WEBVTT - Best of 2024- Reclaim Yourself w/ Emma Seppala 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.960 I think in our society we're given a lot of 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.000 things to do instead of feel. You know, a lot 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.360 of things to consume instead of feel, and yet that's 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:15.160 how we stay bound and addicted and unhappy. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.600 On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I chat with 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:28.880 Emma Sepola about reclaiming yourself and setting yourself free. Sounds good, right. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.840 I've known Emma since grad school and she consistently puts 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.400 out good vibes and teaches us how to have healthy 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.320 bodies and minds. In this episode, we discussed what Emma 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.239 refers to as sovereign, which is designed to emancipate you 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.440 from the many ways in which you knowingly or unknowingly 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.240 subjugate yourself at every level of your existence, from yourself, 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.880 to your emotions, to your mind, to your relationships, to 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.720 your intuition, and to your body. Emma shows us how 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.280 we bind ourselves and how we can reach claim our sovereignty. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.200 Emma is a very wise and compassionate human and I 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.759 think you'll learn stuff in this episode you can apply 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.160 in your life right away to reconnect with yourself in 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.160 a very healthy way. So, without further ado, I'll bring 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.639 you Emma Cepola Emma, Emma, Emma. 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.280 Hi Scott, how you doing. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.360 Good to see you, Good to hear you, Good. 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:24.880 To see you too. 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:30.920 Congrats in your new book, Sovereign Reclaim your freedom, energy 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:36.240 and power in a time of distraction, uncertainty, and chaos. Wow. Well, 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:37.800 I think a lot of people are really yearning from 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.720 that right now. So you know, this major theme of 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.759 this new book is setting yourself free, and it's opposite state, 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.840 which you refer to as the bound state, where through 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.320 life experiences, fear and trauma, we start to disconnect from ourselves. 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.880 So you're really contrasting these these things, and hopefully we 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.280 can help our listeners and viewers, if they're watching the 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:07.120 YouTube channel right now, help them, help them set themselves free. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.240 No one can do it but themselves, right, We can't 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:10.200 do it for them. 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.840 Yeah, so true, and that's that's the whole goal of 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:13.359 this book. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.600 I know I read your book. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:20.480 You are awesome, Scotty. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.000 Well, thank you. Go on and stop. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.480 So what's where do we even start with this this? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.200 Can you can you describe to me that how you 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.400 conceive of the concept of energy. I mean, there's so 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.680 many places to start in this discussion, but I see 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.560 that word interwoven quite a bit throughout the book, and 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.000 can you just kind of tell me what you think 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.040 of that word. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.520 I love that as a first question, Scott, because in 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.120 many ways, as I'm contrasting this the balance state and 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.120 the sovereign state, the bound state is really everything that 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.919 trains us of our energy. It's the beliefs we hold, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.600 the behavior patterns we have, the addictive behaviors that we have, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.320 the ways we conceive of ourselves and the ways we 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.040 interpret the world that drain our energy, the ways that 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.240 we interact with people that drain our energy. And when 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.080 we're in a sovereign state, that's the opposite. We're filling 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.560 our own tank, we're maintaining it, but we're also filling 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:23.119 others tanks. So it's a pattern in that goes through 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.200 all of the different chapters. You know. As one example, 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.160 just as one belief that drains us is you know, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.680 whenever I've asked audiences how many people are self critical, 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.080 almost every single person raises their hand. And as you 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.560 as you know, self criticism the psychological definition is that 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.240 it's a form of self loathing. And when you think 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.960 about that, just you know that the majority of people 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.520 are walking around with this. You could think of it 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.000 as social conditioning or programming, like viral programming that runs 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.280 in families and runs in societies and does us no 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.560 vapors and drains us of our energy. That's one example. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.880 How do we get bounded, you know, and disconnected from ourselves? 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:08.000 And you know, throughout the course of our lives, can 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:14.800 our relationship with ourselves change depending on life circumstances. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.600 Absolutely, And I think that's the journey, right, that's the 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.280 journey of and it starts with awareness, like being aware 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.719 of the many ways that we engage with behaviors or 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:28.800 thought patterns that drain our energy. Another example is our emotions. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:30.719 And I know you think about this a lot too, 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.520 and that most people when you ask, well, what have 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.680 you learned about what to do with your emotions, your big, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.200 bad negative ones, people will say, let's just suppress them, right, 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.600 just suck it up, butter Cup, That's that's pretty much 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.520 what everyone is up to. I mean there's some exceptions, 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.960 you know, in some Latin cultures in southern Italy, But 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.359 even then there are certain emotions that are just not 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.080 acceptable and that are suppressed. And when we look at 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:59.000 the research suppression basically increases the negative emotion, and it's 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.320 more likely to come out somatically, you know, through health stuff, 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.119 or it's going to explode or come out as passive 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.320 aggression and destroying both ourselves and others in the process. 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.840 So that's just sort of one example of that. And 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.360 how the journey towards becoming more sovereign with regards to 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.520 our emotions is to learn to actually feel them, just 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.040 like a child will feel their emotions one hundred percent 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.240 and then it moves through them. Just like so going 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.479 back to that theme of energy, the child lets the 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.680 energy of the emotion move through them and then they're 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:31.680 done a few minutes later, as opposed to adults who 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.479 can hold on to an emotion forever. Not to say 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.479 that I'm encouraging exploding our emotions all over the place, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.920 but the ability to feel, and I think, I think 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.919 in our society we're given a lot of things to 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:44.800 do instead of feel, you know, a lot of things 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.120 to consume instead of feel, and yet that's how we 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:55.120 stay bound and addicted and unhappy. 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.039 What does a healthy self esteem look like? 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.839 Well, you know, I always just ask, like, you know, 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:06.919 what are some of the things that people say to 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.840 themselves when they make a big mistake. Right when you 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.520 ask people that, they usually say where it's like, you're 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.159 such an idiot, you don't belong here, not good enough, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.839 those kinds of words. And you know, whenever I hear that, 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.080 it's just so heartbreaking to hear how people talk to themselves. 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.760 When during the pandemic, I would teach on Zoom and 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:27.360 I would ask this question, what do you say to 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.600 yourself when you make a big mistake? And people would 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:31.840 write it in the chat and you'd see one thing 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.080 after another of these heartbreaking words that people tear themselves, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:41.120 tear themselves up with, And when you think about it, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.200 it doesn't make any sense because what would you say 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.160 to your best friend? You would say, what would you 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:46.960 say your best friend? You would say, Oh, you're okay, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.200 everything's everybody makes mistakes, You're totally fine. We'd be so 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.000 encouraging and loving to them. Why do we have a 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.760 self destructive relationship with ourselves? You know, we talk about 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.000 toxic being in a toxic relationship or toxic workplace. Most 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.240 people are walking around with a toxic relationship with their 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:11.120 own self? What about that makes sense? It doesn't, but 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:16.800 it keeps people bound this. One study found that eighty 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.040 percent of millennials endorse the belief I am not good 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.880 enough with regards to most areas of their life. Can 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.400 you believe that? It's so heartbreaking? And so I always 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:28.920 think what would happen to this world if every single 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:35.000 person had a sovereign relationship with themselves? I mean, how 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:36.680 would they show up? They would be able to show 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.840 up within their full potential, be their freaking best selves 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:42.520 and rock stars like Scott Barry. 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:48.960 Kauffman, Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, you got 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.680 me thinking that. I think I might start using the 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.600 phrase instead of self esteem. What we really need is 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.160 a healthy self relationship. I like, yeah, I just thought 0:07:58.160 --> 0:07:59.840 of that phrase self relationship. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:00.760 Yeah, and so. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.440 Totally why wouldn't you? I mean, the only relationship you're 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.320 guaranteed for the rest of your life is with yourself. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:09.760 Might as well make it a good one, right, or 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:16.800 a friendship, a romance and what happens then? You know? 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.200 I just you know, I always think, like, how are 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:20.920 you going to show up on the battlefield of your life? 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.080 Are you going to show up, you know, limping because 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.200 you kicked yourself there? Or in brands spanking new, shining 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.960 armor because you loved your way there. You know, where 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:36.160 are you? How are you going to be strongest? And 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.400 and yeah, so that's just something I think about. And 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.959 Maya Angelo has this beautiful quote where she says, I've 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.200 learned a long time ago that the only thing that 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.040 forgetting now the exact quotes I've learned a long time ago, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:52.440 but the only thing that makes sense to be on 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.800 my own side. Something like that. And then Audrey Lordie 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.640 has another really great quote and she says, or self 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.920 care is not self indulgence, it's an act of political warfare. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:13.679 So powerful. And she was a self described uh, a 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.080 gay black woman in a white, straight man's world, you know, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:18.760 so she just was she was battling a lot of 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.520 battles as an activist and writer and so forth. But 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.559 it's so powerful what she said. It's it's that's how 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:25.840 you're going to show up. You're going to show up 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.600 powerfully if you show up with that self care. 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:32.720 Wow, that's really powerful. Emma. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:39.400 You know you've done some terrific, groundbreaking research in our 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.760 field on the neuroscience of emotion regulation. I'd be remiss 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:45.960 not to have you review some of your most recent 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.760 findings or your most the highlights of some of your findings. 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.360 You know, what are some of the highlights of your 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.559 findings and why as adults well, and also why don't 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:00.319 children learn learn this stuff? We're never taught this, I know. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.240 Scott, It's so weird. I always just think, like, no 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.480 matter how many mds, PhDs, black belts, you know, dishes, 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.120 you know how to cook, languages, you know how to speak, 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:10.959 most people are running around with as much education about 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.400 how to handle their big, bad, negative emotions as a 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.120 five year old, which is basically no formal education. I 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.240 mean you're supposed to you know, like the two hardest 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:19.920 things we're supposed to manage in our life, which are 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.439 emotions and relationships, we never get any training on. And 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.480 they caused so much pain, you know, And so yeah, 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:32.400 I mean we were looking specifically, I was looking at 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.800 a trauma. So after nine I was living in New 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:37.760 York during nine to eleven, and I had a lot 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.120 of anxiety after that day, and I tried a lot 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.320 of things to help me at the time, you know, 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.000 I tried mindfulness. I'd go to like hot yoga and 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.160 I do all this stuff. And I was still shaking. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.079 You know, it's still shaking at eight thirty in the morning. 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.760 And then I walked into a breathing class called it's 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.720 called sky Breath Meditation, which was a breathing class that 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.200 was offered at Columbia by some fellow students through an 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.400 organization called Art of Living. And I was like, Okay, 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.160 what is this And I learned the breathing practices and 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.959 then I felt wow, like I feel like I can 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.240 move on. I regained my sovereignty over my anxiety. So 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.000 fast forward then, you know, I did my doctoral program 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.640 in psychology and I was doing a postdoc and working 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.440 with veterans with trauma or coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.480 and many of them had gone through traditional therapeutic or 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.760 pharmaceutical treatments and they hadn't helped them. They were self medicating, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.240 like in their basement, smoking weed or drinking, et cetera. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.120 And so I thought, you know, this helped me so 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.040 many years ago. Let's see if we can help them 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.280 with breathing. And that was one of the first studies 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:42.840 that we ran with a breathing protocol, with doing on 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.880 the sky breath meditation for a week and then we 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.760 looked at their anxiety pre post, one month post, and 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.720 one year post, and we also looked at physiological measures 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.880 of startle response and so forth. And what we found 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.760 was that after one week their anxiety had normalized, I 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.640 mean compared to the country role group, they they had 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.960 really uh, some of them no longer qualified as having 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:08.679 post traumatic stress. And then when we looked at the 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.760 physiology of it, we saw really strong correlation between their 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:16.679 reduction in in startle response and their reduction in anxiety. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.240 So correlation was zero point nine. Now this is something crazy. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.160 And then one month later and yeah, one month later 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:27.800 and one year later, they they had maintained they they 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.240 were they had maintained what they had experienced after that 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.840 first week, so their anxiety was normalized. And it was 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.480 interesting because many of them hadn't continued their breathing practice, 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:39.880 and so that was really cool. It was like as 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.680 if you know, there's a way to sort of stabilize 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.800 the nervous system even if you have gone through trauma 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.120 through breathing. And I think, to me, that makes sense 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.640 in the because a lot of psychological approaches are through 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.680 the mind, like change your thoughts, change your mind, change 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.640 your life, you know, and I think that can work 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:57.520 to a certain extent, and I think I think it 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.880 does work, you know, being grateful and so forth. We know, 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.679 oh that that works. But when there is a really 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.720 intense trauma, really intense anxiety, it's lodged in the body, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.079 the memory is I'm just thinking about one veteran he 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.920 would he said, you know, I'll stand in front of 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.599 the mall, and I'm here in Madison, Wisconsin, and I 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:17.520 know there's no danger in the mall, but I still 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.400 have to brace myself for twenty minutes before I can 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:24.040 go in. Because his mind is doing fine. It's just 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.560 that the trauma in the body, the memory in the body, 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.160 is bringing up so much anxiety. And so what we 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:36.760 think is happening is that through breathing there's this combination. 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:38.719 You're not just addressing the mind, you're also addressing the 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.680 nervous system. 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:45.600 Tell me a little tell me a little more about that, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.880 because I've been critical of the trauma obsessed culturally living 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.800 now and also the obsession with the body keeps the score. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:55.920 So I actually would like to hear more about this. 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.520 Absolutely, no, I'm fascinated by myself because we've run a 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.560 number of other studies subsequent to this and found some 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:08.400 really interesting stuff. So yeah, I mean, one thing we 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:13.960 think is happening is this is that as the veterans 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.080 are doing their breathing practice, they go into this deep 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:21.040 parasympathetic state of just calm, and in that moment, it's 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.200 sometimes these memories come up. They can come up in 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.120 the form of the flashback, they come up in the 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.760 form of simply a smell, of feeling, of physiological sensation, 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.160 but they're in a deep parasympathetic state. So when usually 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.840 when they're having a flashback or a memory, they're back 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:42.760 in sympathetic activation as if they were in the trauma 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.360 that they experienced. And that's why post traumatic stress doesn't 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.200 allow you to move on, because it's as if that 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.560 trauma is still right there in front of you right 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.840 now or every time it's triggered, right and so, and 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.200 they're not able to sleep for that reason. They're constantly 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.240 in high activation. And what happens with the breathing we 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.440 believe is that as they're going into this parasympathetic state 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.920 and the memory maybe coming up, there's like a decoupling 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:12.600 that happens between the physiological activation and the memory. And 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.880 so what they have said to us is I remember 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.400 everything that happened, but I can move on. And they 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.200 get off got off their met their sleep meds, anxiety meds, 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.680 you know, and you know, sometimes I get in touch 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.440 with them because like a reporter wants to talk to 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.040 them or something, and some of them are like, I'm 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.440 not I honestly don't remember what that was like. I'm like, 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.040 I can't believe you don't remember what that was like 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:34.640 cause you were living in your basement going through a 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:36.400 divorce and you couldn't even know about work, you know, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.640 so talk about sovereignty, you know, how can we regain sovereignty? 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.760 So many people have gone through trauma, and you know, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.680 many psychological approaches do work and do help, and exposure 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.480 health therapy does help, you know, in some cases and 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.680 in other cases, there are people that fall through the cracks, 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.080 and many veterans have fallen through the cracks. And there's 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.200 been a very very high suicide rate, as you probably 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.720 know daily. It's a horrible amount. And and I wanted 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.680 to see is there another is there another way that 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:05.480 we can bridge that gap, that we can catch those 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.640 that are falling, And we subsequently ran another study with 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.720 the Palo Alto Va the larger a larger group of 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:19.080 veterans including both men and women, and and it was 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.840 a it was a design where you uh, that where 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:28.040 it was side by side with the gold standard therapeutic treatment, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.400 cognitive processing therapy, and the design was such that we 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.600 wanted to see if the breathing intervention was it was 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:38.800 at least as good as that one. I'm forgetting the 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:40.320 name of it now and off the top of my head, 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:45.280 but it's that's what the statistical uh, what the stats 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.520 are that you're you're conducting on it, and that's what 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.960 was found that was at least as good as the 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:56.240 gold standard therapy. And then but then looking at just 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.560 the physiology too of emotion regulation, those that had gone 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.400 through the THING program as opposed to the therapy showed 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.800 better emotion regulation at the physiological level. So again because 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.600 I think what's happening with breathing is that you're actually 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.399 something is going on at the nerve with the nervous system. 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:17.720 It's not just cognitive and so so that's just really fascinating. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.040 And then another study we ran here at Yale looking 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.560 at so Yale undergraduates tend to have worse and worse 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.760 mental health as the semester goes on in their height, 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.239 you know, type A, and just getting more and more 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.439 anxious and depressed with the with time. And so we 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:36.560 want what do. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.720 You say, my personal experience? 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.399 Yeah, you remember that, Scott we met at Yale all 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.320 those years ago. Oh it was so fun. Yeah, and 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.000 uh exactly. So what we wanted to see is can 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.840 we provide a buffer to prevent this from happening. So 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.920 we randomly assigned students to It was about two hundred 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.720 students I think. We randomly assigned them to one of 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.520 three well being interventions or control group. So it was 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.000 either this sky breath meditation, the breathing or it was 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.800 mindfulness based stress reduction, or it was emotional intelligence which 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.840 is mostly cognitive skills, or the control group. And we 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.479 wanted to see which one of these was going to 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.920 do to help the students most. And what we saw 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.520 was that the breathing group had the most impact of 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.679 all and I think it's because it probably brings together 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.240 a lot of the elements from the others. Has both 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.639 the physiological breathing component, but also brings together the mindfulness. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.359 Because what we saw is that mindfulness scores increased thanks 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.520 to the breathing, and then it has some cognitive you know, 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.760 you're you're better able to take in any kind of 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.080 cognitive information when you're you've addressed the anxiety that's at 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.200 the level of the body. Yeah. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.199 Can you give our listeners a concrete practice? Can you 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:53.840 teach us something? 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.199 Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, so you know what you know, what 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.680 we researched is a program that takes a couple to learn, 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.600 is like a whole protocol, like a twenty minute protocol. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:04.239 But what I can teach you now is something real 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:05.320 simple that you can keep a. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.240 Back stuck in the past. You've taught me stuff in 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.320 the past to help me get through my flying anxiety 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:10.720 you have. 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.000 Oh my gosh, fantastic. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.520 I don't remember that while ago ago. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:18.480 Yeah, yeah, oh good? Did it help? 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:20.920 Oh yeah, okay. 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.040 I'm glad to hear that. Okay. So a real simple 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.080 thing that people can take away from from just listening today. 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.720 So when you breathe in, your heart rate increases, and 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.040 when you breathe out, it slows down. And if you're 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:32.840 you know, if you're in a nurse's office, you can 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.840 really scare them by exhaling for a really long time 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:37.919 and seeing what happens to your heart rate. But what 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.280 we're going to do today is I can lead us 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:42.919 through a real Do you want me to lead us 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.160 through an exercise? Yeah, I'll lead us through a short 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.040 extras Okay, what we're just going to do is lengthen 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.320 our exhales for a while with our eyes closed. So 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.480 before we start, before we start changing our breath, you 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.639 can just close your eyes and have your palms open 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.159 on your lap, and then you want to breathe in 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.960 for account of one, but hold on before you start breathing. Sorry, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.200 before you start breathing, I just want to assess where 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:13.400 you are right now, So just assessing your level of energy, noticing, 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:15.679 you know, how many thoughts are going on in your 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.640 own mind, so you could have a lot of traffic, 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.159 a lot of thought traffic, or not a lot. Just 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.359 sort of noticing your own state of mind first, so 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.480 you can see if there's a shift from before to after. 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:29.879 And then for the breathing, you want to breathe in 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.920 for account of one, two, three, four, hold and then 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:41.040 you can breathe out for two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.159 So you're breathing out for either twice as long or 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.199 a time and a half as long as you breathe in. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.600 You want to do that for about five minutes and 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:53.159 then reassess sort of where you're at and then and 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.159 that's a practice that you can take take with you. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:56.640 Do you want me to guide us through it or. 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.119 Yeah, I'm doing it right now. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.720 Okay, so I'll keep guiding us then for a few minutes. Okay, 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:09.320 So breathe then two three four, hold and breathe out 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:17.480 two three four, five, six seven eight. Breathe in two 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:26.000 three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:34.760 six seven eight. Breathe in two three four, hold and 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:42.600 breathe out two three four, five, six seven eight. Breathe 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:53.320 in two three four, hold and breathe out two three four, five, 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:58.960 six seven eight. One more time deep breath in two 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:08.320 three for hold, breathe out two three four, five six 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.480 seven eight, and then come back to normal breath and 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.800 just assess any shifts or changes in the state of 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:21.200 your mind. And then when you're ready, you can open 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.200 your eyes and notice how you feel with the eyes open. 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:30.639