Speaker 1: I get a turnacy you project. Doctor Jody's back in
Speaker 1: the house. Bloody hell. I get so excited when she comes.
Speaker 1: I can't sleep the night before, tossing and turning, throwing
Speaker 1: the doner all over the joint. I was up at
Speaker 1: three pacing just trying to get all my questions ready,
Speaker 1: trying to clear my mind, trying to be focused, thinking, Fuck,
Speaker 1: how can I harness the brain power that is doctor Jody,
Speaker 1: or as I call her, Joctor Dody. And I'm so
Speaker 1: excited she's here. Hi, Doc, how are you hey?
Speaker 2: Hello? High Harves, Hi Tiv. I'm excited to be here too.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love chatting with you guys.
Speaker 1: Well, we love it when you come along, Tiffany and Cook.
Speaker 1: Of course, the backbone, the fucking blood that throws flows
Speaker 1: through the how's my words going this morning? Not that good?
Speaker 1: The blood that flows through the typ veins? High Cookie,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: Some?
Speaker 2: Very good?
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I just put my teeth back in and soldier on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I do. Fuck it, there's no do overs here,
Speaker 1: there's none of that. Well, I'm looking out the window.
Speaker 1: It's nine point forty four on Wednesday morning. On twenty
Speaker 1: sixth in November and it's pouring in Melbourne. It's like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I may have to build myself an
Speaker 1: arc out of the bamboo in my yard at some
Speaker 1: stage if it continues that it's current, right, that bitch
Speaker 1: is torrential. Is it raining where you are? Tip?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just started. When we hopped on the podcast,
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh my god, what's happening.
Speaker 2: It's very loud at my hair.
Speaker 3: I have a loud roof when it rains.
Speaker 1: What about in your penthouse in Tuac, doctor Jody? Is
Speaker 1: it raining there?
Speaker 2: I wish? Yeah, it's raining. It is raining here. It
Speaker 2: sure is.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I bet everyone's just fucking enthralled with this conversation. Wow,
Speaker 1: this is why I tuned in.
Speaker 2: Can I say I want to I want to say
Speaker 2: something that I was reading something not so long ago,
Speaker 2: because you know how when people you sort of talk
Speaker 2: to people and they might say, how's the weather or
Speaker 2: it's been you know, it's a good days, isn't it,
Speaker 2: And that a lot of people will kind of like
Speaker 2: feel like, oh no, not the weather conversation, but that
Speaker 2: it's a it's a bid for connection that when when
Speaker 2: somebody kind of like says that they're not quite sure
Speaker 2: what else to say, and they're trying to connect with you,
Speaker 2: And so now I lean into these conversations about the weather.
Speaker 2: If someone raises that when they're chatting to me, I'm like, yes,
Speaker 2: I know, like and I'll just dive right in and
Speaker 2: then usually the conversation moves away reasonably quickly. But I
Speaker 2: thought it was a nice way to think about it.
Speaker 1: It's a nice little eyes breaker. It's a nice little
Speaker 1: kind of opening of the conversational door, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And look what we've done today. We've done it.
Speaker 2: We've done it ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the four people that are still listening are
Speaker 1: fucking just deriveted. So I want to we haven't actually
Speaker 1: done this for a while. I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about anxiety. And I know we've in the past,
Speaker 1: we've had quite a few chats, but I feel like
Speaker 1: it's probably been the best part of a year where
Speaker 1: we've had we've done an episode on this. And the
Speaker 1: reason for this is we yesterday did a gig in
Speaker 1: the city with Aria, the Aria Group, and I spoke
Speaker 1: to two people come up and came up and spoke
Speaker 1: to me afterwards, one specifically about mental health, including anxiety,
Speaker 1: another one about depression and anxiety. Really good conversations and
Speaker 1: really good questions, and it seems to be there's been
Speaker 1: just without opening the door too wide, there's just been
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff going on Planet Craig and a
Speaker 1: lot of people's planets lately. But the intersecting of my
Speaker 1: life with many other lives that are going through some
Speaker 1: really hard shit, and in the middle of all of that,
Speaker 1: obviously is overwhelm and you know that cognitive overload and
Speaker 1: anxiety and just that what can be that internal mayhem?
Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask you a few things about
Speaker 1: this and just to maybe get a little bit of
Speaker 1: clarity around around because I feel like, firstly about how
Speaker 1: to navigate anxiety, but I think like anxiety is not
Speaker 1: the same experience for everybody. Am I right? So it's
Speaker 1: probably in the same postcode, But what I interpret as
Speaker 1: anxiety might be a different psychological, emotional, and physiological experience
Speaker 1: to what somebody else interprets. Am I correct?
Speaker 2: Look, it's like, well, when I say something's red and
Speaker 2: you say something's red, are we both saying the same
Speaker 2: thing when it comes to the experience of anxiety? It,
Speaker 2: I mean we know it's an emotion, and we know
Speaker 2: that for it to be anxiety, it has to tick
Speaker 2: certain boxes. But our experience of anxiety can be very,
Speaker 2: very different. Like one person can just be out of
Speaker 2: their head with worry and rumination and just spiraling and
Speaker 2: spinning and can't focus, can't concentrate. Somebody else might just
Speaker 2: feel sick to the stomach and you know, just or
Speaker 2: it could be tension, headaches, the symptoms are so there
Speaker 2: are so many symptoms that your experience, my experience, to
Speaker 2: his experience, listeners experience can be different. But for it
Speaker 2: to be anxiety and not something else, you know, it
Speaker 2: has to tick certain boxes. Like there's activation of the
Speaker 2: stress response, there's you know, the fight or flight response
Speaker 2: is activated, and it's because of the anticipation of a threat,
Speaker 2: not that you're facing a threat in that very moment.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, so that's a there, there you go.
Speaker 2: That's my answer to the question. Hope that clear.
Speaker 1: I would I don't want to be I don't want
Speaker 1: to be contentious, but fuck it, live on the edge, jumbo,
Speaker 1: come on, be all you can be grasshopper, jump out
Speaker 1: of the nest and fly your little fat fuck all right,
Speaker 1: So I feel like anxiety is not an emotion. I
Speaker 1: feel like anxiety is a response to emotion.
Speaker 2: Really, it is an emotion. Anxiety is an emotion.
Speaker 1: Why is it an emotion because we feel isn't isn't anxiety?
Speaker 1: But isn't that a physiological response anxiety to to, Like,
Speaker 1: fear is an emotion, and might anxiety be the physiological
Speaker 1: response to that emotion?
Speaker 2: Well, tell me about fear. Is if fear is an emotion,
Speaker 2: what happens when we're fearful?
Speaker 1: Then it creates an anxiety response.
Speaker 2: Well okay, so but when if you're fearful, what are
Speaker 2: you feeling?
Speaker 1: Well, you're scared of something. But that's the emotional state.
Speaker 1: But I feel like anxiety is the physical part of
Speaker 1: the emotion.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just done. Yeah. So with anxiety, there are
Speaker 2: multiple parts to it. There's the physiological arousal we know
Speaker 2: about that. There are all the sensations that come with that,
Speaker 2: the you know, the numbness, tingling, dizziness, feeling sick, headaches, worry,
Speaker 2: all that. Then we've got the behaviors that can come
Speaker 2: with that, which is avoidance. We've got the emotions that
Speaker 2: accompany it, like the big feelings that come with it,
Speaker 2: which is tyrannous, aggression, maybe agitation, irritability, that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and then there's all the thinking that comes with it
Speaker 2: as well. But anxiety, I take your point. I take
Speaker 2: your point because it's like the weather, it's got lots
Speaker 2: of things that contribute to it. Anxiety is the same,
Speaker 2: but it is considered an emotion. It is a feeling.
Speaker 2: We feel anxious, but there's a lot of there's a
Speaker 2: lot of other things that are going on at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 1: You don't buy it, nah, I don't think it's an emotion, Chatters,
Speaker 1: I feel like yes and no. So I asked Chatters
Speaker 1: before we came on as well, just to see, and
Speaker 1: then I looked up the dictionary and it says anxiety
Speaker 1: as your body's threat alarm, going off when sometimes there's
Speaker 1: no real threat. Like to me, that's talking about your physiology.
Speaker 1: But I think the answer is it's both. I think
Speaker 1: it's I think can read what's in front of you.
Speaker 3: Tip short answer, yes, So I said, is anxiety and emotion?
Speaker 3: Short answer yes, but also no. Anxiety is an emotion,
Speaker 3: but it's also a physiological alarm system that likes to
Speaker 3: go off even when there's no fire. Think of it
Speaker 3: as fears, caffeine addicted, cousin, jittery, over prepared, and always
Speaker 3: convinced something is something ominous is lurking just off stage.
Speaker 1: Our best outcome ever, we're both right, which is really
Speaker 1: good because we've both got fucking heaps of issues.
Speaker 2: Well done, team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Jodie, do you think that, Like, I know
Speaker 1: that a big part of your philosophy, which I agree with, thankfully,
Speaker 1: is being able to coexist with our insecurity without anxiety,
Speaker 1: knowing that it's probably for a lot of us, we're
Speaker 1: probably never going to have a life with zero anxiety,
Speaker 1: myself included. Should should that be our primary goal to
Speaker 1: learn to live with it? Or should we try to
Speaker 1: turn down the volume of it? Like is there any
Speaker 1: is there any thinking around overcoming it? Or commentering?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look absolutely and yes yes is the answer to
Speaker 2: all of those questions that learning to live with it is,
Speaker 2: I'll start there, is that when we fight with anxiety,
Speaker 2: it's really important to know this. When you fight with it,
Speaker 2: you struggle with it. You do everything you can not
Speaker 2: to feel it, not to experience it. You make it worse,
Speaker 2: you make it worse, but you know it is. It's
Speaker 2: pretty like this is a simple idea but not easy
Speaker 2: to do. A bit like meditation is that when you
Speaker 2: turn and face it and you welcome it as if
Speaker 2: you wanted it now, people will be going, oh, you're joking.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know, I'm not saying that if
Speaker 2: we could click our fingers and wave a wand we
Speaker 2: wouldn't rid ourselves of it, although it's very protective and
Speaker 2: it serves us well in lots of ways. But if
Speaker 2: we can see it for what it is and have
Speaker 2: this understanding that it's like this alarm in our brain
Speaker 2: that's going off, you know, when there's there's no reason
Speaker 2: to be, you know, concern for our safety. It's just
Speaker 2: a trigger happy kind of system that we can we
Speaker 2: can train to respond differently. We absolutely can. So can
Speaker 2: we dial it down? Yes, something that people can overcome. Yes,
Speaker 2: it is treatable. And you know, some people might have
Speaker 2: anxiety at a stage in their lives and really experience
Speaker 2: anxiety that's debilitating. Everybody experiences normal anxiety, but with you know,
Speaker 2: depending on the type of therapeutic approach that they you know,
Speaker 2: that they take on or that they follow, you can
Speaker 2: move through it, move past it, and then it's no
Speaker 2: longer a significant kind of challenge. That said, there are
Speaker 2: people like my mum who has done everything you could
Speaker 2: possibly do, and it's just anxiety is just always going
Speaker 2: to be a significant part of her life, but one
Speaker 2: that I work with her to support her to make
Speaker 2: sure it doesn't. It's not sort of like a big
Speaker 2: stop sign that stops you from living. So yeah, like.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you know, with some things like if
Speaker 1: you've got a nut allergy one. Now, I'm no specialist
Speaker 1: in this space. Probably surprised that I'm not a specialist
Speaker 1: in this but you know how sometimes they'll give you
Speaker 1: like a fucking a gram a microgram of a nut,
Speaker 1: and then they'll give you two micrograms of a nut,
Speaker 1: and then over time they build you up to now
Speaker 1: where your body is adapted and it can eat nuts.
Speaker 1: So the thing that used to create a really bad
Speaker 1: physiological outcome, now it doesn't right because your body is adapted.
Speaker 1: And you know, like and I guess another one is
Speaker 1: with like a rachnophobia, people who are scared of spiders.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they do, not everybody, but
Speaker 1: one of the approaches is like to start people by
Speaker 1: looking at a photo of a tiny, little, teeny fucking
Speaker 1: spider a photo and they do it from ten feet away,
Speaker 1: and then they do it from five feet away, and
Speaker 1: then they hold the photo and then eventually, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Then eventually they've got a fucking you know,
Speaker 1: a tarantula or on their face and they're loving it,
Speaker 1: you know. So, so that response has been reprogrammed over time.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if, like, if we identify the thing that
Speaker 1: causes anxiety or triggers anxiety, do you think there's a
Speaker 1: Is it feasible that we put ourselves through a form
Speaker 1: of exposure therapy and go, what's the thing that gives
Speaker 1: me anxiety or scares me and just doing a form
Speaker 1: of what I just described with the peanuts and the like.
Speaker 1: Is that possible where you go, well, this scares the
Speaker 1: shit out of me, but I'm just going to put
Speaker 1: my little toe in the water and then jump back.
Speaker 1: Is that a thing?
Speaker 2: It is a thing, But you've got to be really
Speaker 2: motivated to want to do that. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: people would say, well, I'm scared of spiders. I don't
Speaker 2: cared to be anything else. I mean, again, wave the
Speaker 2: one yes, But do I want to put myself through that,
Speaker 2: and you've got to ask yourself, like what's motivating you
Speaker 2: and what's moving you so that you could make that
Speaker 2: commitment to doing it despite the anxiety that you're going
Speaker 2: to experience. But one hundred percent I did it with
Speaker 2: my podcast. I was so I was just so overwhelmed
Speaker 2: with anxiety and every bone in my body said, don't
Speaker 2: do it. But I really wanted to because I really
Speaker 2: wanted to help in COVID, help people, you know, support
Speaker 2: them and you know, be there and do something and
Speaker 2: give back in a way that I thought would be helpful.
Speaker 2: So I was really motivated, and so I did that first.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of procrastinating, but I did that
Speaker 2: first episode and then I did the second one. When
Speaker 2: I was first a guest for you, I was so anxious,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, And now I'm excited. I look forward
Speaker 2: to it because you learn through the exposure and look, obviously,
Speaker 2: being on a podcast like this, there's no dipping the
Speaker 2: toe in is there. It's like it's all in. It's
Speaker 2: like you're having a food combo or you're not doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you can do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I mean that's the beauty though. Like, imagine
Speaker 1: if every guest that I have on like you and
Speaker 1: I are friends. I love you, I think you're amazing,
Speaker 1: You're great at what you do, which is why gratefully,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that you keep coming back. But if
Speaker 1: every time you have any opinion, I go, I agree, Well,
Speaker 1: then we're not having a real conversation. Yeah right. It's
Speaker 1: like you go X, I go, maybe Jody, but maybe
Speaker 1: why and you go, well, maybe harps, but maybe fucking not.
Speaker 1: And I go, all right, well, let's let's unpack that.
Speaker 1: I mean this for me, this is the point. Part
Speaker 1: of the point of podcasting, especially what we do, is
Speaker 1: to have an actual conversation that could even be a
Speaker 1: bit fucking lumpy and bumpy, Like we're not trying to
Speaker 1: produce a Disney podcast where you know, we all live
Speaker 1: happily ever after. We're actually trying to do some digging
Speaker 1: and figure out what's fucking going on. And there's no
Speaker 1: necessity for you and I to agree on everything. But
Speaker 1: what is interesting is when we did unpack the is
Speaker 1: it an emotion? Is it not an emotion? You go, oh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of both, And it's like that's a good
Speaker 1: question to ask, But like for me, one of the
Speaker 1: things is I think, because I feel like when we
Speaker 1: go so, you're probably going to have anxiety forever, or
Speaker 1: a form of anxiety forever, which I think for most
Speaker 1: people is true. I think there's always going to be
Speaker 1: something to be anxious about. And also this is purely anecdotal,
Speaker 1: but my experience is for many people as they get
Speaker 1: older and I mean older older, like posts seventy seventy
Speaker 1: five eighty, anxiety can really start to ramp up. God
Speaker 1: bless my mum, but my mum could. If there's nothing
Speaker 1: to worry about, Mary will find twelve things right, and
Speaker 1: you just I understand that. But I think like realizing
Speaker 1: that I'm always going to have fear, and I'm always
Speaker 1: going to have some fear of something and some anxiety
Speaker 1: about something, and I'm probably always going to self sabotage
Speaker 1: a bit, and I'm probably always going to overthink a bit,
Speaker 1: and probably there will be that will be a component
Speaker 1: of the Craig experience forever. But having said that, I
Speaker 1: don't want that to get in the way of my possibilities.
Speaker 1: I don't want that to be the force or the
Speaker 1: influence that controls my choices and my behaviors like I
Speaker 1: want to be brave anyway, I want to be adventurous anyway,
Speaker 1: I want to get uncomfortable anyway. And I feel like
Speaker 1: this exposure therapy of doing the thing that scares me
Speaker 1: in an intelligent, strategic way, not a reckless way. Well,
Speaker 1: what's scared you, Craig? That might be worth opening the
Speaker 1: door on. And for you it was like, well, Jody,
Speaker 1: are you scared of Like, is there fear around doing
Speaker 1: your first podcast? Yes? And so why Well, that's because
Speaker 1: your desire to do a podcast and help people and
Speaker 1: probably you know, build skill and understanding in this space
Speaker 1: called podcasting, and that probably overrode the fear. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you weren't scared. It just means you were courageous and scared.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I had a guest once who was talking
Speaker 2: about a parent that had the like a two kilometer
Speaker 2: radius from their house. They kind of didn't that was
Speaker 2: kind of like this imaginary line they couldn't go past.
Speaker 2: And my guest said to this patient of theirs, but
Speaker 2: what if one of your kids was in trouble and
Speaker 2: they were two and a half kilometers from home? What
Speaker 2: would you do? And the dad was like I would
Speaker 2: be straight there in a beeline in a heartbeat. And
Speaker 2: it's so it's kind of like, well, how how important
Speaker 2: is it? And you know, if somebody's got a fear
Speaker 2: of a fear of dogs, it's pretty it's you know,
Speaker 2: like dogs are everywhere, like you know, you you might
Speaker 2: not want to overcome it, but it probably would be
Speaker 2: a really helpful thing to do. If someone's got a
Speaker 2: fear of chickens, you can probably go through life not
Speaker 2: really being exposed to chickens.
Speaker 1: Chickens chicken so random, it's a thing.
Speaker 2: I know someone who is really frightened when they come
Speaker 2: around here, and our chickens have to be in the pen.
Speaker 2: So there's there's some things that you're.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, tell you what, who needs to be frightened
Speaker 1: when I come around the fucking chickens because I love chicken.
Speaker 1: Those chickens better when I come over, those little motherfuckers
Speaker 1: better hide.
Speaker 2: I'll let them know. I'll let them know. But yeah,
Speaker 2: but then, but you know, it's about what is important
Speaker 2: to you and you only only we can work that out,
Speaker 2: and and yeah, you're right, you're right. Helps we can
Speaker 2: do it for ourselves. Some people do this with the
Speaker 2: support of a psychologist somebody to sort of support them
Speaker 2: and guide them and you know, help them kind of
Speaker 2: take those steps forward.
Speaker 1: Do you think that, And again, this is just an
Speaker 1: opinion everyone, This is not data or evidence or research.
Speaker 1: But do you think that for some people, doing stuff
Speaker 1: is a better way of overcoming anxiety than talking about
Speaker 1: stuff without a.
Speaker 2: Doubt because you've got to get the experience of it.
Speaker 2: You've got to teach your brain that this is safe.
Speaker 2: And so that's only through experience you can know. You
Speaker 2: can absolutely know that if there's a spider on the
Speaker 2: opposite side of the room to you, that you are
Speaker 2: not in danger of being bitten by that spider one.
Speaker 2: But it's only but you can know. We can know
Speaker 2: something intellectually, but it's the experience of it that we
Speaker 2: need to teach our brain that hate isn't dangerous. And
Speaker 2: that's why all the things that we've all done that
Speaker 2: have been terrifying, like speaking on stage, we all stand
Speaker 2: in front of hundreds of people with a microphone in
Speaker 2: our hands. Yeah, experience teaches you that it's a safe
Speaker 2: place and so yeah, you have to do it.
Speaker 1: And how often is that true in all areas of life?
Speaker 1: Where it's you might know all the theory of how
Speaker 1: to create an outcome. You know, you might you might
Speaker 1: own a gym, you might be an exercise physiologist. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about myself. You might. You might know how to eat,
Speaker 1: how to train, how to lift, how to recover, how
Speaker 1: to sleep, how to optimize your own genetics. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're eating shit when no one's looking right,
Speaker 1: and you're telling people essentially lies because you're teaching them
Speaker 1: to do the things that you're not doing. I mean
Speaker 1: that was literally part of my story for a while,
Speaker 1: where I was a guy who owned a gym, and
Speaker 1: I was one hundred and seventeen k so like right
Speaker 1: now this morning, well I haven't weighed myself, but I'm
Speaker 1: give to take eighty kilos. So I was essentially a
Speaker 1: fat guy who owned a gym who was telling people
Speaker 1: to do shit I wasn't doing. I understood the theory,
Speaker 1: I knew what to do, I knew why to do it,
Speaker 1: I knew how it worked. I just wasn't fucking doing it.
Speaker 1: Or a range of you know, a range of reasons
Speaker 1: that we could but we won't go into on this show.
Speaker 1: But it's only when you start to operationalize or put
Speaker 1: into practice the things that you know that work, where
Speaker 1: you own up and step up. You know, in my
Speaker 1: case where I went, yeah, I'm full of shit everyone,
Speaker 1: I've got a fucking food issue, and so I'm going
Speaker 1: to do better. You know, it's like, and it might
Speaker 1: be you know not that's not an anxiety thing, but
Speaker 1: it's still a mental hurdle that I needed to navigate.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, when I started to
Speaker 1: literally do different things. You know, when you it's like
Speaker 1: when you started to do the podcast right now you're
Speaker 1: a million podcasts in your fear response has gone, your
Speaker 1: anxiety responses, sorry, your excitement responses taken over. You know,
Speaker 1: you're the same person with the same potential, but now
Speaker 1: you're having a different experience doing the same thing because
Speaker 1: you were brave.
Speaker 2: And that and that's that's a part of it. Like there,
Speaker 2: courage is a really big part of it, because it's
Speaker 2: it's not the easy road, is it. It's not the
Speaker 2: easy road to do something new, or meet new people
Speaker 2: or try a new skill or it's it's not easy,
Speaker 2: and so that's why you've got to really want it.
Speaker 2: You know, when somebody else is trying to tell somebody
Speaker 2: to do something, because I think it would be a
Speaker 2: good idea. If we're doing something because someone else wants
Speaker 2: us to, you know, we it, it tends not to
Speaker 2: work out so well, it's got to come from us.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I wanted to mention
Speaker 2: was that VR virtual reality can be used to help
Speaker 2: people in the these challenges of overcoming fears like of
Speaker 2: heights or flying and things like that, and just speaking
Speaker 2: to the point of we can know something intellectually, but
Speaker 2: the experience is different. Like if you've ever put on
Speaker 2: VR goggles and tried to tell yourself, I know I'm
Speaker 2: standing on the floor, but you really feel like you're
Speaker 2: standing on the edge of a fifteenth story building. Your
Speaker 2: body responds to the fact that it believes you're at
Speaker 2: that height, so it's yeah, it's really it's really interesting
Speaker 2: that VR can A lot of psychologists are using VR
Speaker 2: to help people move through and overcome challenges, to help
Speaker 2: them live a better life, a richer life, you know,
Speaker 2: and do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's back to that. You're exactly right,
Speaker 1: and it's like your brain doesn't know the difference between
Speaker 1: perception and reality and pursuant to that where I'm just
Speaker 1: stumbling towards finish line and my PhD, which is Monash University.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Monash thanks for putting up with me.
Speaker 1: I don't know you do, but fuck I love you. Specifically,
Speaker 1: Brain Park, which is the neuroscience Psychology, Neuropsychology neuroscience Lab,
Speaker 1: they've been doing lots of research using VR with people
Speaker 1: who are problem gamblers or have gambling issues, addictive issues
Speaker 1: around gambling. And yeah, so they put them in a casino.
Speaker 1: So they put on these VR goggles and they go
Speaker 1: into a casino with money or a gambling environment, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they use that and it's yeah because and people know,
Speaker 1: but within a short period of time they get for
Speaker 1: one of a better term. They get lost in the
Speaker 1: experience and all the normal things that happen in their
Speaker 1: brain when they actually gamble now start to happen when
Speaker 1: they're in this simulation, and that, Yeah, it's amazing that
Speaker 1: we can that we can create really experiences, you know, subjective,
Speaker 1: real experiences when objectively there's nothing going on exactly, No,
Speaker 1: you're actually not spending any money, you're not actually in
Speaker 1: a casino. There are no cards, there is no rulette,
Speaker 1: there is no poker there is you know, there's no
Speaker 1: there's no sticky carpets and no beers, like, no, you're
Speaker 1: actually in a lab with glasses or with these complicated,
Speaker 1: complex expensive you know, headset on your face. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's the same with to an extent
Speaker 1: meditation and visualization and of course dreaming is that you know,
Speaker 1: when we're in you know, when you're in a dream
Speaker 1: and you're you're in it's in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night and you are in that dream or your emotional
Speaker 1: system and your nervous system and everything's in the dream
Speaker 1: with you. So as an experience for the sleeper, it's real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're not in the middle of a dream. Generally,
Speaker 1: I think when people go, oh, I know and I'm
Speaker 1: in the middle of a dream, or you're not really dreaming,
Speaker 1: because when you're fucking down the rabbit hole in a dream,
Speaker 1: there's no thought, oh, this is a dream. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: this is real. I am actually being chased down a
Speaker 1: dark alley by bad people with you know, with bad intentions.
Speaker 1: You know. So yeahest interesting to see what happens with that.
Speaker 1: Moving forward with the treatment of fears and phobias, and
Speaker 1: that that ar VR kind of virtual world stuff.
Speaker 2: And you're right to sort of point that out because
Speaker 2: with anxiety, there's there's I mean, there's social anxiety, separation anxiety,
Speaker 2: there's fears and phobias and generalized anxiety and so yeah,
Speaker 2: but if yeah, there's really good treatments and there's really
Speaker 2: good support. You know, anxiety is treatable and so yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's yeah, but the VR, like I I felt
Speaker 2: sick when I tried it because we had one that
Speaker 2: a friend brought around. It was a role coaster and
Speaker 2: it was hilarious to watch people with it on. But yeah,
Speaker 2: past for me. Thanks.
Speaker 1: What are the I don't know if you know this
Speaker 1: off the top of your head. I don't know in
Speaker 1: terms of the research, but your research, so the doctor
Speaker 1: Jodi University, Lad, what are the top three things that
Speaker 1: seem to be common denominators or sources of anxiety for people? Like?
Speaker 1: What what is the common like what makes the majority
Speaker 1: of people anxious? Is there one single thing? Like is
Speaker 1: it being hurt it's like being physically hurt or in
Speaker 1: that is that number one? Or is it being isolated
Speaker 1: and loved unloved and you know, disconnected from emotional support
Speaker 1: or what is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can it can be all of those things.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of contributors to anxiety and when
Speaker 2: when you know, when we're so different in the way
Speaker 2: we experience it, but we're so different because of why
Speaker 2: we experience it. And so you know, if you if
Speaker 2: you grew up, for example, in a household where there
Speaker 2: was maybe a parent with a substance abuse problem and
Speaker 2: you just kind of had to make sure that you
Speaker 2: tiptoed around, walk on each shells and not kind of
Speaker 2: you know, cause any sorts of reactions, then you become
Speaker 2: hyper vigilant. You become very very aware of the potential
Speaker 2: threat that could be being screened at, or being kicked outside,
Speaker 2: or being hurt. And so our experiences can absolutely shape
Speaker 2: how anxiety sort of shows up for us. And why
Speaker 2: there's a genetic component as well. Thirty five to fifty
Speaker 2: percent of anxiety, you know, is genetic, and so that
Speaker 2: that's certainly a consideration. And temperament as well. You know,
Speaker 2: little kiddos who are quite shy, like you can there's
Speaker 2: a I can't remember it, halts. I used to know
Speaker 2: there was two things about temperament for young children, like
Speaker 2: KINDI age that would be possibly an indicator that anxiety
Speaker 2: could be you know, a challenge for them. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: there's there's lots of things that you know, like even
Speaker 2: just gosh, watching the news, because you know, we can
Speaker 2: watch the news and as adults we might we will
Speaker 2: know that there is a war and it's a long
Speaker 2: way away for a young person who sees that. Like
Speaker 2: I know of a student in grade six who had
Speaker 2: such severe anxiety. Every time there was a thunder, rumble
Speaker 2: or a plane that she heard, she thought it was
Speaker 2: a bomb being dropped because she didn't understand the distance
Speaker 2: that the war was away from where she lived. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's so many contributors.
Speaker 1: I reckon this is Craig Harper theory. Let me run
Speaker 1: this by you and tell me what you think. So
Speaker 1: I think there's people are scared of unknown, uncertain uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and unfamiliar. I feel like I call it all the uns.
Speaker 1: I go, it's all the uns. It's the uncertainty, it's
Speaker 1: the unknown, it's the uncomfortable, it's the unfamiliar. We like certainty,
Speaker 1: we like predictability, we like comfort, we like familiarity, we
Speaker 1: like knowing what's coming next, and it's in that space
Speaker 1: of fuck, I don't know what's coming next, and I
Speaker 1: can't control what's coming next. Well I might put that
Speaker 1: on my list uncontrolled. Yeah, good one, harps, good work.
Speaker 1: You can weave that into something. But do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? It's like? Is that what like in
Speaker 1: the absence of certainty and predictability and familiarity, which is
Speaker 1: where most of us are anxious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. It's it's I don't know
Speaker 2: what's coming and because of that, I I don't know
Speaker 2: whether or not it's safe. And that could be you know,
Speaker 2: obviously going going to you know, we get anxious about
Speaker 2: the things that we care about as well. Like you
Speaker 2: you're doing a speech at a friend's wedding, you're going
Speaker 2: to be anxious because you know, you've got uncertainty. But
Speaker 2: you've planned and you've got your script and you know
Speaker 2: what you want to say and you're in a trusted space.
Speaker 2: But you know, so, Yes, uncertainty is a huge contributor
Speaker 2: and that's that. But intellectually we can we can know
Speaker 2: that the lay of the land is safe and that
Speaker 2: we can mostly predict what will happen. Some people have
Speaker 2: you know, the amigdala in their brain is just much more.
Speaker 2: It's bigger and more sensitive to threat. And that can
Speaker 2: be because of all of the things I mentioned before.
Speaker 2: And in that case, yes, uncertainty will be like a
Speaker 2: trigger for it because you don't know what's coming. The
Speaker 2: brain's might be dangerous, and then the brain will say,
Speaker 2: let's not do it, and that conspiral.
Speaker 1: I put up a post the other day which was
Speaker 1: comparing an academic and a regular human talking about this,
Speaker 1: and the academic said something like, my migdala just hijacked
Speaker 1: my prefrontal cortex, right, And the bloke said, I can't
Speaker 1: fucking think when I'm emotional, right, yeah, right, And it's true.
Speaker 1: It's like when we are emotional, like our cognitive capacity
Speaker 1: diminishes drastically. It's like, and so that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges I know. You know Paul Taylor with his
Speaker 1: research on hardiness. I think his book's called The Hardiness Effect,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're talking about and it's in the
Speaker 1: wheelhouse of resilience and mental toughness and they all kind
Speaker 1: of intersect and relate. But yeah, being able to you know,
Speaker 1: because life is pressure, life is beautiful and amazing. But
Speaker 1: also there are times where life is pressure, life is uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: life is fucking unfair. Just take a look, turn on
Speaker 1: the news, just travel to another country. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: life's not fair. Life's just life. And so our capacity
Speaker 1: to be able to deal with, you know, hard things
Speaker 1: kind of plays a big influence or plays a big
Speaker 1: role in the quality of our life. Because if if
Speaker 1: our default setting is everything needs to be comfortable, I
Speaker 1: can good luck trying to have any quality of life, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and it just creates more problems.
Speaker 1: I remember also specific to your you know, when you
Speaker 1: get up on a stage and speak and you start,
Speaker 1: you're nervous. Then six months later you're less nervous and
Speaker 1: all that. So last year when I did my final
Speaker 1: what's called academic review for my research, so as you know,
Speaker 1: because you did it, but and as you know, because
Speaker 1: you're on panel, right, you like, the day before or
Speaker 1: two days before, I did a gig with five hundred people,
Speaker 1: and my emotional state going in was just excitement and
Speaker 1: I had to talk to five hundred people, had to
Speaker 1: talk for an hour without you know, an hour, no gaps,
Speaker 1: no fuck ups, you know, tell stories, be funny, be engaging,
Speaker 1: share great insights, build rapport, read the room, do all
Speaker 1: of that shit that you do, like be funny, you know,
Speaker 1: don't be a dickhead and leave them wanting more. So
Speaker 1: when you go, they all go, fuck, that was great.
Speaker 1: I wish we could hear him again or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: and great experience. And then and then a couple of
Speaker 1: days later, you and all the professors and boffins from Monash,
Speaker 1: you know, we're in my final review and so there's
Speaker 1: I don't know what there is a total of six people.
Speaker 1: And I was so fucking terrified. Yeah, I was so nervous.
Speaker 1: I was so fucking inarticulate, and I'm like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is me talking to people yet in this context,
Speaker 1: I'm fucking terrified.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like two days before, five hundred people for an hour
Speaker 1: anxiety zero. Yeah, this day I think I had my
Speaker 1: presentation was twenty minutes, you know, six people or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was four or five anxiety thirteen out of ten.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh wow, oh wow. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just where, oh well, why is that, well, Craig,
Speaker 1: because you don't think you're very good at this, and
Speaker 1: by the way, you're compared to the other thing. You're
Speaker 1: not very good at this, and you're like in this room.
Speaker 1: You know, you go to some rooms you're the smart one.
Speaker 1: You go to some rooms you're a fucking idiot.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: In some rooms I go, I'm in fucking great shape.
Speaker 1: In other rooms, I'm just the old, skinny dude in
Speaker 1: the corner. It's embarrassed.
Speaker 2: It's actually got thing to be in the room with
Speaker 2: people smarter than us. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But that's the room I want to be in. That's
Speaker 1: the room we should all want to be in, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, or at least sometimes be in that room probably,
Speaker 1: you know, if your self esteems you know, like just
Speaker 1: go to the room of dummies for ten minutes and
Speaker 1: just pop up, you know, go to the fuck we room.
Speaker 1: And then what if you go to the fuck we
Speaker 1: room and you're the dumbest.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're not feeling too good about yourself.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, It's always good to chat with you, doctor Jodie.
Speaker 1: Tell people how to you know, do all the stuff,
Speaker 1: find you, follow you, connect with you your cards, your
Speaker 1: new brilliant cards, tell them about them, tell them about
Speaker 1: your books. And of course your podcast is called well Hello, anxiety,
Speaker 1: which you partner with light FM or the Light? Do
Speaker 1: we call it the light now?
Speaker 2: Ah? Yeah, yeah, it is the.
Speaker 1: Light eighty nine nine point nine the Light.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. I love chatting with you guys, honestly.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Look, yes, the cards, the cards seventy card deck, the
Speaker 2: anxiety toolkits designed for parents, but so many psychology practices
Speaker 2: and educators, school counselors are loving it. So it's yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm really really proud of that. So you can just
Speaker 2: jump on my website and follow me on socials at
Speaker 2: Dr Jodi Richardson dot com Jody with an Eye.
Speaker 1: And where can they get your books or where can
Speaker 1: they learn about your books?
Speaker 2: Everything's on everything's on the website.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, could work. And Tiff, when's your book coming out? Tiff?
Speaker 1: Is that well underway?
Speaker 2: Twenty thirty two, twenty seventy two.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. That's going to be biblical, that's
Speaker 1: going to be wow. Wow. Just stand back world wait
Speaker 1: for that. I wonder I wonder if in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two there'll be paper in the world. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there'll be I wonder if they'll be physical. What do
Speaker 1: I say?
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: That's been good, twenty thirty two. I wonder if there'll
Speaker 1: be physical books, so I wonder if everything will be virtual.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there'll be money. Do you think there'll
Speaker 1: be dollars? Do you think there'll be physical money.
Speaker 3: I'm the last man standing that's still circulating cash, try,
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to keep it in the economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, Jodi tiv thank you, Thanks audience, Thanks groovers,
Speaker 1: thank you guys.