Speaker 1: Pushkin hay Slight Changers Maya. Here an exciting update before
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Speaker 1: the episode.
Speaker 2: Emotions are tools that are useful, all of them, even
Speaker 2: the negative ones. So many of us, I think, strive
Speaker 2: to live lives free of all negative emotion. I think
Speaker 2: this is both impossible and also undesirable.
Speaker 1: Ethan Cross is a professor of psychology at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan. He says we shouldn't see emotions as good
Speaker 1: or bad. They're valuable signals, but when they become too
Speaker 1: intense and start to take over our lives. We can
Speaker 1: learn to turn down the volume.
Speaker 2: I think it's so easy for us to look at
Speaker 2: someone as a kid or an adult and say things like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're terrible at self control, you have no self control.
Speaker 2: But evidence suggests that this is malleable. This can change.
Speaker 2: If you're not good at managing your emotions, now you
Speaker 2: can actually get better.
Speaker 1: On today's show, how to Escape an Emotional Spiral, I'm
Speaker 1: Maya Schunker, a scientist who studies human behavior, and this
Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans, a show about who
Speaker 1: we are and who we become in the face of
Speaker 1: a big change. Last time Ethan was on the show,
Speaker 1: we talked about our inner voice and how to manage
Speaker 1: it when it gets a bit too critical. Today, he
Speaker 1: joins me for an in depth conversation about our emotions.
Speaker 1: Ethan says, emotions are information. We may not like feeling envy,
Speaker 1: but it can push us to work harder or signal
Speaker 1: to us what we really want in life. Sadness can
Speaker 1: slow us down and invite support from others. Regret can
Speaker 1: help us learn from our mistakes. All of these emotions
Speaker 1: are useful, but sometimes the emotions can overwhelm. Us Ethan's
Speaker 1: new book is a guide for managing that overwhelm. It's
Speaker 1: called Shift, Managing your emotions so they don't manage you.
Speaker 1: He explores what we can do when emotions become more
Speaker 1: harmful than helpful. We started off our conversation by talking
Speaker 1: about how we can learn to tell the difference.
Speaker 2: When your emotions are interfering with your ability to live
Speaker 2: the life you want to live. Right, they're getting in
Speaker 2: the way of you achieving your goals rather than actually
Speaker 2: helping you achieve your goals. That's an indication that some
Speaker 2: regulation is needed. Let's be concrete about this. So when
Speaker 2: anxiety is getting me to work hard on something that
Speaker 2: is coming up, and then like actually putting in the work,
Speaker 2: my anxiety goes down, that's anxiety working really well. Anxiety
Speaker 2: not working well is when the anxiety is so high
Speaker 2: that I can't actually even sit down to get the
Speaker 2: work done, or even when I do start doing the
Speaker 2: work to prepare, the anxiety sticks with me in ways
Speaker 2: that are interfering with my sleep and putting me on edge.
Speaker 2: That's a kind of miscalibration. The emotional response is out
Speaker 2: of sync with the situation.
Speaker 1: That I'm in Yeah, I'm thinking of another example, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, when we feel just indignation at injustice for example, right,
Speaker 1: we might ask ourselves, is that indignation and anger motivating
Speaker 1: us to do something about it? Or are we feeling
Speaker 1: so oppressed by that negativity that we are we're stuck
Speaker 1: in bed right, like we're unable to act. So that's
Speaker 1: another context where that would be relevant.
Speaker 3: It's a perfect example.
Speaker 1: Well, the good news is that in those instances where
Speaker 1: our emotions are overwhelming us, when they're counterproductive, when they're
Speaker 1: eroding our well being, we do have this ability for regulation.
Speaker 1: So let's start with what you mean by emotion regulation.
Speaker 2: So emotion regulation quite simply is the capacity to turn
Speaker 2: the volume up or down on the emotions we're experiencing,
Speaker 2: lengthen or shorten their duration, and in some cases, switch
Speaker 2: from one emotional response to an entirely different one. I
Speaker 2: use the term that you know, the title of my
Speaker 2: book is shift. It's about shifting up or down, long
Speaker 2: or shorter, or to a different response altogether. And I
Speaker 2: find it kind of beautiful that on the one hand,
Speaker 2: we evolve to experience all of these different emotions, but
Speaker 2: also this remarkable set of capabilities to rain them in.
Speaker 1: So what is the research show, I mean, other than
Speaker 1: like intuitively feeling like it would be a very good
Speaker 1: thing to better regulate our emotions, what does the research
Speaker 1: show about the well being outcomes associated with better emotion regulation?
Speaker 3: So you have goals?
Speaker 2: What are your goals in life? Are they to think
Speaker 2: and perform well, to have good relationships, to be healthy.
Speaker 3: If you can.
Speaker 2: Manage your emotions, they're going to help you achieve all
Speaker 2: of those goals. And that's what the research supports. So
Speaker 2: people who are better at managing their emotions, they tend
Speaker 2: to do better at school. They can delay gratification longer,
Speaker 2: which is often important when you're studying for things.
Speaker 3: They have improved.
Speaker 2: Relationships with other people because they can manage their emotions,
Speaker 2: which are often triggered by others, more effectively, and so
Speaker 2: they don't end up having as much friction in their relationships.
Speaker 2: So really, this is a kind of master aptitude that
Speaker 2: should benefit people across the board.
Speaker 1: There's this one study that you reference in your book
Speaker 1: Ethan from the nineteen seventies, and I'm wondering if you
Speaker 1: can talk about it a bit. It looked at emotion
Speaker 1: regulation in people over a long period of time.
Speaker 2: So basically a cohort of newborns were followed over the
Speaker 2: course of their lives and every few years with their
Speaker 2: ability to manage their emotions. Their self control capacity was
Speaker 2: assess by putting them through a series of tasks and
Speaker 2: having other people rap their capacity. And then the researchers
Speaker 2: patiently waited and just every few years they kept on
Speaker 2: checking in on this group of participants to see how
Speaker 2: they were doing across the board, from their health to
Speaker 2: their achievement levels at school.
Speaker 3: And in life.
Speaker 2: And what they found that was notable were a couple
Speaker 2: of things. Number One, the ability to manage one's emotions
Speaker 2: early on in life predicted a lot about how the
Speaker 2: kids fared once they got older.
Speaker 3: So kids who were adept at.
Speaker 2: Managing their emotions earlier on they advanced further in their careers.
Speaker 2: They saved more money, they planned more for retirement, they
Speaker 2: were physically healthier, and perhaps for me most mind blowingly, yes,
Speaker 2: that is a phrase. They're like. Brain scans showed that
Speaker 2: their brains and other full body scans and their organs
Speaker 2: actually aged more slowly, so across the board, this capacity
Speaker 2: to manage one's emotions is predicting really positive outcomes.
Speaker 3: Later on in life.
Speaker 2: But the other really important finding in that study was
Speaker 2: that it wasn't the case that if you were a
Speaker 2: young kid and you were bad at self control, you
Speaker 2: were consistently bad at And the reason I love that
Speaker 2: finding is because I think it's so easy for us
Speaker 2: to look at someone as a kid or an adult
Speaker 2: and say things like, oh, you're terrible at self control,
Speaker 2: you have no self control? Oh, absolutely right, and we
Speaker 2: make these blanket judgments about how people fare. But what
Speaker 2: the finding suggests, along with a slew of other evidence,
Speaker 2: is that this is malleable. This can change. If you're
Speaker 2: not good at managing your emotions, now you can actually
Speaker 2: get better. How do you get better, I would argue
Speaker 2: it's by familiarizing yourself with the tools that are out
Speaker 2: there and then start practicing them in your lives.
Speaker 1: It's such a hopeful message embedded in this study, right,
Speaker 1: which is that for those who struggle with emotion regulation,
Speaker 1: or for those parents who see their kids struggling with
Speaker 1: emotion regulation, there's hope for us all. So that's very exciting.
Speaker 1: There is this notion out there and is quite prevalent
Speaker 1: that it is very important, actually crucial for us to
Speaker 1: quote feel our feelings right, to sit in them and
Speaker 1: marinate in them, and if we avoid them, we're actually
Speaker 1: doing a disservice because those negative emotions will rear their
Speaker 1: ugly head in the future with even more forcefulness, like
Speaker 1: with the vengeance. Right for the sake of everyone listening,
Speaker 1: please please please tell us what the science says.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this widespread assumption, and I bought into this
Speaker 2: hook line and sinker for a very long time that
Speaker 2: when you're experiencing something bad, you should just deal with
Speaker 2: it right then and there, approach it, work through your feelings.
Speaker 2: That was a message that was taught to me growing
Speaker 2: up in my family. That was a common message that
Speaker 2: was delivered. And then when I got to grad school,
Speaker 2: there's lots of research which showed that chronically avoiding things
Speaker 2: is bad. And the research on chronic avoidance is rock solid.
Speaker 2: So if your coping tactic is to across the board,
Speaker 2: just avoid thinking about any kind of negative thing that
Speaker 2: happens to you and just distract endlessly and sometimes even
Speaker 2: do it with illicit substances or other unhealthy behaviors. That
Speaker 2: doesn't predict good things. But what is missing from the
Speaker 2: way we often talk about this concept of avoidance is
Speaker 2: you don't have to pick between only approaching or only avoiding.
Speaker 2: You can actually be flexible and strategic and shift back
Speaker 2: and forth with whether you focus on something that's bothering
Speaker 2: you and whether you take some time away. And it
Speaker 2: turns out research shows that being flexible in that manner
Speaker 2: can be very helpful. So sometimes strategically avoiding a problem
Speaker 2: for a certain period of time can be useful. And
Speaker 2: I'll give you a couple of examples of how that
Speaker 2: might work. So, first of all, sometimes when we get
Speaker 2: triggered by an emotion, it feels so amazingly big and
Speaker 2: we just want to dive in. But if we take
Speaker 2: some time away from it and then you come back
Speaker 2: to the problem several hours later or even a day later,
Speaker 2: time has taken the steam out of the emotional response.
Speaker 2: And this is a well known finding that as time
Speaker 2: goes on, the intensity of our emotions fade. That's true
Speaker 2: of most of our emotional responses. They get triggered, they
Speaker 2: jack up in their intensity, and then as time goes on,
Speaker 2: the intensity goes down. So if you take some time
Speaker 2: away by avoiding strategically and then return you're coming back
Speaker 2: to the problem and it's not as intense and it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to work with as a result. One
Speaker 2: of my favorite studies that demonstrates how being strategic in
Speaker 2: this way, being able to both approach and avoid emotions
Speaker 2: can be useful, was done by a psychologist named George
Speaker 2: Bonano who who was working at Teachers College at Columbia
Speaker 2: right around the time that the nine to eleven attacks occurred.
Speaker 2: And what he did is, in the immediate aftermath of
Speaker 2: those attacks, he was really curious about what are the
Speaker 2: factors that allow people to be resilient in the face
Speaker 2: of a collective tragedy. And so what he did is
Speaker 2: he brought participants into the lab who were living in
Speaker 2: New York City, and he had them engage in a
Speaker 2: task where on some trials they were explicitly told to
Speaker 2: express their emotions powerfully, so really immerse yourself in them
Speaker 2: in a certain sense and just show them to someone else.
Speaker 2: And on other trials they were told to suppress their emotions,
Speaker 2: so really conceal these things, try to push them away
Speaker 2: to the point that no one else can even see
Speaker 2: that you're experiencing these things, and then he tracked those
Speaker 2: participants over time to see how they fared emotionally. And
Speaker 2: what he found is that the participants who fared best,
Speaker 2: the participants who showed the most resilience in the face
Speaker 2: of the attacks, where the participants who were able to
Speaker 2: both express their emotions when they were asked to do
Speaker 2: so and suppress their emotions when they were asked to
Speaker 2: do so. So it was being really good at both
Speaker 2: of these skills that predicted the most success.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the things I've read in Banano's
Speaker 1: research is he says, you know, it's not strictly necessary
Speaker 1: for every person to have to quote work through their grief.
Speaker 1: For example. Right, there are studies showing that those who
Speaker 1: show more positive emotions following a traumatic experience actually show
Speaker 1: better long term outcomes. And I like this research overall
Speaker 1: because there's this broader lesson that emerges from it, which
Speaker 1: is there is no one size fits all approach to
Speaker 1: emotional well being or to processing difficult situations. And I
Speaker 1: do feel like there is so much judgment of ourselves
Speaker 1: and of others in terms of how they process challenging events. Right.
Speaker 1: I've I've been in situations where someone did seem very avoidant,
Speaker 1: and it was like you're a little alarmed. You're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, what's going to happen. This is going to
Speaker 1: be terrible. They actually turned out fine.
Speaker 2: I cannot reinforce enough the message that you just articulated, Maya,
Speaker 2: there are no one sized solutions when it comes to
Speaker 2: managing your emotional lives. Forget avoidance. Let's take something even
Speaker 2: more innocuous. Let's take like mindfulness or meditation. Lots of
Speaker 2: people advocate that as a solution as a panacea to
Speaker 2: our emotional distress, and it helps tons of people. And
Speaker 2: if that's you, great, keep meditating, be mindful. This is fantastic.
Speaker 2: But I've also come across lots of people who say
Speaker 2: this doesn't work for me, and they actually feel bad, like, well,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with me that this isn't helping me. There's
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with you again, there's everything right with you.
Speaker 2: You're a human being. There are reasons we don't quite
Speaker 2: understand yet why some people acclimate to some tools more
Speaker 2: than others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I really this is very freeing. We're so
Speaker 1: often met by prescriptions around you know, how to do
Speaker 1: grief the right way, or how to process anger. The
Speaker 1: right way. And I love what you said about mindfulness
Speaker 1: and meditation. Like I've spent a total of ten minutes
Speaker 1: during my time on planet Earth meditating and like that
Speaker 1: is my max. Like I don't think I'll ever be
Speaker 1: able to do it or commit to it. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't work for me. A quick walk outside has always
Speaker 1: been a better antidote, you know, for whatever distress I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a wonderful message.
Speaker 3: We did this these two large studies.
Speaker 2: This is research that just came out where we track
Speaker 2: people during the COVID nineteen pandemic, and each day we
Speaker 2: measured people's COVID anxiety and we also asked them which
Speaker 2: of eighteen different tools did you use to manage your emotions?
Speaker 2: And some of them were healthy tools and others were
Speaker 2: less healthy, like alcohol usage, things like that. What we
Speaker 2: found was Number One, on average, people use between three
Speaker 2: and four tools each day to manage your emotion, so
Speaker 2: it was seldom the case that people just did one thing.
Speaker 2: Number Two, there was remarkable diversity in the combinations of
Speaker 2: tools that people.
Speaker 3: Used to manage their circumstances.
Speaker 2: When I say remarkable, that is an understatement. We were
Speaker 2: floored there are no one size fits all solutions when
Speaker 2: it comes to managing your emotional life. Just embrace that,
Speaker 2: and I think you'll naturally look for the tools and
Speaker 2: combinations of tools that work best for you.
Speaker 1: After the break, Ethan shares some of these tools and
Speaker 1: explains why your favorite perfume might be one of them.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. We've been talking about how there's no one
Speaker 1: size fits all approach, but there are tools that we
Speaker 1: can be experimental with, right that everyone who's listening can
Speaker 1: try out and see how well they work in any
Speaker 1: given context. So let's start by digging into some techniques
Speaker 1: that we can use to strategically shift our attention away
Speaker 1: from our negative emotions. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, I think it's helpful to have a few different
Speaker 2: categories of tools so that you can know on the
Speaker 2: fly where to look when you're struggling with an emotion
Speaker 2: and want to ring them in.
Speaker 3: And so in the book, I.
Speaker 2: Provide three categories of tools that are things you can
Speaker 2: do on your own inside you. Those are internal shifters,
Speaker 2: and then there are things outside of us that I
Speaker 2: call external shifters. For internal shifters, one category, or what
Speaker 2: I call sensory shifters. Our senses are remarkably efficient tools
Speaker 2: for pushing our emotions around.
Speaker 3: And we all know.
Speaker 2: This intuitively because we've experienced some triggered in response to
Speaker 2: sensory experiences throughout our lives. But we often fail to
Speaker 2: activate these sensory shifters strategically when we need them. So
Speaker 2: let me zoom in on one of my favorite sensory shifters.
Speaker 3: Music.
Speaker 2: In one study, participants were asked, why do you listen
Speaker 2: to music? Almost everyone in the study ninety six or
Speaker 2: ninety seven percent of participants. So, I like to listen
Speaker 2: to music because I like the way it makes me feel.
Speaker 2: It's an emotional experience. But then, we've done studies where
Speaker 2: we ask people to think about the last time they
Speaker 2: were angry, anxious, or sad, and you said, what did
Speaker 2: you do when you had those emotions and you tried
Speaker 2: to rain them in? Only between ten and thirty percent
Speaker 2: of participants report going to music to push their emotions
Speaker 2: in a particular direction.
Speaker 1: You mean being proactive about it, proactive and strategic, and like,
Speaker 1: I've listened to music my entire life.
Speaker 2: MC hammer, you can't touch this. This is like my
Speaker 2: first cassette followed by Madonna The Immacuate Collection. Let the
Speaker 2: judgment of my music tastes begin now.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, I'm really enjoying this.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it gets worse, Yeah, don't worry. But I've
Speaker 2: loved music. I've listened to it throughout my life. And
Speaker 2: yet have I been strategic about putting on certain songs
Speaker 2: to push my emotions in different directions when I've struggled
Speaker 2: with things Until recently, The answer to that question is no.
Speaker 2: But now that I'm aware of this, it's on my radar,
Speaker 2: I'm incredibly strategic about it. I have a playlist designed
Speaker 2: to amplify emotional responses like get me revved up when
Speaker 2: I want to feel that way. I also have songs
Speaker 2: that I go to that calm me down and take
Speaker 2: the edge off. Music is such a powerful to One
Speaker 2: more example of this is sent We are spritsing ourselves
Speaker 2: with these chemicals to manipulate the way other people feel
Speaker 2: about us and the way we feel about ourselves all
Speaker 2: the time. I was just in an airport yesterday, I
Speaker 2: was traveling internationally, and I walk through the duty free shop.
Speaker 2: That's not a duty free shop. That's an emotion regulation store. Right,
Speaker 2: there's like perfumes and colognes all over the place. Why
Speaker 2: are we wearing those? Why is it that some hotels,
Speaker 2: when you walk in there, they smell so unbelievably good
Speaker 2: you never want to leave. It's because they are harnessing
Speaker 2: what we know about senses and emotion regulation. They're piping
Speaker 2: certain sense through their ventilation system to make the place
Speaker 2: smell great. So once you're aware of this stuff, now
Speaker 2: you've got access to tools to push your emotions around
Speaker 2: right in the heat of the moment, and they work really,
Speaker 2: really fast.
Speaker 1: I also love music, and it's occurring to me in
Speaker 1: this moment that I too, have never strategically turned music
Speaker 1: on to shift my emotions. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: finding music that is congruent with our emotional state versus
Speaker 1: music that's incongruate. So if I'm feeling like, really really sad,
Speaker 1: don't I just want to play adele.
Speaker 2: Yeah, commiseration and someone understands me. And so whether that's
Speaker 2: good or bad depends on your goals. So if we
Speaker 2: stick with sadness, I'm a proponent of the idea that
Speaker 2: sadness is functional in the right dosage. Right, my worldview
Speaker 2: is challenged. I can't really fix what's going on. I
Speaker 2: just lost my job or I just lost someone I love.
Speaker 2: I've got to now reframe how I think about myself
Speaker 2: in this world so I can get back out there
Speaker 2: and persevere. And so sadness helps me do that hard
Speaker 2: cognitive work. And if the music is going to facilitate that,
Speaker 2: keep that emotion active to help me do that rethinking
Speaker 2: and reframing, that could well be a good thing. Here's
Speaker 2: where that becomes a problem. If you're feeling sad and
Speaker 2: you don't want to feel sad anymore, but you find
Speaker 2: yourself listening to the music, then the music is going
Speaker 2: to be counter to your goals. And that's where you
Speaker 2: want to resist the temptation to go to Adele and
Speaker 2: if it's me, you go to Journey insteads although it
Speaker 2: depends on the Journey song.
Speaker 1: But right, right, do you mind talking a bit about
Speaker 1: the neuroscience behind the senses and why this is such
Speaker 1: a powerful tool for us to leverage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So your sensory apparatus is linked to your capacity
Speaker 2: to experience emotions in the brain. In some cases the
Speaker 2: networks are overlapping actually, and What that means for our
Speaker 2: everyday lives is different sensory experiences can trigger emotions automatically.
Speaker 2: They can trigger those emotional experiences super super fast. The
Speaker 2: reason why that's so important is sometimes emotion regulation feels
Speaker 2: like it's really really hard to do, and it sometimes
Speaker 2: is hard to do. When we try to, for example,
Speaker 2: reframe how we're thinking about things. Sometimes that can be challenging,
Speaker 2: like take a lot of effort. Sure, the sensory ways
Speaker 2: of pushing our emotions around don't have the same effortfulness.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: In fact, effort list to some degree, and that's in
Speaker 2: part where their power resides.
Speaker 1: It's so funny that you talk about the sensory stuff,
Speaker 1: though I don't know if you know this. So during
Speaker 1: my postdoc and cognitive neuroscience, we actually we took an
Speaker 1: old factometer, which is this machine that delivers sense to people,
Speaker 1: and we installed it in the fMRI machine, so into
Speaker 1: the brain scanner, and as people lay there and we're
Speaker 1: faced with decisions and expressions of risk preferences and whatnot,
Speaker 1: we fed them different sense, right, like calming sense and
Speaker 1: nostalgic sense and comfy cozy sense like cookies or whatever.
Speaker 1: And we looked at how that sensory information affected, often
Speaker 1: outside of awareness, right, their willingness to take risks, or
Speaker 1: their willingness to delay rewards and things like that. So anyway,
Speaker 1: this is such a fascinating topic.
Speaker 2: I think we just don't appreciate it enough. I mean,
Speaker 2: and there are simple things you could do, think in sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just once you are alert to this
Speaker 2: link between sensory experience and emotions, it will change the
Speaker 2: way you view the world. Like awareness of this gives
Speaker 2: you agency to push it around.
Speaker 1: So we talked about one internal shifter, right, which is
Speaker 1: our senses. Any other internal shifters that we should keep
Speaker 1: in mind.
Speaker 2: Attention is another one. And this is what attention refers to.
Speaker 2: Is you've got this spotlight in your mind. It's where
Speaker 2: are you focusing it. Sometimes you want to focus on
Speaker 2: the thing that's bugging you because you want to work
Speaker 2: through it. Sometimes you want to point it elsewhere, you
Speaker 2: want to get a break. You have a distraction, then
Speaker 2: come back to it. If it's a positive experience, sometimes
Speaker 2: focusing on the source of positivity can help you amplify
Speaker 2: that state. So the key is you want to be
Speaker 2: flexible in how you wield that attentional spotlight. And then
Speaker 2: the final internal shifter is what I call a perspective shifter.
Speaker 2: The idea is, sometimes you can't afford to look away
Speaker 2: from something. You have to stare right at it, and
Speaker 2: so we can also reframe it, think differently about it.
Speaker 3: And one key to doing that is.
Speaker 2: This ability to step back and look at the bigger picture,
Speaker 2: get some distance from the problem. And once you get
Speaker 2: some distance, it's often a lot easier to reframe how
Speaker 2: we're thinking about things. It can be hard to reframe
Speaker 2: when you're standing right in the middle of the fire,
Speaker 2: so to speak. So there are lots of different ways
Speaker 2: you could shift your perspective.
Speaker 3: One of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Not to say this is for everyone, that would violate
Speaker 2: what I genuinely believe no one size fits all solutions.
Speaker 2: But one tool that works for me is called distance
Speaker 2: self talk. It's trying to work through a problem, but
Speaker 2: using my own name to try to think it through
Speaker 2: rather than the first person. I so, all right, Ethan,
Speaker 2: how are you going to manage the situation? That gives
Speaker 2: me some mental space. It helps me think about myself
Speaker 2: like I'm someone else, which makes it easier for me
Speaker 2: to think more objectively about the circumstance. Temporal distancing is
Speaker 2: another tool that is immediately accessible in my toolbag. So
Speaker 2: another way to talk about this mental time travel. If
Speaker 2: I'm struggling with a problem it feels really big, I
Speaker 2: could jump into this time travel machine and ask myself,
Speaker 2: how am I going to feel about this five days
Speaker 2: from now, five weeks from now, five years from now.
Speaker 2: I know from a lifetime of experience is that I
Speaker 2: experience lots of big emotions all the time, but as
Speaker 2: time goes on, they wane in their intensity. I forget
Speaker 2: about that when I'm in the midst of something. So
Speaker 2: those are the three internal shifters, sensation, attention, and perspective.
Speaker 2: The key is that these are like simple shifts that
Speaker 2: we can engage, and they're like psychological jiu jitsu moves
Speaker 2: that can alter the trajectory of our emotional responses ever
Speaker 2: so slightly. But that ever so slightness, I would argue,
Speaker 2: is sometimes all you need to get back on track.
Speaker 1: I love that. Okay, So we talked about these internal shifters.
Speaker 1: What about external shifters? So situations in which we actually
Speaker 1: are capable of changing aspects of our environment.
Speaker 2: So other people can shift our emotions. And when we
Speaker 2: find the right people to talk to you about our emotions,
Speaker 2: people who are skilled at both letting us express our
Speaker 2: emotions if we want to, but also helping us work through.
Speaker 3: Them as well.
Speaker 2: That's a really powerful asset that we possess. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite findings in social psychology is a great way
Speaker 2: to make yourself feel better when you're not feeling so
Speaker 2: good is to do something good for someone else.
Speaker 1: Helping others know my favorite insight, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, helps ourselves.
Speaker 2: That's another way that other people can shift us. You
Speaker 2: mentioned going.
Speaker 3: Outside for a walk.
Speaker 2: That's great, but there's some other powerful space shifters out
Speaker 2: there that I don't think we always have top of mind.
Speaker 2: We often get attached to places. I'm attached to the
Speaker 2: tea house where I wrote my first book in ann Arbor.
Speaker 2: Every time I go into that teahouse, I'm filled with
Speaker 2: a sense of warmth and comfort. The arboretum is another
Speaker 2: source of warmth and comfort for me, and so whenever
Speaker 2: I visit those places if I'm not feeling great, they
Speaker 2: make me feel better. When my kids were young and
Speaker 2: they get upset for any reason, I remember them often
Speaker 2: saying and at the time. It was just so curious
Speaker 2: to me. They just wanted to go home. They wanted
Speaker 2: to go to their rooms. That was a place that
Speaker 2: they were safely and securely attached to. And so think
Speaker 2: about the spaces in your environment that provide you with
Speaker 2: a source of resilience. We all have those safe places,
Speaker 2: but what are they and do you actually strategically visit
Speaker 2: them when you're struggling.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about how helpful emotion regulation can be
Speaker 1: and how it's correlated with all sorts of positive health
Speaker 1: benefits and better outcomes for society. Even and I say
Speaker 1: this as someone who with a very practical orientation, sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like our emotional reactions need not be evaluated
Speaker 1: based on whether they have utility, right, like whether they
Speaker 1: lead to some productive ends. Like sometimes we just want
Speaker 1: to feel things for the sake of feeling them, because
Speaker 1: it's vindicating, it's therapeutic, there's some catharsis in it. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about the awful atrocities that we've witnessed all over
Speaker 1: the world in the last year. And you know, Ethan,
Speaker 1: sometimes I just want to feel like really insert expletive
Speaker 1: mad like and you know, I just want to feel
Speaker 1: that and So what do you say to people like
Speaker 1: me in those circumstances where we might feel powerless to
Speaker 1: change something, and where having that strong negative reaction feels
Speaker 1: necessary because it is just like the most human response
Speaker 1: to have in the face of that information.
Speaker 2: One thing I think that is important is to not
Speaker 2: overthink things too much when it comes to our emotional
Speaker 2: lives and the way you just describe that, I just
Speaker 2: want to be angry for a while. If that's your
Speaker 2: goal and you're capable of achieving it, embrace it. If
Speaker 2: it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if you want
Speaker 2: to feel differently, you should also know that there's tremendous
Speaker 2: potential for you to do that. There are lots of
Speaker 2: tools available for you to rain those responses in or
Speaker 2: amplify them if you so choose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like I'm seeding in that moment, like
Speaker 1: this is not the most productive response and it's actually
Speaker 1: serving no one to feel this way. But I just
Speaker 1: given to that impulse, because again, there's something cathartic about
Speaker 1: having just embracing human empathy, right Like when you feel
Speaker 1: outraged on behalf of someone else, you know that's just
Speaker 1: a rich part of the human experience.
Speaker 3: I would say that's probably for you.
Speaker 2: There's a you're in the functional zone for a while.
Speaker 2: Experiencing those emotions give yourself the permission to feel those emotions,
Speaker 2: and that's a gift to yourself. Emotions, all of them
Speaker 2: serve a function. You know, if you experience negative emotions,
Speaker 2: welcome to the human condition. This is a good thing.
Speaker 3: Hopefully listeners find that libera.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. And just a reminder,
Speaker 1: I'm starting a newsletter. I'm so excited to have another
Speaker 1: place to connect with all of you, and I'll be
Speaker 1: sharing personal updates and links to things that I'm interested
Speaker 1: in and exciting new science, also takeaways from conversations on
Speaker 1: this show. It's totally free and you can sign up
Speaker 1: using the link in our show notes. Next week on
Speaker 1: the show, why It's so hard to stand up for
Speaker 1: what you believe in.
Speaker 4: We have been so trained in compliance from a young age,
Speaker 4: and we've become so socialized to comply onto obey that
Speaker 4: we don't have the skill set for defines. We don't
Speaker 4: know how to do it, and so is that training
Speaker 4: that's missing from all lives.
Speaker 1: Psychologist Sunita Saw walks us through the art and Science
Speaker 1: of Saying No, That's next week on A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans See Again. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: Family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our delightful
Speaker 1: theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker,
Speaker 1: See you next week.
Speaker 2: The do