder. Hell
511
00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:47.799
in my body is honestly not that bad.
512
00:26:47.819 --> 00:26:48.809
And I'm sorry, is this okay?
513
00:26:49.420 --> 00:26:50.230
No, it's totally fine.
514
00:26:50.289 --> 00:26:50.650
It's great.
515
00:26:51.089 --> 00:26:52.569
I think it's just really good for people to hear
516
00:26:52.609 --> 00:26:55.910
what this is like. Hell in my body is a
517
00:26:56.150 --> 00:26:59.809
set of uncomfortable sensations that I have learned over time
518
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:06.009
I can absolutely survive. So racing heart, dizziness, a feeling
519
00:27:06.029 --> 00:27:10.990
of the walls closing in, blurry vision, sweaty palms, dry mouth,
520
00:27:11.990 --> 00:27:15.859
shortness of breath. So all of that happens. And it's
521
00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.759
your nervous system sending you the signal, you're going to die.
522
00:27:20.180 --> 00:27:22.819
But you need to get out of this situation. Of course,
523
00:27:23.140 --> 00:27:26.720
there is no objective threat in those moments, I've now learned.
524
00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:29.359
And so I've learned to talk to myself in a
525
00:27:29.380 --> 00:27:32.579
way that I can tell myself there is no threat here.
526
00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:35.099
And by the way, just doing that brings the prefrontal
527
00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:39.480
cortex online and deactivates the amygdala, as you know. And
528
00:27:39.500 --> 00:27:42.740
I can also tell myself I've experienced these sensations a
529
00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:46.759
million times and I'm still alive. I can experience it now.
530
00:27:47.220 --> 00:27:49.259
Right. And so you're, you, you're doing like all the
531
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:51.859
things and, and there's, there's maybe even more things that
532
00:27:52.059 --> 00:27:54.539
we can talk through, but I love the idea that
533
00:27:54.599 --> 00:27:58.099
someone could lean on things within themselves. And that really
534
00:27:58.140 --> 00:28:01.609
comes with this added dose of self-efficacy, which is like
535
00:28:01.900 --> 00:28:05.470
this priceless feeling of mastery, whereas taking something outside of
536
00:28:05.509 --> 00:28:07.789
you and you kind of feel lousy the next day
537
00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:11.650
is a missed opportunity. But I, again, like if you
538
00:28:11.690 --> 00:28:14.650
need to, someone listening needs to take a benzodiazepine to
539
00:28:14.690 --> 00:28:17.500
do something that's a really core value of of theirs,
540
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:19.880
far be it for me to opine on your life.
541
00:28:19.980 --> 00:28:21.990
But I really want people to know that when I
542
00:28:22.549 --> 00:28:25.549
meet someone that has long struggled with panic attacks, I
543
00:28:25.589 --> 00:28:30.609
feel equal parts heartbroken and elated. I'm devastated that so
544
00:28:30.650 --> 00:28:33.359
many people haven't been able to find treatment because treatment
545
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:37.519
works relatively quickly. And I'm elated because there are really
546
00:28:37.579 --> 00:28:40.259
exciting things that people may not know about that work well,
547
00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:42.720
very well. Yes.
548
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:45.390
And the self-mastery part of it is true. And it's
549
00:28:45.410 --> 00:28:48.170
also true that the process sucks. Like it sucks to
550
00:28:48.230 --> 00:28:50.670
systematically face your fears. It's not fun. I would much
551
00:28:50.710 --> 00:28:53.970
rather avoid it through not getting on planes or not
552
00:28:53.990 --> 00:28:57.230
getting in elevators or, you know, taking a Klonopin or whatever.
553
00:28:57.750 --> 00:29:01.009
But that makes your life small. And there are other
554
00:29:01.210 --> 00:29:05.920
massive prices to pay, like potential for addiction, hangovers, et cetera,
555
00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:10.220
et cetera. And by the way, nobody, literally nobody promised
556
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:12.440
us that life was going to be easy. In fact,
557
00:29:12.579 --> 00:29:15.859
just the opposite. A proper understanding of life is that
558
00:29:15.900 --> 00:29:19.200
it is challenging. So shying away from that is to
559
00:29:19.220 --> 00:29:21.400
miss out on really on the good stuff.
560
00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:23.960
Yeah, and I would say it's a little bit like
561
00:29:23.980 --> 00:29:26.079
working out. Like some people could say that it sucks,
562
00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.009
but some people feel so hopeful and excited that like
563
00:29:30.250 --> 00:29:32.990
often people help me help them like rev up their
564
00:29:33.009 --> 00:29:35.829
panic symptoms. And like at that point, they've won and
565
00:29:35.990 --> 00:29:39.029
anxiety is lost. And so you could say it sucks
566
00:29:39.089 --> 00:29:41.180
or you could say that it's really... like exciting that
567
00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:43.960
you're about to like win you know put panic in
568
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:45.740
the trunk and you in the front seat.
569
00:29:46.839 --> 00:29:51.079
Yes yes that's a little rah-rah for my uh for
570
00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:53.500
my taste but you're absolutely right I.
571
00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:56.359
Used to, like, hate some of the panic treatment stuff
572
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.579
or exposures. And now I feel like doing it because
573
00:29:59.619 --> 00:30:02.440
I like people and I don't want to bother people
574
00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:05.650
or make people uncomfortable. But now I feel, like, privileged. Like,
575
00:30:05.690 --> 00:30:07.589
how lucky am I that we get to do this
576
00:30:07.630 --> 00:30:10.369
thing together that's going to help you and, you know,
577
00:30:10.430 --> 00:30:12.710
isn't going to harm you. And the worst thing is, like,
578
00:30:12.750 --> 00:30:15.170
feeling like you can't do the things that you want
579
00:30:15.190 --> 00:30:15.450
to do.
580
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:19.960
Coming up, Dr. Jenny Tates talks about what she means
581
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:23.980
by a stress reset technique. the difference between resets and buffers,
582
00:30:24.420 --> 00:30:27.480
and practical examples of many, many resets that you can
583
00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:40.210
use in your daily life. Okay, so stress resets. It's
584
00:30:40.250 --> 00:30:42.769
the name of the book. It's the subject of the
585
00:30:42.890 --> 00:30:46.609
ensuing discussion between you and me. What is a stress reset?
586
00:30:47.190 --> 00:30:49.109
A stress reset is a quick thing we can do
587
00:30:49.170 --> 00:30:53.049
in the moment. to either improve our thinking, improve how
588
00:30:53.089 --> 00:30:56.589
we feel in our body, or improve our behaviors. So
589
00:30:57.190 --> 00:31:01.069
in just a matter of minutes, no long meditations, medications,
590
00:31:01.130 --> 00:31:04.390
or martinis required, you can give yourself a little bit
591
00:31:04.430 --> 00:31:07.400
more wiggle room to live a better life.
592
00:31:08.619 --> 00:31:11.359
So the book is called Stress Resets, but you actually
593
00:31:11.500 --> 00:31:14.500
spend the book talking about resets and buffers, which are
594
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:17.400
separate ideas. Can you describe the difference?
595
00:31:18.210 --> 00:31:20.049
A reset is what we do in the heat of
596
00:31:20.069 --> 00:31:23.309
the moment when we are really struggling. It's almost like
597
00:31:23.589 --> 00:31:27.579
urgent care, if you will. And a buffer are things
598
00:31:27.599 --> 00:31:31.099
that you can do preventatively to live a life where
599
00:31:31.140 --> 00:31:33.299
you're less likely to go from crisis to crisis.
600
00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:36.180
Just in case anybody's out there thinking about this person's
601
00:31:36.200 --> 00:31:42.180
just making the shit up. This all comes from DBT, ACT, CBT.
602
00:31:42.220 --> 00:31:47.130
So that's dialectical behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and
603
00:31:47.150 --> 00:31:52.390
cognitive behavioral therapy, these evidence-based psychotherapeutic modalities. And do I
604
00:31:52.410 --> 00:31:52.829
have that right?
605
00:31:53.230 --> 00:31:55.349
Yes. Nothing in this book is made up. The research
606
00:31:55.829 --> 00:31:59.210
reference section is pretty lengthy. All of these things are
607
00:31:59.369 --> 00:32:03.049
things that have been found helpful in various clinical trials
608
00:32:03.109 --> 00:32:06.170
or are part of evidence-based treatments. And not everyone is
609
00:32:06.190 --> 00:32:07.819
going to work for you, but you can find your
610
00:32:07.859 --> 00:32:09.599
favorites because there's a lot of them to choose from.
611
00:32:09.619 --> 00:32:12.559
And I also just want to let people know that, again,
612
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:15.160
these things short term are not going to be as
613
00:32:15.559 --> 00:32:18.009
relieving as, you know, leaving work for the day or
614
00:32:18.529 --> 00:32:21.109
buying something really expensive online or something that's like a quick,
615
00:32:21.250 --> 00:32:24.170
like big dose of dopamine. But these are the things
616
00:32:24.210 --> 00:32:28.130
that longer term will help you and longer term will
617
00:32:28.250 --> 00:32:29.789
prove like a much better investment.
618
00:32:31.049 --> 00:32:34.890
A point well taken. Just in no particular order, Lauren,
619
00:32:35.009 --> 00:32:37.250
the producer on this episode, identified a few that she
620
00:32:37.289 --> 00:32:41.069
thought might work here. So, uh, This is in the book,
621
00:32:41.230 --> 00:32:45.369
Mind Reset Number Two, Acknowledge Your State of Mind. What
622
00:32:45.390 --> 00:32:46.809
do you mean by that? How does it work?
623
00:32:47.890 --> 00:32:50.950
We all metaphorically and also somewhat literally have three states
624
00:32:51.009 --> 00:32:54.650
of mind. We have an emotion mind where we're governed
625
00:32:54.670 --> 00:32:59.250
by our emotions. We have a reasonable mind where we're
626
00:32:59.769 --> 00:33:02.950
really just logical and focused on the facts. And then
627
00:33:02.990 --> 00:33:07.690
we also have a wise mind where we merge our facts, feelings,
628
00:33:07.730 --> 00:33:10.480
plus intuition and This is a skill that's taught in
629
00:33:10.599 --> 00:33:15.769
dialectical behavior therapy. And there's nothing wrong with emotion mind.
630
00:33:15.789 --> 00:33:18.849
There's nothing wrong with reasonable mind. You don't always need
631
00:33:18.910 --> 00:33:21.650
to be in wise mind. But if I'm about to
632
00:33:21.690 --> 00:33:24.759
try to work on my taxes, I can do myself
633
00:33:24.819 --> 00:33:27.440
a huge favor if I say I'm in emotion mind
634
00:33:27.500 --> 00:33:30.839
and I need to be in reasonable mind. Or if I'm...
635
00:33:31.819 --> 00:33:34.259
just focused on facts when I need to be more
636
00:33:34.299 --> 00:33:36.200
focused on feelings. Like I got to get home. It's
637
00:33:36.220 --> 00:33:38.480
getting late rather than really enjoying my time with my
638
00:33:38.539 --> 00:33:41.400
friend who's never in town. It might be helpful to
639
00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:43.599
just even notice like what state of mind I'm in
640
00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:46.609
because we can get into this big thing of like
641
00:33:46.619 --> 00:33:48.789
really taking our thoughts very seriously. But if we can
642
00:33:48.829 --> 00:33:52.470
quickly say emotion mind, you know, when I face this
643
00:33:52.509 --> 00:33:58.049
particular situation, emotion mind. By categorically writing off that we're
644
00:33:58.089 --> 00:33:59.990
in a place where our emotions are running this show
645
00:34:00.029 --> 00:34:03.369
because they're very high. we can kind of be able
646
00:34:03.410 --> 00:34:05.910
to see more clearly. And even just taking a step
647
00:34:05.930 --> 00:34:08.510
back to think like, what is wise mind, gives us
648
00:34:08.570 --> 00:34:10.710
a little bit of room to make a better decision.
649
00:34:11.710 --> 00:34:12.510
Does that make sense, Dan?
650
00:34:12.929 --> 00:34:14.510
Yeah, it does. But I want to make sure, I
651
00:34:14.510 --> 00:34:16.210
want to drill down on it a little bit. Run
652
00:34:16.250 --> 00:34:21.099
through with me, for me, for us, again, the different minds.
653
00:34:21.179 --> 00:34:22.679
It's emotion mind, wise mind.
654
00:34:23.579 --> 00:34:25.380
And reasonable mind, which is facts.
655
00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:28.559
Okay, reasonable mind is facts. Wise mind is.
656
00:34:29.280 --> 00:34:31.699
The integration of facts and feelings and intuition.
657
00:34:32.139 --> 00:34:35.340
And emotion is, we all know what that is, the feelings,
658
00:34:35.420 --> 00:34:40.460
the raw feelings. And so it's simply putting a label
659
00:34:40.619 --> 00:34:44.530
on where we are right now that can be a
660
00:34:44.530 --> 00:34:45.210
stress reset.
661
00:34:46.389 --> 00:34:48.449
Absolutely, because if in the middle of the night I
662
00:34:48.469 --> 00:34:51.969
start hearing noise or I start convincing myself that if
663
00:34:52.050 --> 00:34:54.250
I don't fall asleep within minutes, tomorrow is going to
664
00:34:54.289 --> 00:34:57.590
be terrible. If I just quickly tell myself like emotion mind,
665
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:02.880
That is so much more helpful than continuing to add
666
00:35:03.039 --> 00:35:04.860
on to the tornado.
667
00:35:05.820 --> 00:35:08.940
And is that it? Is it simply just emotion mind?
668
00:35:09.019 --> 00:35:11.590
Or do you then say, okay, this is emotion mind.
669
00:35:11.619 --> 00:35:14.469
What I need now is a reasonable mind. And let
670
00:35:14.510 --> 00:35:15.969
me talk to myself in the following way.
671
00:35:17.190 --> 00:35:19.809
Great question. You notice what state of mind you're in,
672
00:35:20.050 --> 00:35:22.989
what state's ideal for your situation, and then try to
673
00:35:23.030 --> 00:35:25.719
shift gears a little bit. And there's also a skill
674
00:35:25.780 --> 00:35:28.550
of practicing accessing wise mind for those times that you
675
00:35:28.570 --> 00:35:29.699
really need the integration.
676
00:35:30.550 --> 00:35:32.090
How do we access wise mind?
677
00:35:33.110 --> 00:35:36.150
Taking a moment to slow down and even breathing in wise,
678
00:35:36.329 --> 00:35:38.429
breathing out mind. Like let's say you're about to say
679
00:35:38.489 --> 00:35:41.750
something really mean to someone you actually really like, you know,
680
00:35:41.769 --> 00:35:45.250
slowing down and breathing in wise, breathing out mind, asking yourself,
681
00:35:45.369 --> 00:35:48.449
is this wise mind? Leaning into the pauses between your
682
00:35:48.469 --> 00:35:51.480
breaths because there's something about emotion mind that's really reactive
683
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:54.000
and fast and compulsive and impulsive.
684
00:35:54.860 --> 00:35:58.050
I said this before, and it might have, for people
685
00:35:58.070 --> 00:36:00.789
who don't have, you know, aren't interested in or conversant
686
00:36:00.969 --> 00:36:03.670
in the various parts of the brain. Earlier, I was
687
00:36:03.710 --> 00:36:06.090
talking about how I could be on a plane, the
688
00:36:06.130 --> 00:36:10.199
panic could start, I could start feeling some incipient physical
689
00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:14.159
sensations of panic, psychological manifestations, scary thoughts, et cetera, et cetera.
690
00:36:14.980 --> 00:36:17.159
And if I talk to myself in the right way,
691
00:36:17.179 --> 00:36:20.400
I said something to the effect of it can deactivate
692
00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:23.659
the amygdala and bring online the prefrontal cortex and The
693
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:27.559
amygdala is the stress center of the brain. The prefrontal
694
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:32.900
cortex is basically reasonable mind incarnate. And that seems to
695
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:35.500
me exactly what you're talking about here. As soon as
696
00:36:35.539 --> 00:36:41.070
you put a label on emotion mind, you're jumping from
697
00:36:41.139 --> 00:36:46.989
the skittering amygdala to a sort of reasonable, the newer
698
00:36:47.050 --> 00:36:47.750
part of the brain.
699
00:36:48.940 --> 00:36:51.000
Exactly. You could go through all these things in your
700
00:36:51.199 --> 00:36:55.139
mind trying to convince yourself that's just turbulence, that's just wind,
701
00:36:55.219 --> 00:36:58.139
that's whatever it is. But if you just say emotion mind,
702
00:36:58.260 --> 00:37:01.269
you can kind of get the prefrontal cortex on board.
703
00:37:02.130 --> 00:37:04.550
Just hearkening back to something you said earlier in this
704
00:37:04.590 --> 00:37:06.530
conversation that I made a note of wanting to come
705
00:37:06.570 --> 00:37:10.869
back to, you talked about playing with our thoughts. I
706
00:37:10.889 --> 00:37:13.489
don't know if you invoked that. clay as a metaphor,
707
00:37:13.510 --> 00:37:16.230
but you invoked something as a metaphor, playing with our thoughts.
708
00:37:16.610 --> 00:37:20.809
And this maybe seems like an apropos moment to bring
709
00:37:20.849 --> 00:37:21.570
it up, back up.
710
00:37:22.949 --> 00:37:25.349
Yeah, so this is another reset. A lot of times
711
00:37:25.389 --> 00:37:28.559
we take our thoughts very, very seriously. And most of
712
00:37:28.619 --> 00:37:32.800
our thoughts are more like spam than very important people
713
00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:37.380
speaking truths to us. And so even just learning to practice,
714
00:37:37.780 --> 00:37:40.449
it's called cognitive diffusion of just like taking your thoughts
715
00:37:40.530 --> 00:37:42.639
lightly and And there's a lot of ways we can
716
00:37:42.679 --> 00:37:45.019
do this. One of my favorite ways to do this
717
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:49.219
is singing your thoughts. And so there's different ways you
718
00:37:49.239 --> 00:37:51.960
can practice this. But if you have the thought, you know,
719
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:54.900
I'm a loser that shows up every Saturday night. If
720
00:37:54.940 --> 00:37:56.920
you sing that to the tune of a song like
721
00:37:56.940 --> 00:38:00.320
Do You Believe in Magic, it loses its grip. It
722
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:04.519
just won't feel the same. And it's a nice reminder
723
00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:09.340
that thoughts are just combinations of letters and sounds. They
724
00:38:09.380 --> 00:38:13.960
don't necessarily have a lot of value or credibility. And
725
00:38:13.980 --> 00:38:16.420
a client taught me this and I love it so much,
726
00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:20.320
but even just, there's a Hathaway song, what is love?
727
00:38:20.820 --> 00:38:23.650
And there's a great Saturday night live clip of Jim
728
00:38:23.670 --> 00:38:26.489
Carrey dancing to what is love, but even like, what
729
00:38:26.550 --> 00:38:28.789
are thoughts? Thoughts can't hurt me no more. And so
730
00:38:29.250 --> 00:38:32.050
this is another way out of ruminating is, is really
731
00:38:32.130 --> 00:38:35.199
seeing like, okay, like thoughts can't hurt me. I can
732
00:38:35.219 --> 00:38:39.519
sing the thought because we snowball and spiral and drown
733
00:38:39.539 --> 00:38:45.530
and when we are taking these very unhelpful emotion mind
734
00:38:46.710 --> 00:38:50.389
ideas and making them reality. But if we can play, sing,
735
00:38:51.090 --> 00:38:54.630
we automatically lose their grip. I was at a psychology
736
00:38:54.650 --> 00:38:56.670
conference and this was the coolest thing, but we, instead
737
00:38:56.690 --> 00:38:59.800
of wearing name tags with our actual names, we wrote
738
00:38:59.820 --> 00:39:03.300
our core beliefs about ourselves. One of the best things
739
00:39:03.320 --> 00:39:05.719
about being a psychologist is you get endless experiential information.
740
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:11.300
But people that are truly wonderful, noble, inspirational, righteous people
741
00:39:11.340 --> 00:39:13.900
that might have even been on this show are wearing
742
00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:17.469
name tags that say, I'm a bad person. And such
743
00:39:17.510 --> 00:39:19.889
a different thing to wear that on your name tag
744
00:39:19.929 --> 00:39:24.769
versus really believe that. And also such an enlightening experience
745
00:39:24.809 --> 00:39:27.349
to realize that we all have these. This is part
746
00:39:27.369 --> 00:39:28.289
of our shared humanity.
747
00:39:29.389 --> 00:39:32.860
My gosh. wife and child hate when they'll sometimes come
748
00:39:32.900 --> 00:39:35.300
to me with serious things and I will sing it
749
00:39:35.360 --> 00:39:37.699
back to them, this reset. I did it to my
750
00:39:37.739 --> 00:39:39.480
son the other day and he looked at me and said, Daddy,
751
00:39:39.539 --> 00:39:41.039
sometimes you are hard to love.
752
00:39:43.400 --> 00:39:44.949
It's so funny that you say that because when I
753
00:39:44.969 --> 00:39:48.070
do this with my kids, they start laughing. Maybe my
754
00:39:48.090 --> 00:39:49.309
singing is more laughable, but.
755
00:39:49.940 --> 00:39:52.239
I think it's because they're actually asking me to do
756
00:39:52.300 --> 00:39:55.019
something with an acute need, like they're trying to get
757
00:39:55.039 --> 00:39:56.840
me to do something that needs to happen right now,
758
00:39:57.699 --> 00:40:00.320
and I sing it back to them, and they hate that. Okay,
759
00:40:00.340 --> 00:40:03.489
so those are mind resets, acknowledging your state of mind,
760
00:40:03.590 --> 00:40:06.110
singing your thoughts. There are body resets, and one of
761
00:40:06.150 --> 00:40:08.369
them is to cool down literally.
762
00:40:09.650 --> 00:40:13.090
So this is another skill from dialectical behavior therapy, DBT,
763
00:40:13.230 --> 00:40:16.190
and basically if you take a salad bowl full of
764
00:40:16.309 --> 00:40:19.320
ice water... and you set a timer for 30 seconds,
765
00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:21.929
you hold your breath, you submerge your face into the
766
00:40:22.690 --> 00:40:27.550
cold water, you activate the vagus nerve, and you slow
767
00:40:27.570 --> 00:40:31.349
your heart rate and redirect blood flow from your heart
768
00:40:31.429 --> 00:40:34.820
to other essential organs. If you were wearing an apple watch,
769
00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:38.400
your heart rate would come down significantly. So people should
770
00:40:38.440 --> 00:40:40.260
not do this if they have a heart condition, but
771
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:43.619
doing something as quick as a 30 second, basically like
772
00:40:43.659 --> 00:40:47.099
a face ice bucket, challenge or a cold plunge for
773
00:40:47.139 --> 00:40:50.530
your face only, you quickly reset. And just very practically,
774
00:40:50.869 --> 00:40:52.650
if you jumped into a cold pool, you wouldn't still
775
00:40:52.690 --> 00:40:54.489
be thinking about the same thing when you were in
776
00:40:54.530 --> 00:40:56.690
the pool or when you came out. And again, this
777
00:40:56.710 --> 00:40:59.929
just takes 30 seconds. And there's something really empowering about
778
00:40:59.989 --> 00:41:03.519
realizing that it doesn't take very long and doesn't take
779
00:41:03.679 --> 00:41:06.559
anything too fancy, but there's something about literally cooling down
780
00:41:06.619 --> 00:41:09.519
that quiets the mind and regulates your body.
781
00:41:10.780 --> 00:41:12.500
Who has an ice bucket lying around?
782
00:41:13.460 --> 00:41:15.039
You just need a salad bowl. You just need something
783
00:41:15.059 --> 00:41:16.059
your face will fit in.
784
00:41:17.099 --> 00:41:19.599
But it takes some forethought here. You have to be
785
00:41:19.639 --> 00:41:21.500
freaking out and be like, okay, I need to go
786
00:41:21.639 --> 00:41:23.900
get a salad bowl and a bunch of ice and
787
00:41:23.940 --> 00:41:24.579
make this happen.
788
00:41:25.820 --> 00:41:28.400
If you want to do it in the technical sense, yes.
789
00:41:28.539 --> 00:41:30.860
But now they sell these little ice rollers for your face.
790
00:41:30.940 --> 00:41:33.590
It's not going to have the same jarring effect. there's
791
00:41:33.630 --> 00:41:35.550
like little ice rollers for your face if you suck
792
00:41:35.590 --> 00:41:38.929
on an ice cube. But I think even more powerful
793
00:41:38.969 --> 00:41:41.829
than the literal skill is the bigger message that our
794
00:41:41.869 --> 00:41:47.489
body's incredibly resourceful and resilient and there are quick ways
795
00:41:47.510 --> 00:41:49.199
to recalibrate. So like if you're living in New York
796
00:41:49.239 --> 00:41:51.380
City and it's cold right now and you wanted to
797
00:41:51.420 --> 00:41:53.579
take a walk around the block, that might even reap some,
798
00:41:53.619 --> 00:41:55.360
it's not going to reap the exact benefits of the,
799
00:41:55.480 --> 00:41:57.539
it's called the mammalian dive response. It's not going to
800
00:41:58.219 --> 00:42:00.639
do the exact benefits of that, but there are ways
801
00:42:00.679 --> 00:42:04.090
to quickly do this. But these days, so many people
802
00:42:04.130 --> 00:42:05.590
are working from home and a lot of, I think,
803
00:42:05.630 --> 00:42:07.289
our stress can easily come up when we're at home,
804
00:42:07.309 --> 00:42:09.789
but just knowing that this is out there. And I've
805
00:42:09.809 --> 00:42:12.289
also had people do things like have the dry ice
806
00:42:12.309 --> 00:42:14.090
that you could just quickly access.
807
00:42:15.409 --> 00:42:17.940
I find this intriguing. I was on a meditation retreat,
808
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:20.179
like a private one with just a couple of friends
809
00:42:20.380 --> 00:42:22.440
during the pandemic. Retreat centers were all closed. And so
810
00:42:22.659 --> 00:42:24.500
we basically just stayed at my friend's house in the
811
00:42:24.559 --> 00:42:27.380
fall in Maine. And anybody who's ever been in Maine
812
00:42:27.400 --> 00:42:31.199
has Even in the summer, the water there is unacceptably cold.
813
00:42:31.260 --> 00:42:34.760
And this was the fall. And every afternoon at this retreat,
814
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:37.860
we would jump off the pier into the water. And
815
00:42:39.170 --> 00:42:42.349
it was shocking. I mean, it was terrible at first.
816
00:42:42.630 --> 00:42:47.449
And then the elation that I felt every time was
817
00:42:48.289 --> 00:42:49.090
really remarkable.
818
00:42:50.440 --> 00:42:54.539
Yeah, and that phase ice thing is much faster. Again,
819
00:42:54.539 --> 00:42:57.280
30 seconds faster. You could do it with frozen vegetables
820
00:42:57.320 --> 00:43:00.219
if you don't have ice. Fast, easy, quick. And again,
821
00:43:00.300 --> 00:43:03.739
we do have this mammalian dive response. We do have
822
00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:07.719
these incredible mechanisms within us that are almost like control, alt, delete.
823
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:09.690
We just need to know how to access them.
824
00:43:10.849 --> 00:43:12.050
Mammalian what response?
825
00:43:12.849 --> 00:43:13.530
Dive response.
826
00:43:14.050 --> 00:43:17.150
Dive response. What does that refer to, dive?
827
00:43:18.090 --> 00:43:20.829
When a human body is submerged while they're holding their breath,
828
00:43:21.010 --> 00:43:24.409
when their nose is submerged in water, it lowers your
829
00:43:24.719 --> 00:43:26.949
heart rate and redirects blood flow.
830
00:43:28.289 --> 00:43:32.010
Is this why deep breathing also can have salutary effects?
831
00:43:32.849 --> 00:43:35.679
I'm not sure, but deep breathing also activates the vagus nerve.
832
00:43:35.949 --> 00:43:39.280
It wouldn't be the dive response, but that's another very
833
00:43:39.340 --> 00:43:43.019
powerful tool of slowing your breathing down to, you know,
834
00:43:43.940 --> 00:43:47.880
five second inhale, five second exhale can similarly activate the
835
00:43:47.960 --> 00:43:50.139
parasympathetic nervous system and slow you down.
836
00:43:50.690 --> 00:43:53.570
Can you define vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system?
837
00:43:54.699 --> 00:43:57.860
The vagus nerve is the main component of the parasympathetic
838
00:43:57.980 --> 00:44:01.460
nervous system, and that's the rest and digest part of
839
00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:04.539
us that slows us down. And so if we're really
840
00:44:04.599 --> 00:44:08.260
revved up and we want to be able to access
841
00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:11.300
the bodily functions that we have that help us regulate,
842
00:44:11.320 --> 00:44:14.360
these are some of the ways that we can from
843
00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:15.059
the outside in.
844
00:44:15.679 --> 00:44:18.179
So as a body reset, we talked about cool down,
845
00:44:18.239 --> 00:44:21.440
but it's possible that this deep breathing that you just described,
846
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:24.710
five seconds in, five seconds out, for some period of
847
00:44:24.769 --> 00:44:26.550
time could also be a reset?
848
00:44:27.289 --> 00:44:30.719
Yeah, there's a very popular package of resets that's taught
849
00:44:30.780 --> 00:44:34.690
in DBT for people that are really struggling with overthinking
850
00:44:34.789 --> 00:44:39.139
or intense urges. The acronym is TIP. which is temperature,
851
00:44:39.179 --> 00:44:43.400
which is the ice face exercise. I is intense exercise,
852
00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:45.679
and that's not a gym class. That's like 90 seconds
853
00:44:45.820 --> 00:44:50.789
of like squat jumps, burpees, doing something quickly to change
854
00:44:50.809 --> 00:44:55.210
your chemistry. So temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, which is
855
00:44:55.250 --> 00:44:58.610
the five seconds in, five seconds out. So inhaling for
856
00:44:59.530 --> 00:45:02.230
five seconds, exhaling for five seconds. So we're slowing our
857
00:45:02.269 --> 00:45:05.710
breathing from the average person breathes about 18 breaths per minute.
858
00:45:05.730 --> 00:45:08.239
So we're slowing down to a third of that six
859
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:12.480
breaths per minute. And then the final P in TIP
860
00:45:12.679 --> 00:45:16.699
is progressive muscle relaxation, which is tensing and releasing, like,
861
00:45:16.760 --> 00:45:19.840
you know, tensing your forehead, releasing, tensing your neck by
862
00:45:19.860 --> 00:45:22.739
bringing your chin to your chest, releasing. And so doing
863
00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:26.199
this combination of four exercises is one of my favorite
864
00:45:26.219 --> 00:45:31.039
ways to either stop rumination or change your bodily response
865
00:45:31.380 --> 00:45:33.840
if you are in a very high stress situation. And
866
00:45:34.400 --> 00:45:37.159
For people that can't do the temperature because they're somewhere
867
00:45:37.179 --> 00:45:39.679
that they can't access ice, you could certainly maybe do
868
00:45:39.699 --> 00:45:40.539
the two Ps.
869
00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:43.159
So any one of them might do the trick.
870
00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:45.320
Yeah, yeah. And I think different ones work well for
871
00:45:45.380 --> 00:45:47.559
different people. So I hope you try them all.
872
00:45:49.880 --> 00:45:53.039
Coming up, Jenny talks about how to cultivate a willing attitude,
873
00:45:53.699 --> 00:45:56.199
what she means by negative core beliefs and how to
874
00:45:56.280 --> 00:45:59.920
untangle from them, and how to prepare in advance for
875
00:45:59.960 --> 00:46:11.920
stressful situations. Okay, so we've talked about a few mind resets,
876
00:46:11.940 --> 00:46:16.099
a few body resets. There's also behavior resets. And the
877
00:46:16.440 --> 00:46:18.760
one that Lauren picked for us to discuss, and you
878
00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:22.510
can supplement if you would like, the one that Lauren
879
00:46:22.530 --> 00:46:25.610
picked was cultivate a willing attitude.
880
00:46:26.690 --> 00:46:29.489
Yeah, a lot of us approach our lives with willfulness,
881
00:46:29.530 --> 00:46:32.630
which is a hell no sort of stance, digging your
882
00:46:32.670 --> 00:46:37.920
heels in, screaming or silently speaking, you know, expletives or
883
00:46:37.940 --> 00:46:41.699
screaming them into silence. Twitter or X. And willingness is
884
00:46:42.019 --> 00:46:44.780
having an attitude of like kind of hell yes. And
885
00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:46.619
so to try all of these things, like these things
886
00:46:46.699 --> 00:46:49.239
are not things that I want people to just read about,
887
00:46:49.260 --> 00:46:53.130
but to actually lean into, it's really helpful to practice willingness.
888
00:46:53.190 --> 00:46:55.469
And I think in any moment, if you're sitting in
889
00:46:55.489 --> 00:46:59.909
traffic and you're clenching and you're compulsively moving in your
890
00:46:59.949 --> 00:47:02.880
car or hitting the horn, just taking a second and
891
00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:06.349
asking yourself, am I being willing or willful And willingness
892
00:47:06.409 --> 00:47:10.679
is really what I think of as the embodiment of acceptance. And,
893
00:47:10.699 --> 00:47:12.619
you know, it's almost like if you spilled something on
894
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:14.539
the floor, like willingness is picking it up with a
895
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:17.420
good attitude and willfulness is like throwing something after you
896
00:47:18.079 --> 00:47:21.800
spilled something. And so it's a really incredible shift into
897
00:47:21.860 --> 00:47:26.369
being more effective, agreeable, good sport in life. Does that
898
00:47:26.409 --> 00:47:26.949
make sense, Dan?
899
00:47:27.409 --> 00:47:29.630
It does. I just want to clarify again. I'm sure
900
00:47:29.650 --> 00:47:34.019
this is true. You're not saying we should act out
901
00:47:34.079 --> 00:47:36.239
every shitty idea somebody gives to us, especially if they
902
00:47:36.280 --> 00:47:38.860
have more power than us. We should accept any sexual
903
00:47:38.900 --> 00:47:43.070
advance that's wanted or unwanted. This is really about, are
904
00:47:43.110 --> 00:47:46.190
we accepting what the universe is offering up to us
905
00:47:46.329 --> 00:47:47.670
in this moment or not?
906
00:47:48.409 --> 00:47:50.409
I love that you asked that question. It's really willingness
907
00:47:50.449 --> 00:47:51.650
in the service of our values.
908
00:47:51.789 --> 00:47:52.090
Got it.
909
00:47:53.010 --> 00:47:56.909
So I'm willing to go the extra mile to be
910
00:47:56.929 --> 00:48:00.000
a good friend. I'm willing. It's things that bring us
911
00:48:00.019 --> 00:48:02.059
closer to the life that we want to live rather
912
00:48:02.099 --> 00:48:03.360
than things that move us away from it.
913
00:48:03.880 --> 00:48:06.639
And in key moments, it's about, like, what's your relationship
914
00:48:06.659 --> 00:48:09.739
to reality? In traffic, for example, this is what's happening
915
00:48:09.760 --> 00:48:12.829
right now, so raging against it ain't so useful.
916
00:48:13.489 --> 00:48:15.289
Right, and if you're with someone that you love but
917
00:48:15.309 --> 00:48:17.969
you're annoyed within the moment, maybe you need to be
918
00:48:18.010 --> 00:48:19.889
willing to be a little bit nice or give the
919
00:48:19.929 --> 00:48:22.670
benefit of the doubt or stretch yourself.
920
00:48:23.550 --> 00:48:27.429
My wife, who married an occasionally very annoying person, has
921
00:48:27.780 --> 00:48:31.000
a tattoo on her wrist that says, right now, it's
922
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:31.440
like this.
923
00:48:32.380 --> 00:48:32.519
And.
924
00:48:33.809 --> 00:48:36.929
That's basically the cultivation of a willing attitude. Like whatever's
925
00:48:36.949 --> 00:48:38.989
happening right now, I can feel this.
926
00:48:39.929 --> 00:48:42.239
I love that. And I forgot the quote, but Zach
927
00:48:42.280 --> 00:48:45.420
Braff shared something beautiful about a tattoo he has that's similar,
928
00:48:45.460 --> 00:48:47.420
I think. Amor or something.
929
00:48:47.920 --> 00:48:50.380
Yeah, amor fatte, which was to love your fate.
930
00:48:51.179 --> 00:48:53.280
I think that's a nice way to also think about willingness.
931
00:48:53.800 --> 00:48:56.840
Yeah. Sabine Selassie, and I haven't really unpacked this with her,
932
00:48:56.920 --> 00:48:59.159
but she's a great meditation teacher, but she has a
933
00:48:59.219 --> 00:49:02.630
tattoo that says trust life. which, as I've sometimes joked,
934
00:49:02.710 --> 00:49:06.820
is a little earnest for my taste, but, and this
935
00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:09.079
is a person who's on her fourth bout of cancer
936
00:49:09.159 --> 00:49:12.079
and had gone through a divorce and had plenty of
937
00:49:12.360 --> 00:49:16.050
difficult family stuff, and I think it's her way of saying, like,
938
00:49:16.469 --> 00:49:19.469
if this is happening, it's what's supposed to happen on
939
00:49:19.489 --> 00:49:21.639
some level. I might be mangling that because I don't
940
00:49:21.780 --> 00:49:25.500
think she believes in creator God or destiny or anything
941
00:49:25.519 --> 00:49:28.070
like that. But it is what's happening right now. So
942
00:49:28.389 --> 00:49:31.170
you should trust that this is what's happening and cultivate
943
00:49:31.210 --> 00:49:33.489
some equanimity in the face of it. Seb, if I
944
00:49:33.510 --> 00:49:34.630
got that wrong, I apologize.
945
00:49:35.429 --> 00:49:38.409
Yeah, dragging is not going to help anyone dance towards
946
00:49:38.429 --> 00:49:38.849
what they want.
947
00:49:40.139 --> 00:49:42.280
Okay, so let's move into some buffers. We've been talking
948
00:49:42.300 --> 00:49:45.510
about resets, which are more sort of, you know, you've
949
00:49:45.530 --> 00:49:48.900
got an acute situation. Here's what you can do. Buffers are,
950
00:49:49.210 --> 00:49:52.670
I think, followed more in the preventive medicine bucket. Here's
951
00:49:52.769 --> 00:49:57.610
mind buffer number one. Untangle yourself from negative core beliefs.
952
00:49:57.730 --> 00:50:00.159
This harkens back to your psychology conference.
953
00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:05.840
Yes. So oftentimes because of our upbringing or painful experiences
954
00:50:05.880 --> 00:50:09.389
we've endured, we developed core beliefs or fundamental ways we
955
00:50:09.449 --> 00:50:13.789
view ourselves, you know, anything ranging from I'm unlovable to
956
00:50:14.889 --> 00:50:18.610
other people can't be trusted. And these core beliefs really
957
00:50:18.650 --> 00:50:21.349
can affect the way we view ourselves and view the world.
958
00:50:21.409 --> 00:50:25.250
And rather than letting them guide us or become a
959
00:50:25.289 --> 00:50:28.849
self-fulfilling prophecy, it's really helpful to know what they are
960
00:50:29.530 --> 00:50:35.719
and realize when they've been, you The most important, I think,
961
00:50:35.760 --> 00:50:37.860
is to act in ways that transcend them. And so
962
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:41.800
if you think you don't belong to really purposefully pursue
963
00:50:41.840 --> 00:50:43.760
the communities that you'd like to belong in, even if
964
00:50:43.780 --> 00:50:46.619
they feel aspirational, or if you think other people can't
965
00:50:46.659 --> 00:50:51.679
be trusted to lean in and strategically increase your trust
966
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:54.480
in other people. And so I think being super aware
967
00:50:54.550 --> 00:50:56.320
of the way you view yourself in the world and
968
00:50:56.340 --> 00:50:59.650
then checking in as to how that affects your behaviors
969
00:50:59.769 --> 00:51:01.710
and then acting in ways that are counter to them.
970
00:51:01.769 --> 00:51:07.329
And then also really Being compassionate and aware when certain
971
00:51:07.389 --> 00:51:10.429
core beliefs get triggered and being mindful that that's because
972
00:51:10.750 --> 00:51:13.809
it's a core belief that it remains to feel very true.
973
00:51:13.849 --> 00:51:18.239
I see all these people that are incredibly successful, accomplished, likable, charismatic,
974
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:21.460
and they feel like awkward adolescents that are about to
975
00:51:21.500 --> 00:51:24.019
be made fun of because they were bullied in high
976
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:25.880
school or they were a poor fit in their class
977
00:51:26.019 --> 00:51:28.769
or they struggled with shame because people didn't accept them.
978
00:51:29.739 --> 00:51:31.829
growing up and to be just really aware of how
979
00:51:31.869 --> 00:51:34.610
that affects their day-to-day rather than to be living that
980
00:51:34.670 --> 00:51:36.449
as if it's real in the current moment.
981
00:51:37.030 --> 00:51:39.090
Yeah, I've been thinking about a problem that I've had
982
00:51:39.510 --> 00:51:42.389
for many years, which is when somebody criticizes me often,
983
00:51:42.469 --> 00:51:46.170
I hear that as you're a terrible person. And so
984
00:51:46.269 --> 00:51:49.809
I freak out or I have a disproportionate response instead
985
00:51:49.849 --> 00:51:52.090
of focusing on like the narrow issue that somebody's trying
986
00:51:52.150 --> 00:51:56.380
to identify. And I've worked on this, which leads me
987
00:51:56.440 --> 00:51:59.289
to the, I think the natural follow-up question is, So
988
00:51:59.369 --> 00:52:03.170
what exactly can one do to operationalize this buffer to
989
00:52:03.510 --> 00:52:05.309
untangle from these core beliefs?
990
00:52:06.269 --> 00:52:07.469
I think you hit the nail on the head when
991
00:52:07.489 --> 00:52:10.469
you said even just realizing that when someone gives you feedback,
992
00:52:11.150 --> 00:52:14.570
your mind quickly goes to, I'm a terrible person. So
993
00:52:14.630 --> 00:52:17.429
knowing what are instances where this core belief is going
994
00:52:17.489 --> 00:52:21.550
to be primed and what are ways I can act
995
00:52:21.570 --> 00:52:23.510
different than them. So if you just took it as feedback,
996
00:52:23.780 --> 00:52:26.960
how would you respond differently in preparing ahead of time questions?
997
00:52:27.510 --> 00:52:30.130
to next time this happens and my mind is going
998
00:52:30.150 --> 00:52:32.429
to do this, I'm going to instead thank the person
999
00:52:32.469 --> 00:52:35.739
for their feedback instead of become defensive, which would be
1000
00:52:35.780 --> 00:52:39.960
the response if I was believing they were calling me
1001
00:52:39.980 --> 00:52:40.780
a terrible person.
1002
00:52:41.719 --> 00:52:47.480
So it's really deliberately working on creating a new habit.
1003
00:52:47.739 --> 00:52:49.219
And it's hard to predict when this is going to happen,
1004
00:52:49.239 --> 00:52:53.070
but when you get some tough feedback... to train yourself
1005
00:52:53.349 --> 00:52:55.989
to have a reflex of thank you. I will think
1006
00:52:56.030 --> 00:52:58.210
about that no matter what else is going on for you.
1007
00:52:58.449 --> 00:53:00.929
And then when your nervous system calms down, you can
1008
00:53:01.489 --> 00:53:04.070
like really chew on what the person said. Am I,
1009
00:53:04.110 --> 00:53:06.179
am I in the zone of accuracy here?
1010
00:53:07.070 --> 00:53:09.199
Absolutely. And Dan, I think an important first step is
1011
00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:10.989
even just taking a minute to think about like, if
1012
00:53:11.030 --> 00:53:13.420
people are listening right now and thinking, you know, what
1013
00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:16.159
are my core beliefs? Like, how do I fundamentally view myself?
1014
00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:20.250
What are the stories I hold about other people? to
1015
00:53:20.289 --> 00:53:23.230
get really clear because then you're more likely to be
1016
00:53:23.269 --> 00:53:25.329
able to be on high alert when it gets pushed.
1017
00:53:27.150 --> 00:53:28.969
You have a nice phrase in the book that our
1018
00:53:28.989 --> 00:53:32.769
core beliefs are things that we tend to make pervasive, permanent,
1019
00:53:32.829 --> 00:53:33.389
and personal.
1020
00:53:34.230 --> 00:53:38.309
Yes. That is something that Martin Seligman, a professor who
1021
00:53:38.329 --> 00:53:40.730
wrote the book Learned Optimism, talks about. So when we
1022
00:53:40.750 --> 00:53:43.090
start to make things, you know, you weren't invited to
1023
00:53:43.110 --> 00:53:45.590
the party. It isn't just I wasn't invited to the party,
1024
00:53:45.630 --> 00:53:49.869
but I'm never invited. I'll never be invited. Everyone is
1025
00:53:49.909 --> 00:53:51.070
terrible and no one likes me.
1026
00:53:51.889 --> 00:53:54.230
So step one is to think. Take a minute and think.
1027
00:53:54.389 --> 00:53:56.429
It can be right now. It can be later when
1028
00:53:56.769 --> 00:54:00.260
you're not listening to us talk. What are my core beliefs?
1029
00:54:00.889 --> 00:54:02.920
And then if I'm hearing you correctly, the next step
1030
00:54:02.980 --> 00:54:07.519
is to try to work on some new reflexes for
1031
00:54:07.579 --> 00:54:09.340
moments when those core beliefs are triggered.
1032
00:54:10.179 --> 00:54:14.199
Exactly, yeah. You're coping ahead for ways to practice what
1033
00:54:14.239 --> 00:54:18.159
I call opposite action, acting different than what your emotions
1034
00:54:18.219 --> 00:54:19.179
want you to be doing.
1035
00:54:21.570 --> 00:54:23.170
Well, that reminds me of something you said earlier that
1036
00:54:23.210 --> 00:54:27.030
I promised to come back to, which was thinking about
1037
00:54:27.070 --> 00:54:30.210
situations where we know we're going to get stressed and
1038
00:54:30.269 --> 00:54:32.989
preparing in advance for them. You made a reference to that,
1039
00:54:33.010 --> 00:54:34.369
and I made a note of wanting to come back
1040
00:54:34.429 --> 00:54:35.570
to it. Does that sound familiar?
1041
00:54:36.230 --> 00:54:37.989
That does sound familiar, and there are several ways we
1042
00:54:38.010 --> 00:54:40.750
can do this. I'll walk you through two of them.
1043
00:54:40.789 --> 00:54:43.409
So the first one is coping ahead. So I really
1044
00:54:43.469 --> 00:54:47.340
encourage people, rather than dread coping, cope ahead. So if
1045
00:54:47.420 --> 00:54:50.840
I know that I'm taking a red-eye tomorrow and I'm
1046
00:54:50.860 --> 00:54:52.460
going to be really tired and I'm going to have
1047
00:54:52.480 --> 00:54:55.000
to get to the airport and I'm not going to
1048
00:54:55.019 --> 00:54:56.619
have the foods I usually like to eat, you know,
1049
00:54:56.719 --> 00:54:58.260
and so on and so on, rather than go through
1050
00:54:58.300 --> 00:55:00.659
all of the things that could go wrong and how
1051
00:55:00.699 --> 00:55:05.000
things will just become problematic, rather than rehearsing the outcome
1052
00:55:05.019 --> 00:55:08.610
that I don't want, I can mentally and logistically prepare
1053
00:55:08.690 --> 00:55:11.760
for things to go right. And so rather than taking
1054
00:55:11.800 --> 00:55:16.500
something that's unproductive, again, we're making it useful. And there's
1055
00:55:16.539 --> 00:55:20.590
something really powerful about mental rehearsal, just imagining doing the thing.
1056
00:55:20.610 --> 00:55:24.449
You're imagining you're having a difficult conversation with someone and
1057
00:55:24.489 --> 00:55:27.610
you respond with kindness when they say something upsetting. I'm
1058
00:55:27.630 --> 00:55:29.769
just imagining doing that uses the same part of your
1059
00:55:29.789 --> 00:55:32.239
brain that's needed to actually do that. So it's not
1060
00:55:32.340 --> 00:55:35.059
only kind of like a nice idea, but it's actually
1061
00:55:35.719 --> 00:55:39.239
literal rehearsal. And so that's one way to do that.
1062
00:55:40.059 --> 00:55:42.260
And then another way to do that is very specific
1063
00:55:42.360 --> 00:55:45.539
to people that do struggle with physical sensations that they
1064
00:55:45.579 --> 00:55:48.630
don't like. If you know that if you're in a
1065
00:55:48.710 --> 00:55:51.550
tight space or you're going to have a year-end review
1066
00:55:51.590 --> 00:55:54.650
with a boss or you're going to be flying, if
1067
00:55:54.710 --> 00:55:57.780
you're anticipating that those situations are going to make you sweat,
1068
00:55:58.440 --> 00:56:03.199
make your heart race, make you feel dizzy... Rather than simply, again,
1069
00:56:03.239 --> 00:56:05.639
like praying that that doesn't happen or feeling like you
1070
00:56:05.659 --> 00:56:08.030
need to take a pill to make those sensations go away,
1071
00:56:08.630 --> 00:56:12.789
you can practice panicking. You can practice getting really clear
1072
00:56:12.849 --> 00:56:15.349
on what are the symptoms that I'm anticipating that I
1073
00:56:15.429 --> 00:56:18.800
don't like. And one of my favorite things to do
1074
00:56:18.860 --> 00:56:22.179
is help people recreate those symptoms. And so if you
1075
00:56:22.219 --> 00:56:24.440
know that your heart's gonna race and you're gonna get
1076
00:56:24.460 --> 00:56:27.179
really hot and you're going to feel short of breath,
1077
00:56:27.280 --> 00:56:30.199
I can help you by helping you put on a jacket,
1078
00:56:30.739 --> 00:56:34.739
doing jumping jacks and taking a straw, like a plastic straw,
1079
00:56:35.150 --> 00:56:39.150
pinching it so it's half the diameter, pinching your nose
1080
00:56:39.289 --> 00:56:42.250
and just breathing from the skinny opening of the straw,
1081
00:56:42.690 --> 00:56:44.889
that will make you feel like you can't breathe. If
1082
00:56:44.989 --> 00:56:52.119
by listing your specific stress, bodily sensations, recreating the responses
1083
00:56:52.139 --> 00:56:55.840
that you're afraid of in a safe space, practicing each
1084
00:56:55.880 --> 00:56:58.739
of them for a minute repeatedly, When these come up,
1085
00:56:59.260 --> 00:57:01.059
you have a kind of a been there, done that
1086
00:57:01.219 --> 00:57:06.460
attitude about them rather than catastrophic interpretations. And you conclude
1087
00:57:06.480 --> 00:57:11.360
that they're really temporary rather than terrible.
1088
00:57:11.519 --> 00:57:13.219
Just to be clear from the book, this is body
1089
00:57:13.260 --> 00:57:15.679
buffer number 12. Give yourself a panic attack to feel
1090
00:57:15.719 --> 00:57:16.389
less afraid of them.
1091
00:57:17.050 --> 00:57:17.250
Yes.
1092
00:57:18.210 --> 00:57:20.230
Yeah, I've never been able to make this work. My
1093
00:57:20.349 --> 00:57:22.530
exposure therapy guy was trying to get me to do this.
1094
00:57:22.630 --> 00:57:25.230
I never, for some reason, like I can't manage to
1095
00:57:25.409 --> 00:57:28.590
really freak out unless I'm in the situation. for real.
1096
00:57:28.989 --> 00:57:31.030
But I do know this works for lots of people.
1097
00:57:31.769 --> 00:57:33.610
Yeah. And I also want to say that it works
1098
00:57:33.670 --> 00:57:38.280
across the board, whether it's public speaking or test anxiety
1099
00:57:38.619 --> 00:57:41.940
or traditional panic attacks or general anxiety that creates all
1100
00:57:41.960 --> 00:57:44.400
sorts of other symptoms. And the reason I want to
1101
00:57:44.440 --> 00:57:47.139
talk about it is because I just feel like we're
1102
00:57:47.159 --> 00:57:49.969
set up to fail when our body is doing something
1103
00:57:50.269 --> 00:57:53.269
that intensifies our emotions and then our mind is escalating
1104
00:57:53.289 --> 00:57:57.739
the bodily response. But if we can think more flexibly
1105
00:57:57.780 --> 00:58:01.940
and have learned experience about the temporariness of the body sensations,
1106
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:05.840
then we're so much freer to approach situations with more
1107
00:58:05.880 --> 00:58:09.199
hope and learned optimism. Yes.
1108
00:58:09.559 --> 00:58:11.980
It's like a form of exercise. It's like a bicep
1109
00:58:12.019 --> 00:58:15.599
curl of, yeah, I can do this thing. And so
1110
00:58:15.820 --> 00:58:19.400
when the sensations come up, whether it's stress, anxiety, or panic,
1111
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:21.960
then you're not completely taken off guard.
1112
00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:26.079
You're prepared. You're totally prepared. And you need to do
1113
00:58:26.099 --> 00:58:28.590
this repeatedly. And the goal is never for these symptoms
1114
00:58:28.639 --> 00:58:32.369
to be tolerable. Tolerable is the wrong word. It's never
1115
00:58:32.409 --> 00:58:34.110
for it to be like, you're not supposed to habituate
1116
00:58:34.150 --> 00:58:36.829
to them. They're supposed to be distressing and similar, but
1117
00:58:37.090 --> 00:58:40.030
that you metaphorically have put out a welcome mat rather
1118
00:58:40.070 --> 00:58:41.449
than a do not disturb to them.
1119
00:58:42.550 --> 00:58:45.219
What resets and buffers do you find yourself using the most?
1120
00:58:46.039 --> 00:58:50.789
Oh, so many. I love stop, slow down, Take a
1121
00:58:50.809 --> 00:58:54.429
step back, observe, proceed mindfully. That's something that I'm constantly doing.
1122
00:58:54.449 --> 00:58:57.840
And then I follow that up with anchoring, like feeling
1123
00:58:57.860 --> 00:59:00.780
my feet on the floor, doing a quick three-point check.
1124
00:59:00.840 --> 00:59:04.079
What am I thinking, feeling, doing, and coming back to
1125
00:59:04.099 --> 00:59:08.429
what's helpful in the moment? I'm also obsessed with half-smiling,
1126
00:59:08.489 --> 00:59:12.739
which is a facial expression of acceptance where you ever
1127
00:59:12.780 --> 00:59:15.099
so slightly raise the upper corners of your lips, which
1128
00:59:15.179 --> 00:59:19.699
automatically releases tension in your brow, which I find it's
1129
00:59:19.739 --> 00:59:23.239
very difficult to get lost in judgmental thoughts or overthinking
1130
00:59:23.300 --> 00:59:27.300
with a facial expression of serenity. And opposite action is
1131
00:59:27.550 --> 00:59:27.909
another one.
1132
00:59:28.469 --> 00:59:30.239
Okay, you just list a bunch of things that I
1133
00:59:30.260 --> 00:59:33.639
want to go back through. So STOP, S-T-O-P, that's an acronym.
1134
00:59:33.659 --> 00:59:35.280
Can you just walk us through that again and how
1135
00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:36.619
we might do that?
1136
00:59:37.619 --> 00:59:42.460
Sure. STOP is slowing down, taking a step back, observing
1137
00:59:42.500 --> 00:59:46.429
and proceeding mindfully. So literally like thinking to yourself, because
1138
00:59:46.510 --> 00:59:48.969
a lot of the things that we do thinking-wise or
1139
00:59:49.010 --> 00:59:52.610
behavior-wise that are problematic or when we're going 100 miles
1140
00:59:52.650 --> 00:59:56.489
an hour, so truly slowing down. Because again, like we
1141
00:59:56.510 --> 00:59:59.090
have a lot more space to do damage control if
1142
00:59:59.110 --> 01:00:01.690
we're going like five miles an hour versus 150 miles
1143
01:00:01.730 --> 01:00:06.400
an hour. That's something very quick, just literally stopping and
1144
01:00:06.679 --> 01:00:11.059
being more mindful. And then anchoring is like digging your
1145
01:00:11.099 --> 01:00:14.559
heels into the floor, really feeling the earth supporting your feet,
1146
01:00:15.219 --> 01:00:19.139
doing a quick three-point check. What am I thinking? What
1147
01:00:19.179 --> 01:00:22.400
am I feeling? What am I doing right now? And
1148
01:00:22.460 --> 01:00:25.030
come back. to the demands of the present moment or
1149
01:00:25.050 --> 01:00:28.150
what's helpful in the present moment. And so like really
1150
01:00:28.190 --> 01:00:32.380
kind of turning on awareness when we're kind of slipping
1151
01:00:32.400 --> 01:00:36.099
into suffering or responses that are going to make things
1152
01:00:36.159 --> 01:00:37.019
exponentially worse.
1153
01:00:38.159 --> 01:00:40.840
Turning on awareness, meaning in a mindfulness way.
1154
01:00:41.579 --> 01:00:44.840
Yeah, seeing clearly what's happening because then we can change things.
1155
01:00:45.659 --> 01:00:47.679
Yeah, I mean, that's jumping from the amygdala to the
1156
01:00:47.699 --> 01:00:48.570
prefrontal cortex.
1157
01:00:49.449 --> 01:00:52.289
From the emotions driving your life to your inner wisdom
1158
01:00:52.309 --> 01:00:52.789
driving your life.
1159
01:00:54.150 --> 01:00:56.650
So you walked us through stop and anchoring. I think
1160
01:00:56.710 --> 01:01:01.170
half smiling is self-explanatory and very, very interesting. You mentioned
1161
01:01:01.230 --> 01:01:04.000
opposite action as being something that's very useful for you.
1162
01:01:04.019 --> 01:01:06.559
You explained it a little bit before, but I'd be curious, like,
1163
01:01:06.780 --> 01:01:09.159
how do you apply opposite action in your life?
1164
01:01:09.960 --> 01:01:12.199
Yeah, opposite action is when an emotion is not helping
1165
01:01:12.320 --> 01:01:15.260
us doing the opposite. So if I feel really tired
1166
01:01:15.300 --> 01:01:16.889
and I don't feel like going to a gym class,
1167
01:01:16.929 --> 01:01:19.269
like getting up and going, or if I feel really
1168
01:01:19.329 --> 01:01:21.989
impatient and tired and I don't want to have a
1169
01:01:22.010 --> 01:01:25.139
long chat with my nine-year-old to sit down and really
1170
01:01:25.179 --> 01:01:27.719
pay attention to her as I would if I wasn't
1171
01:01:27.760 --> 01:01:30.579
tired and if I had some energy and if I
1172
01:01:30.619 --> 01:01:33.739
wasn't stressed about other things, really acting the way you
1173
01:01:34.039 --> 01:01:37.139
want to live, even if it's not what you want
1174
01:01:37.159 --> 01:01:39.719
to do in the moment, it allows you to design
1175
01:01:39.760 --> 01:01:41.639
the life that you want to live and really embody that.
1176
01:01:42.659 --> 01:01:44.639
So yeah, I'm doing it all the time. I, you know,
1177
01:01:44.699 --> 01:01:47.099
if I feel like I'm juggling a million things, I
1178
01:01:47.139 --> 01:01:48.719
really try to do one thing at a time. If
1179
01:01:48.780 --> 01:01:51.440
I feel annoyed, I really try to give the benefit
1180
01:01:51.460 --> 01:01:54.599
of the doubt and lead with kindness. If I feel
1181
01:01:54.639 --> 01:01:57.760
nervous about something, I run towards it if it's aligned
1182
01:01:57.780 --> 01:01:59.760
with my long-term life goals.
1183
01:02:00.760 --> 01:02:04.289
You came to us through a mutual friend, Sharon Salzberg,
1184
01:02:04.309 --> 01:02:06.750
who's already come up in this conversation and is a
1185
01:02:06.789 --> 01:02:10.849
great meditation teacher. To what extent does meditation help with
1186
01:02:11.550 --> 01:02:13.679
all of the resets and buffers we've been talking about
1187
01:02:14.300 --> 01:02:15.840
during the course of this conversation?
1188
01:02:16.880 --> 01:02:19.559
It helps so much in a lot of this I
1189
01:02:19.579 --> 01:02:22.159
think a lot of people worry that meditation is going
1190
01:02:22.179 --> 01:02:25.929
to be really time consuming. A lot of the things
1191
01:02:25.969 --> 01:02:28.969
that I try to teach are very accessible. So the
1192
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longest meditation that I prescribe is like the 20 minute
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coherent breathing, but there's also a three minute mindfulness that
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people could do daily. That's part of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
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that is a treatment that's found to be as helpful
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at preventing relapse into depression as antidepressants. And so meditation
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is certainly very helpful. And for people that don't like
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meditation for any reason, there are other ways to be
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more aware in your life. And for people that don't
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like meditation because they see it as a big thing,
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01:02:57.099 --> 01:02:59.619
it can also be something that you can access in
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smaller bites.
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And these 20-minute and three-minute meditations you referenced, are those
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available anywhere or are they just, you describe them in
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the book and people can do them on their own?
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I personally love the Breathe app. We could maybe link
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to it in the show notes because there's a lot
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of Breathe apps. But that is my personal favorite app
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that I lean on for coherent breathing. There's also box
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breathing on there for people that prefer that approach. And
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the three-minute mindfulness people could find on YouTube. And I
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also have it on my website. I like the one
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led by Zindel Siegel, who is one of the developers
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of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Great.
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We'll put links to everything in the show notes. Jenny,
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01:03:39.210 --> 01:03:40.949
is there something I should have asked but failed to ask?
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01:03:41.639 --> 01:03:43.940
I don't think so. I'm so delighted to be here.
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And I want people to walk away with knowing that
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stress can be really stressful, but it's also an opportunity
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to chisel the virtues that we want to embody. And
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a lot of times we think that we need something
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01:03:57.650 --> 01:04:00.030
really big, but like small wheels on a big suitcase,
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01:04:00.289 --> 01:04:03.969
a little can go a long way when everything feels overwhelming. Yes.
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01:04:04.320 --> 01:04:07.199
I mean, I keep referencing Ross Maron because he's says
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something similar to what you're saying, which is he argues
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that anxiety is like a gift, a blessing. And it's
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01:04:13.469 --> 01:04:17.190
similar to what you just said, the stress, anxiety, worry,
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01:04:17.269 --> 01:04:20.210
overthinking that we can look at as an opportunity for growth.
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01:04:20.969 --> 01:04:22.860
Yeah, and stress is the price we pay for a
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01:04:22.880 --> 01:04:25.559
meaningful life. I mean, if we didn't have stress, our
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01:04:25.599 --> 01:04:30.199
lives would be really boring. We'd probably be pretty checked out. Yes.
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01:04:30.659 --> 01:04:34.010
Another Pixar reference, the end of the movie Wall-E, where
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humanity has moved up onto these spaceships where they're all
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01:04:37.250 --> 01:04:40.030
on these little scooters all the time with iPads dangling
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01:04:40.070 --> 01:04:44.159
in front of them and turkey legs and Coke in
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01:04:44.179 --> 01:04:48.639
their hands. And life is stress-free, but pretty boring and
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01:04:48.679 --> 01:04:51.000
numbed out. And so, yes, we should look at stress
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01:04:51.099 --> 01:04:53.099
as proof that we're alive.
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01:04:54.099 --> 01:04:56.699
And the end goal is doing something to improve this
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01:04:56.769 --> 01:04:59.329
moment so you can do bigger things to to build
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01:04:59.349 --> 01:05:00.090
a life you care about.
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01:05:01.670 --> 01:05:04.349
Finally, can you just remind us of the name of
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01:05:04.389 --> 01:05:06.820
your book and any other, we're going to put lots
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01:05:06.860 --> 01:05:08.559
of links in the show notes. So any, anything else
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01:05:08.579 --> 01:05:09.820
you want us to link to in the show notes?
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01:05:09.840 --> 01:05:13.659
Um, my book is called stress resets, how to soothe
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01:05:13.679 --> 01:05:17.480
your body and mind in minutes. And, um, I also
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01:05:17.500 --> 01:05:19.219
wrote a book called how to be single and happy. Um,
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01:05:20.639 --> 01:05:24.800
and you can find me on drjennytates.com. Awesome.
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01:05:25.659 --> 01:05:27.599
Thank you for doing this. Appreciate it. Very helpful. I'm
1251
01:05:27.619 --> 01:05:29.099
going to go put my face in a bucket of
1252
01:05:29.159 --> 01:05:29.610
ice right now.
1253
01:05:29.969 --> 01:05:31.570
Thank you, Dan. It was such a treat to meet you,
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01:05:31.650 --> 01:05:33.289
and I'm really grateful for the work you do.
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01:05:35.889 --> 01:05:39.190
Thanks again to Dr. Jenny Tates. We have talked a
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01:05:39.250 --> 01:05:42.429
lot on this show about stress and anxiety, including some
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conversations that I mentioned in the course of the conversation
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01:05:45.659 --> 01:05:49.820
you just heard, including episodes with Dr. David Ross-Marin and
1259
01:05:50.139 --> 01:05:52.780
the actor and writer and director Zach Braff. I put
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01:05:52.800 --> 01:05:54.280
some links in the show notes if you want to
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01:05:54.320 --> 01:05:57.610
go check those out. 10% Happier is produced by Lauren Smith,
1262
01:05:57.739 --> 01:06:00.840
Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine Davey, and Tara Anderson. DJ Kashmir is
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01:06:00.880 --> 01:06:04.099
our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior editor. Kevin
1264
01:06:04.139 --> 01:06:07.219
O'Connell is our director of audio and post-production. And Kimmy
1265
01:06:07.280 --> 01:06:10.579
Regler is our executive producer. Alicia Mackey leads our marketing.
1266
01:06:10.639 --> 01:06:14.349
And Tony Magyar is our director of podcasts. Nick Thorburn
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01:06:14.369 --> 01:06:15.429
of Islands wrote our themes.