Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Felt. Every week we try to give you
Speaker 1: the story behind the stories, but in this episode it's
Speaker 1: a little bit different. We're going to explore how we
Speaker 1: feel about the news, or specifically, how we feel about coronavirus.
Speaker 1: In this strange moment where the epidemic is dominating our headlines,
Speaker 1: it's even more important than ever to pay attention to
Speaker 1: our emotions, to our well being, and to how those
Speaker 1: things relate to the stories we read in the news.
Speaker 1: Life as we know it is turned upside down. Schools
Speaker 1: are closed, offices are closed, long lines at supermarkets. It's
Speaker 1: very easy to feel anxious, it's very easy to feel hopeless.
Speaker 1: But Laurie Santos has some good tips for how to cope,
Speaker 1: or she would probably put it how to regulate herself.
Speaker 1: She's a professor of psychology at Yale University, where one
Speaker 1: of her classes, called Psychology and the Good Life, has
Speaker 1: become the most popular class in the history of Yale
Speaker 1: University and has attracted five hundred thousand students on a Coruserah,
Speaker 1: you heard that right, Pushkin Fans may also know Laurie
Speaker 1: as the host of The Happiness Lab, her podcast where
Speaker 1: she uses scientific research to talk about how to achieve
Speaker 1: and maintain happiness and well being in life. Needless to
Speaker 1: say it, Laurie is more than qualified to help us
Speaker 1: deal with coronavirus anxiety. She is, in fact, the one
Speaker 1: go to expert that you can think of. Laurie, Let's
Speaker 1: just start with your own personal experience and what you're
Speaker 1: doing to stay happy. You're in charge of a college
Speaker 1: of three hundred or four hundred undergraduates who are all
Speaker 1: have all flown the coup, So you have a very large,
Speaker 1: very empty nest. How are you handling it? It's been
Speaker 1: surreal and really sad. Honestly, Yale had this very incredible
Speaker 1: situation where as Corona is emerging as this awful threat,
Speaker 1: was while our students were on spring break, and so
Speaker 1: Yale made the really hard decision to kick students off
Speaker 1: campus when they are all off on spring break wherever
Speaker 1: they were. You know. So we had students who were
Speaker 1: in cancoon with a small backpack and things, and they're told, hey,
Speaker 1: don't come back. You know, we'll figure out a way
Speaker 1: to get your textbooks and your laptops and all that
Speaker 1: stuff back to you. And so for our students, it
Speaker 1: was really frantic, right because they didn't even get to
Speaker 1: say goodbye to their friends or pack up their stuff.
Speaker 1: Many of them don't know when they're getting their stuff
Speaker 1: because we can't let them on campus. And so managing
Speaker 1: that anxiety for four hundred other students at the same
Speaker 1: time as I'm managing my own anxiety, and I'm sad
Speaker 1: I don't get to say goodbye to these students, and
Speaker 1: I'm uncertain about what's going to happen next and how
Speaker 1: long it's going to take. So it's been it's been
Speaker 1: a lot, both processing it myself and seeing it through
Speaker 1: the student's eyes. You sound very much, unsurprisingly in touch
Speaker 1: with what you're feeling, which is excellent for the us.
Speaker 1: It may not always be so simple to access our
Speaker 1: full set of feelings. How important is it in your
Speaker 1: view for us to try to be more or less
Speaker 1: aware of or conscious of the strange different emotions that
Speaker 1: are coursing through all of us still right now? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's absolutely essential, if for the only reason
Speaker 1: that the only way we're going to make it through
Speaker 1: this crisis. Is to make sure our immune systems are
Speaker 1: functioning at their absolutely optimal level to protect us against
Speaker 1: this physical health threat. And I think that means that
Speaker 1: we need to take the mental health threat of this
Speaker 1: crisis really seriously, Like we're plunging people into social distancing,
Speaker 1: basically not letting them do the one thing that they
Speaker 1: really want to do at this time in their life,
Speaker 1: to feel connected and close with other people, you know,
Speaker 1: hug their mom. We basically can't do that anymore. I
Speaker 1: think we know that just the anxiety and uncertainty of
Speaker 1: the situation is the kind of thing that can lead
Speaker 1: people to say, have things like panic attacks and so on.
Speaker 1: One of the most awful things is that, you know,
Speaker 1: a main symptom of coronavirus is you have the shortness
Speaker 1: of breath. That's also the main symptom of feeling anxious, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of us are even
Speaker 1: seeing these phantom symptoms and wondering do I have it?
Speaker 1: Am I really shorter breath? What am I feeling? And
Speaker 1: so I think getting through this crisis successfully is going
Speaker 1: to require a lot. It's going to require figuring out
Speaker 1: political infrastructure, of figuring out medical infrastructure, But I think
Speaker 1: it's also going to involve all of us individually doing
Speaker 1: everything we can to make sure we're flourishing as much
Speaker 1: as we can to keep ourselves sane and physically healthy.
Speaker 1: Were you hinting, as I thought maybe you were, that
Speaker 1: there might actually be some clinical connection between mental well
Speaker 1: being and a well functioning immune system. Oh, there's so
Speaker 1: much evidence that immune function really requires not having stress
Speaker 1: and so on. So we know, for example, that really
Speaker 1: upping your sympathetic nervous system function can affect immune functioning too. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think allowing yourself to be incredibly stressed out,
Speaker 1: allowing yourself not to sleep that much, both of those
Speaker 1: things are not great for protecting your body against viruses,
Speaker 1: you know. Add to that the kind of panic eating
Speaker 1: that we're all doing, of sugar and ice cream and
Speaker 1: these kinds of things. These aren't great for our bodies
Speaker 1: to fight off threats like normal level threats, let alone
Speaker 1: the kind of threat that we're facing that's so virulently contagious.
Speaker 1: I'm impressed you still have ice cream left. I had
Speaker 1: to empty everything out of everything in essentially out of
Speaker 1: my freezer to put in the vast amounts of protein
Speaker 1: that I need to support two growing deans is the
Speaker 1: plus and minus of living in a huge bunker that
Speaker 1: is normally there to support four hundred students. You know,
Speaker 1: once my college is empty, I'm sitting on freezers of
Speaker 1: you know, thirty pounds of mozzarealistics and so on. So
Speaker 1: I really have to keep the panic eating and check.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you about something that's really been on
Speaker 1: my mind, and you alluded to it earlier when you
Speaker 1: mentioned that we can't do something that gives us a
Speaker 1: great sense of well being, namely to have meaningful human contact.
Speaker 1: I'm concerned that there's like a Corona associated social media paradox.
Speaker 1: And the paradox is, on the one hand, as you've
Speaker 1: shown and other people have shown, too much reliance on
Speaker 1: phones and other technologies can actually have an alienating effect
Speaker 1: on our ability to form meaningful social connections. And yet
Speaker 1: in this Corona moment, when we say, well, how will
Speaker 1: we maintain social connection, the immediate answer that everyone has is,
Speaker 1: let's use zoom, Let's use FaceTime. Let's transform snapchat from
Speaker 1: something that I'm trying to keep my kids off off
Speaker 1: to something which I'm encouraging them to use in reasonable proportion.
Speaker 1: So is there, in fact some social media paradox in
Speaker 1: this moment? Yeah, I think even I even had some
Speaker 1: folks criticizing me over email because we've just for our
Speaker 1: own Pushkin podcast, the Happiness Lab. We just started a
Speaker 1: Facebook group because people want to connect in this time,
Speaker 1: And people wrote to me saying like, didn't you and
Speaker 1: your course say that Facebook is really bad for us
Speaker 1: and it promotes anxiety and depression, And yes, so I
Speaker 1: think there's a paradox there. I think for a long time,
Speaker 1: technology in particular kinds of technology, right using our phone
Speaker 1: to scroll through an Instagram feed rather than picking up
Speaker 1: our phone, and like calling a parent from far away,
Speaker 1: we are often using technology in ways that socially limit us,
Speaker 1: that prevent us from connecting with other people. The irony
Speaker 1: is that that is all we have right now. We
Speaker 1: can't physically connect with people and the way we normally would.
Speaker 1: But these technologies are really going to be a lifeline.
Speaker 1: The key is that we have to use them the
Speaker 1: right way, and I think most of us haven't built
Speaker 1: up the right muscles for how to use these technologies
Speaker 1: in a positive way to connect with people. So, for example,
Speaker 1: my first instinct when I'm feeling a little anxious is
Speaker 1: to hop on Twitter or to hop on Facebook and
Speaker 1: just kind of scroll through, Like my instinct is like
Speaker 1: that will make me feel social. I'll see what other
Speaker 1: people are talking about. But that is having exactly the
Speaker 1: wrong reaction, like I'm not really connecting with people in
Speaker 1: real time, I'm kind of experiencing all their anxiety from
Speaker 1: their posts. A better way to connect with folks would
Speaker 1: be to use things like FaceTime or Zoom, when you
Speaker 1: can see people in real time, see their expressions, talk
Speaker 1: with them, see the kinds of things that they're doing.
Speaker 1: Maybe even have shared activities together where we can watch
Speaker 1: Netflix together or cook a meal together. Those things the
Speaker 1: science suggests are ways that technology you really can connect
Speaker 1: us for the most part. I mean, we do lose
Speaker 1: some things by having things on technology, obviously, things like
Speaker 1: touch and so on. But for the most part, in
Speaker 1: real life conversation where we are in real time watching
Speaker 1: video of what someone's doing, if you have a decent connection,
Speaker 1: that can make you feel incredibly connected. And it's the
Speaker 1: one thing that a lot of us are going to
Speaker 1: rely on. And so I think we need to be
Speaker 1: careful about this paradox because some people have this knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction of like, oh, technology is bad, it's going
Speaker 1: to hurt social connection. Given that that's all we have,
Speaker 1: we need to find the best ways to make use
Speaker 1: of it so that we can decrease loneliness in this
Speaker 1: really potentially really lonely time. So then, to summarize, then,
Speaker 1: Professor Santos is less than number one for social media
Speaker 1: is something like talk, don't scroll. Yes, yeah, get as
Speaker 1: close to replicating a real and an irl human connection
Speaker 1: as you can and avoid the scroll, which we know
Speaker 1: is not the most heartening undertaking. That's exactly right, And
Speaker 1: I think I love that you use the word real
Speaker 1: social connection. And it's important to remember what that looks like.
Speaker 1: That doesn't look like a work meeting where we schedule
Speaker 1: it on zoom and we meet exactly at seven pm
Speaker 1: and so on. That looks like I run into somebody
Speaker 1: at the water cooler or I just chat with somebody
Speaker 1: at the coffee shop. We need to find ways to
Speaker 1: use these technologies in really like low key kinds of
Speaker 1: ways that don't feel so formal. So I I keep
Speaker 1: hearing from friends who are using things like FaceTime to
Speaker 1: kind of make dinner together where you just put it
Speaker 1: on in the background and you're running around chasing after
Speaker 1: your kids, and like when you can come to the screen,
Speaker 1: you come to the screen, but it doesn't feel as formal.
Speaker 1: I did this with my college roommates last night, and
Speaker 1: we did a spa night together. So once someone was
Speaker 1: steaming their face, and someone was putting on a mask,
Speaker 1: and someone was just like painting their nails. It's not formal.
Speaker 1: It's kind of low key. That's what we need right now.
Speaker 1: What we're losing is the low key stuff, the kind
Speaker 1: of informal ways of running into each other. But again,
Speaker 1: if you kind of do a little scheduling and use
Speaker 1: these technologies, we can replicate that mostly well. Any advice
Speaker 1: on how to break the ice in those situations, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're with your college roommates or people you've loved
Speaker 1: for many years, it might be a little easier than
Speaker 1: with people who are sort of in the middle ground
Speaker 1: that you know when you like you know. I have
Speaker 1: found that the distance between formal encounter and non formal
Speaker 1: encounter in these spaces is actually kind of big, and
Speaker 1: I feel a little awkward even with people or colleagues
Speaker 1: that I might sit down after work and have a
Speaker 1: drink with. One of them said, well, why don't we
Speaker 1: have a drink on you know, on zoom or on FaceTime,
Speaker 1: And I said yes, But I keep on delaying it
Speaker 1: because I think I'm worried that it'll be awkward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is another spot where our minds lie
Speaker 1: to us. I think the startup cost is awkward, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like we all have like, oh
Speaker 1: is your a mic on? Like, oh, move your thing,
Speaker 1: I can't see your face. There is that awkward startup cost,
Speaker 1: there's no question, But once you get into it, it's
Speaker 1: actually a lot more pleasant than we expect. I think
Speaker 1: we put in too much emphasis on that startup cost,
Speaker 1: which causes us not to schedule these things. But in practice,
Speaker 1: once you do them, I mean, I've had lots of
Speaker 1: different versions of these now because we've been kind of
Speaker 1: stuck in the house for about two and a half
Speaker 1: weeks now, and all of them kind of feel like
Speaker 1: they're going to be awkward, but in practice they work
Speaker 1: out pretty well. With one group of friends, we did
Speaker 1: games with a roommate of mine from grad school and
Speaker 1: like her ex boyfriend slash friend, and he was in
Speaker 1: a different spot and we decided to play celebrity like
Speaker 1: this dumb like party game, and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is just not going to work. And I was again
Speaker 1: kind of dreading it and like putting off doing it.
Speaker 1: But then in practice, once we did it, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes in we were just playing the game and
Speaker 1: it was fine. So our minds adapt incredibly quickly to
Speaker 1: these technologies. We just have to overcome that misconception that
Speaker 1: it's not going to be fun or it's just going
Speaker 1: to be too awkward, so it's not worth it. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in just a moment, So okay, next question.
Speaker 1: This has also been very much front of mine for me,
Speaker 1: creation of routine and schedule when stuck at home. Intuitively,
Speaker 1: it seems as though that would be very important, and
Speaker 1: so I lectured my children unwisely before actually talking to
Speaker 1: the psychologist. But is there anything to that routine is essential?
Speaker 1: You know, that's not just an old wives tale. I
Speaker 1: think if there's anything we can do to have more
Speaker 1: routine in our life, all the better. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things I've been advising my students about is
Speaker 1: to create their own rituals. You know, whatever you used
Speaker 1: to do in the morning before you were stuck in
Speaker 1: your parents' house. Keep doing that right now. If that
Speaker 1: was getting up to go to the gym, you know,
Speaker 1: drag out a towel and do some exercises on the floor,
Speaker 1: if that was getting dressed up to like run off
Speaker 1: to your first class and grab a coffee you know,
Speaker 1: on your way there at the coffee shop. Find a
Speaker 1: way to replicate that. The more we can feel like
Speaker 1: we have a normal schedule, the better we're going to
Speaker 1: get through this. And part because when you don't have
Speaker 1: a routine, you kind of just feel off. One great
Speaker 1: thing about habits and routines is that they just what
Speaker 1: to do without anxiety. You know, I just know that
Speaker 1: when I get up in the morning, you know, I
Speaker 1: hit my yoga mat, and then I take a shower,
Speaker 1: and then I get a coffee, and then I start
Speaker 1: working on podcast stuff. It just is my day. If
Speaker 1: you don't have those routines in place, it can feel
Speaker 1: kind of uncertain. You're like, well, what do I do next?
Speaker 1: You know, do I take a shower down? Like what's
Speaker 1: going on? And that a little bit of uncertainty on
Speaker 1: top of all the other anxiety, on top of all
Speaker 1: the other uncertainties, we're facing right now. It does two
Speaker 1: things like it first of all, it just doesn't feel good,
Speaker 1: But second of all, it makes it harder to get
Speaker 1: your tasks done. So imposing some kind of routine, even
Speaker 1: if it's a fake routine, even if it's a new routine,
Speaker 1: I think can be incredibly powerful. And it's especially powerful
Speaker 1: for kids. Right even if you're doing kind of homeschooling.
Speaker 1: Right now, you know, set up like this is the
Speaker 1: reading hour, and now it's the take a break hour,
Speaker 1: and now it's the lunch hour. That can really really
Speaker 1: help kids. And even if you have kids at home
Speaker 1: and you're like the heck with homeschooling, like I'm just
Speaker 1: going to let them watch Netflix, even still have a routine,
Speaker 1: like you know, from nine to two is the Netflix time,
Speaker 1: and we take a break at new for lunch, And
Speaker 1: any routine you can kind of impose on yourself is
Speaker 1: going to feel amazing. Well, I'm glad that I've managed
Speaker 1: to get that accidentally right. But my question is actually,
Speaker 1: why why are human beings creatures of scheduling anhabit in
Speaker 1: this way? I mean, just from a purely evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem super obvious that this would be so optimal
Speaker 1: for us, you know, when you know, when out there
Speaker 1: hunting and gathering on the velt, what's so great about
Speaker 1: a routine? Yeah, it just kind of reduces our choice,
Speaker 1: and choice can feel really overloading. Right, So if you
Speaker 1: have to make a choice every morning, like should I
Speaker 1: shower first, should I exercise first? Should I get coffee first?
Speaker 1: Like I check my email? That can feel incredibly paralyzing.
Speaker 1: And so the brain just has a trick to avoid
Speaker 1: those kinds of choices where it just says, hey, if
Speaker 1: you did something yesterday that was rewarding, lay down that
Speaker 1: track in the brain so that you can just do
Speaker 1: that over again without having to make the choice of
Speaker 1: doing it. It means sometimes that we sometimes lay down
Speaker 1: tracks that are rewarding that aren't great for us. You know,
Speaker 1: some of us are now realizing that the habits that
Speaker 1: we have at night, for say, snacking all the time,
Speaker 1: those might not work when you're in your house twenty
Speaker 1: four seven. Right, So sometimes we lay down bad tracks,
Speaker 1: but often we've laid down tracks that are rewarding before,
Speaker 1: and it just reduces the choice that allows us to
Speaker 1: kind of get on with our day without getting sort
Speaker 1: of stymied by like, well, well, what should come next?
Speaker 1: We kind of just know what comes next because it
Speaker 1: sort of feels natural. We can sort of do things
Speaker 1: on autopilot, which, to the extent that they're rewarding it
Speaker 1: kind of works to help us avoid all these choices
Speaker 1: that can feel so so overwhelming it otherwise really overwhelming time.
Speaker 1: So routine is one mechanism of reducing anxiety by reducing choices.
Speaker 1: What are some other tools that people can use on
Speaker 1: their own to address anxiety in the current current situation?
Speaker 1: And I think I want to tweak the question to say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just the general question of anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's anxiety that's in some degree justified. It's not really
Speaker 1: the situation of the patient who comes to you and says,
Speaker 1: you know, doctor, I have anxiety and you say what
Speaker 1: about and the person can't even express it. It's it's
Speaker 1: not you know, grounded in reason. Here. If you're not
Speaker 1: a little bit anxious about what's going on in the
Speaker 1: world right now, or the probabilities of getting Corona where
Speaker 1: the launchm economic effects or your job were your four
Speaker 1: oh one k, or the well being of your loved ones,
Speaker 1: you're actually not rational like, I mean, some degree of
Speaker 1: rationality here mandates some degree of anxiety. So how do
Speaker 1: you think people should manage that set of issues? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one way to frame it is
Speaker 1: that emotions are tools, right in some sense, is the
Speaker 1: best way to think about them. They're there for a reason,
Speaker 1: and as you said, there's a reason we're supposed to
Speaker 1: feel anxious in this situation. We can't be going out
Speaker 1: and being social. It's an incredible risk, right. We have
Speaker 1: to have some degree of anxiety if we're going to
Speaker 1: flatten the curve, if we're going to do what we
Speaker 1: need to personally do to protect ourselves in our family.
Speaker 1: That said, being so anxious that you're not sleeping, being
Speaker 1: so anxious that you can't work if your job demands
Speaker 1: you working from home. This doesn't feel good, and it's
Speaker 1: ultimately not a great way to deal with the problem. Again,
Speaker 1: because kind of spiking your sympathetic nervous system is not
Speaker 1: great for your immune function. That's not going to be
Speaker 1: an awesome thing that you're doing to your body to
Speaker 1: help it fight incoming viruses, And it just feels really yucky.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's not a matter of getting
Speaker 1: rid of anxiety completely or kind of polyannishly pretending that
Speaker 1: everything's fine. It's just using your anxiety wisely. And I
Speaker 1: think that differs for different people. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: I can just speak for myself. I can feel when
Speaker 1: I've been on social media a little bit too long,
Speaker 1: when I've been kind of panic scrolling, when I'm learning
Speaker 1: information that's not helping me, it's just making me incredibly
Speaker 1: more anxious. Right. I think everyone needs to know the
Speaker 1: symptoms of this virus. You know, they need to be
Speaker 1: thinking about kind of planning for how they're going to
Speaker 1: get food and you know, keep their family safe. But
Speaker 1: if you're on article number seven hundred that says, you know,
Speaker 1: look for cough and shortness of breath and fever, that's
Speaker 1: not helping anymore. You have to watch for yourself what
Speaker 1: it's doing to your emotions, what it's doing to your
Speaker 1: sleep scheduled, what it's doing to your kid's anxiety. I
Speaker 1: have lots of folks with young kids who are reporting
Speaker 1: to me that they're watching their kids pick up on
Speaker 1: their own anxious scrolling and so on and so. In
Speaker 1: terms of what to do, I think part of it
Speaker 1: is just recognizing it. It's noticing like, huh, I've kind
Speaker 1: of thrown my body into a tizzy reading that last
Speaker 1: article about you know how twenty year olds can catch
Speaker 1: this like useful information. But I didn't need to spike
Speaker 1: myself that badly. And then I think you're feeling that,
Speaker 1: know what your own go too's are to feel a
Speaker 1: little bit better. For some of us, that can start
Speaker 1: with just taking a really conscious breath. For me personally,
Speaker 1: I know that when I'm getting anxious, I can just
Speaker 1: kind of watch my chest muscles tightening. I can feel
Speaker 1: that I'm really taking these really shallow breaths. And for
Speaker 1: sometimes in those cases, I just force myself to be like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna do just like three deep breaths.
Speaker 1: And just the act of doing that has a real
Speaker 1: physiological effect. What you're doing is you're kind of putting
Speaker 1: the brakes on your sympathetic nervous system and turning on
Speaker 1: your parasympathetic nervous system, which, if the sympathetic nerves system
Speaker 1: is sort of the fight or flight, the parasympathetic is
Speaker 1: kind of the rest and digest. You know, It's the
Speaker 1: thing that can allow you to do your normal bodily functions.
Speaker 1: So your body can kind of go through its normal day,
Speaker 1: but it needs a little help. And deep belly breathing,
Speaker 1: which is just kind of taking deep breaths where you're
Speaker 1: breathing lower in your belly rather than in your chest.
Speaker 1: That can kind of help making sure you're taking deeper
Speaker 1: breaths so you're not kind of in the kind of
Speaker 1: mode where we breathe or kind of having a panic attack.
Speaker 1: Those things sound so simple, but they can be incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1: The second thing I would suggest is to find ways
Speaker 1: to distract yourself. That is hard right now, and even
Speaker 1: our best podcasts are running their coronavirus episodes. I know
Speaker 1: we're contributing to the problem even as we speak, Even
Speaker 1: if we are telling people how to calm down, don't
Speaker 1: listen to us, we are making it worse. And I
Speaker 1: you know, I can feel that too. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I go on my social media, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wish it was just cat video as people like
Speaker 1: what happened to my normal Reddit feed of like silly
Speaker 1: animal stuff. You know, but you know that stuff is
Speaker 1: still out there. You know there are funny Netflix movies
Speaker 1: you can watch and so on, and laughter is a
Speaker 1: real anxiety reducer and is also thought to be something
Speaker 1: that can potentially bump up immune function by kind of
Speaker 1: letting the parasympath nervous system kind of take its action
Speaker 1: and sort of shut off the fight or flight, even
Speaker 1: for a little while, it can be powerful. So what
Speaker 1: I'm hearing, I think is two different approaches. One is,
Speaker 1: notice what stimuli are making you respond anxiously, and maybe
Speaker 1: don't subject yourself to those stimuli and constant subjection, yeah
Speaker 1: or no when you're doing it right. I mean, what
Speaker 1: I've found is that for me, it's the specific, awful
Speaker 1: stories of coronavirus hurting someone. If I was one of
Speaker 1: these folks who was not sheltering in place, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, well, maybe I'll go out to a
Speaker 1: bar right now, maybe I need a little bit of anxiety.
Speaker 1: Maybe I need to read that story. But me right now,
Speaker 1: who's been sheltering in place for two weeks, who already
Speaker 1: knows the symptoms and is already worried, I didn't need
Speaker 1: that story right now, Or I definitely didn't need it
Speaker 1: right before where I was about to go to bed,
Speaker 1: and now my adrenaline is spiked and I can't sleep.
Speaker 1: So I think curating your own media around this can
Speaker 1: be incredibly useful and powerful, and that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: not paying attention to what's going on. I think you
Speaker 1: can be an incredibly informed citizen but still curate what
Speaker 1: you're reading, when you're reading it, how much you're reading.
Speaker 1: All of these things are conscious strategies you can control
Speaker 1: to feel a little bit better, or to kind of
Speaker 1: allow yourself to spike the anxiety when you need to.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly fascinating you everything you just said, and I'll
Speaker 1: just say why. So, you know, going back I think
Speaker 1: roughly to the Reagan years, it became increasingly common for politicians.
Speaker 1: I think Reagan was the greatest genius of this, not
Speaker 1: to speak in terms of general policies and their overall
Speaker 1: statistical public effects, but rather to use anecdotal examples of individuals.
Speaker 1: You know, this is sort of like the State of
Speaker 1: the Union and phenomenon, where the present says, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a nurse in Texas who did this, then it
Speaker 1: moves to the one where we bring that person to
Speaker 1: the State of the Union. And basically the idea was
Speaker 1: that people don't necessarily have powerful responses to this policy
Speaker 1: has raised employment by twelve percent they respond to, you know,
Speaker 1: to anecdote, to human story. What you're saying, in a
Speaker 1: sense is that can be too effective, and so sometimes
Speaker 1: if you're aware about yourself, that you'll be too empathetic,
Speaker 1: so empathetic that will actually affect you, maybe step aside
Speaker 1: from the anecdote. And I noticed that I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: this because I noticed myself doing it all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I triage reading the paper. I see a
Speaker 1: human interest story about this, I pass it right over.
Speaker 1: I see a story about you know, the statistics. I
Speaker 1: look at the statistics because somehow, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: sufficiently empathetic to have that kind of reaction just to
Speaker 1: the statistics alone. Yeah, and nurse science suggests no one
Speaker 1: is right. You know, psychologists talk about this so called
Speaker 1: identifiable victim effect. You know, if I tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand people you know died today of you know,
Speaker 1: this earthquake or coronavirus or something that doesn't affect as
Speaker 1: much as Jill, this one person who is thirty four
Speaker 1: years old and worked as a nurse. Like, what happens
Speaker 1: in urs scientifically is we have regions of the brain
Speaker 1: that process information about what other people are thinking and
Speaker 1: what they believe and what's happening to them. We have
Speaker 1: regions of the brain that respond to individual people. Evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: we didn't build in regions of the brain that respond
Speaker 1: to statistics. And so the things that spike our fear
Speaker 1: is seeing someone else get hurt, not the statistics of
Speaker 1: someone getting her The thing that spikes our anxiety, that
Speaker 1: spikes our empathy, that spikes our compassion is seeing you
Speaker 1: know that this one woman can't get her groceries this
Speaker 1: week because she's so scared of going out. And so
Speaker 1: I think it can be a really powerful technique. I mean,
Speaker 1: Reagan was right, like, it gets people moving, but it
Speaker 1: can sometimes get it gets you moving too much. But
Speaker 1: the flip side is that you can do the opposite
Speaker 1: for the COVID kindness stories, right Like, I was reading
Speaker 1: this story of this Yale student in fact, who started
Speaker 1: this project called Invisible Hands where he is recruiting a
Speaker 1: bunch of twenty year olds to give groceries to the
Speaker 1: elderly who can't go out. And that's a human interest
Speaker 1: story where it's pumping up my compassion, is pumping up
Speaker 1: my positive will, it's making me feel like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're still good in the world. You want to read
Speaker 1: those in the flesh kinds of stories as opposed to
Speaker 1: read the statistics about it that feels really good, and
Speaker 1: so we can curate that to a certain extent. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's the blessing in the curse of the
Speaker 1: twenty four hour news cycle, is that there's so much
Speaker 1: more content out there. We're pulled in and it affects
Speaker 1: our emotions in ways that we can't control. But we
Speaker 1: can control what we're bringing in. We can curate what
Speaker 1: that content is. Can I ask you a philosophical question
Speaker 1: that arises from this whole approach? I mean, I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by it, and especially in a crisis, it seems incredibly
Speaker 1: appealing that one could do a little bit of curating
Speaker 1: of the information that one takes on board in order
Speaker 1: to help manage responses. I'm wondering if there is a
Speaker 1: philosophical kind of objection, a kind of a hard nosed
Speaker 1: philosopher who would say, well, yeah, no, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: nice that you're doing that, but there's a form of
Speaker 1: denial in all of that. There is a cold, hard
Speaker 1: reality out there, and you should be feeling some sense
Speaker 1: of existential dread, because that's simply what the circumstances warrant.
Speaker 1: When you hear questions like that, do they seem to
Speaker 1: you misguided or overstated or do you think, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's fine. But there's different ways to take your existential dread.
Speaker 1: You know, you can take it with a spoonful of
Speaker 1: sugar and they'll be a little more manageable. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think those emotions, whether it's existential dread or joy
Speaker 1: and compassion, they're there for a reason. They're they're there
Speaker 1: to cause us to take certain actions, and I think
Speaker 1: right now there are certain actions that are warranted, Like
Speaker 1: we need to be a little bit afraid to the
Speaker 1: point that we stay in our house. We need to
Speaker 1: be scared for our elderly relatives and for the economy,
Speaker 1: so we can just kind of shelter in place and
Speaker 1: do what we need to do. But beyond that, spiking
Speaker 1: our existential anxiety is not going to help anyone. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not going to help me make decisions about which
Speaker 1: stocks I should deal with, because you know, doing that
Speaker 1: from the position of like massive freaking out is not
Speaker 1: going to help, right, It's not going to help me
Speaker 1: plan for my family. When I finally do go out
Speaker 1: and go to their grocery store, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be thinking rationally about, Okay, what do I need in
Speaker 1: my pantry for the next two weeks. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to be like panic shopping. And so the idea is
Speaker 1: that what you want is the appropriate level of emotion.
Speaker 1: That's what emotion researchers often talk about, is you want
Speaker 1: the appropriate level of anxiety, the appropriate level of compassion,
Speaker 1: and the appropriate level of empathy and so on, And
Speaker 1: we can kind of get a sense of when we're
Speaker 1: off track, you know. I mean, I think some folks, honestly,
Speaker 1: my college students were experiencing it in the opposite direction,
Speaker 1: where they're realizing, like wait, hang on, like they're canceling
Speaker 1: Yale University, or not canceling there, they're moving Yale University
Speaker 1: to online classes. Maybe this is something I need to
Speaker 1: take really sport and clarification when I canceled when the
Speaker 1: classes are happening right now. But I think that was
Speaker 1: a moment when they upregulated anxiety, which is what they
Speaker 1: needed to do for many of us. If they're listening
Speaker 1: to this thinking I'm in existential panic that's not going
Speaker 1: to help anybody, right, and it does doesn't feel good right,
Speaker 1: and so I think those are times when you really
Speaker 1: want to downregulate things to be able to function in
Speaker 1: this environment. Laurie, what are questions that I'm not asking
Speaker 1: you that I should be. You're doing a whole series
Speaker 1: for your podcast, The Happiness Lab, about ways to deal
Speaker 1: with challenges to psychological well being connected to the coronavirus crisis.
Speaker 1: What are some takeaways that I haven't even asked you
Speaker 1: about it? Yeah, well, you've covered a lot. I mean
Speaker 1: one of our first episodes was about emotion regulation, in
Speaker 1: particular this idea that we can decrease our anxiety by
Speaker 1: changing our frame, and there's lots of different ways we
Speaker 1: can do that. One way we can change our frame
Speaker 1: is to gain a little psychological distance. So it sounds
Speaker 1: kind of goofy, but you can talk to yourself in
Speaker 1: the third person, you know, Like Laurie's going to make
Speaker 1: it through this. This is really challenging for Laurie, having
Speaker 1: to teach outline and having to get stuck in her house,
Speaker 1: but she's going to make it through. Turns out there's
Speaker 1: lots of evidence to suggest that taking that kind of
Speaker 1: slightly different linguistic approach to talking to ourselves allows us
Speaker 1: to kind of think we're hearing from a coach who's
Speaker 1: telling us important information about what our life is like.
Speaker 1: And so those can be incredibly powerful techniques. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so each episode is really just picking off a different
Speaker 1: tiny tip that users can use to either feel better
Speaker 1: feel less anxious in this time, but also to use
Speaker 1: the time. Well, we have another episode coming up about
Speaker 1: how you can use the fact that you're stuck in
Speaker 1: this new situation to harness these new habits. Oftentimes, habit
Speaker 1: researchers really work to figure out, you know, how can
Speaker 1: you change the situation? You know, how can you move
Speaker 1: the donuts from you know, the table where your office
Speaker 1: always meets to somewhere else. We're always trying to change
Speaker 1: the situation to form better habits. But all of us
Speaker 1: are now faced with this incredibly weird, unprecedented situation, and
Speaker 1: we could set it up with the right routines and
Speaker 1: the right habits to be able to do the things
Speaker 1: we've been wanting to do for a while, you know,
Speaker 1: exercise more, you know, connect with our friends who are
Speaker 1: far away on a more regular basis, this is our
Speaker 1: opportunity to set up new habits, and so we shouldn't
Speaker 1: miss out on the opportunity. I think that's the single
Speaker 1: most positive thing heard any human being say in a month.
Speaker 1: I'm a super grateful to do Laurie for all of
Speaker 1: these very valuable insights and for everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time, and thanks for this new series.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for lent me on the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I actually feel a little better after talking
Speaker 1: to Laurie, not so much about the underlying facts as
Speaker 1: about how we can go about coping with those facts.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear more from Laurie, listen to
Speaker 1: her podcast, The Happiness Lab from Pushkin Industries. Deep Background
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is
Speaker 1: Lydia gene Coott, with research help from Zooe Wynn. Mastering
Speaker 1: is by Jason Gambrell and Martin Gonzalez. Our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed by Luis GERA
Speaker 1: special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. I also write a
Speaker 1: regular column from Bloomberg Opinion, which you can find at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash Feldman. To discover Bloomberg's original slate
Speaker 1: of podcasts, go to umberg dot com slash Podcasts. You
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. This
Speaker 1: is deep background