WEBVTT - Lizard Brain Isn't a Thing 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.400 This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, and I am your host, 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:20.760 Jen Kirkman. Today my guest is PhD neuroscientists Dr Lisa 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.440 Feldman Barrett. Now, when I was posting about this podcast 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.120 Anxiety Bites, the podcast in general before it premiered, I 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.520 was saying, you know, I'm hosting this new podcast, and 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:34.240 you know what I want to bring to the table 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.040 with my background in comedy, is is maybe the conversations 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.560 are irreverent, maybe sometimes funny, you know, which just brings 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.040 a sense of levity to the notion of anxiety. And 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.360 I'll be interviewing all kinds of people. And I mentioned 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.000 that I would be interviewing neuroscientists, and of course somebody 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.440 wront wants that's gonna be hard to make this podcast funny. 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:58.640 Neuroscientists aren't funny. Excuse me commenter on the internet whose 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.680 name I don't remember, but it's still stuck with me. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.520 Their comment months later, within the first five minutes of 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.720 this interview, Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett and I are making 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.480 jokes about sexual arousal. She's extremely funny and her latest 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:18.600 book is known as the First Neuroscience Beach read seven 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.880 and a half Lessons About the Brain is the title 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.720 of her latest book. So it's a lot of fun 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.280 talking to Dr Feldman Barrett. Now, just so that you 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.119 know who we're dealing with, okay. She is among the 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.360 top one percent most cited scientists in the world for 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.480 her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. She is a 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.839 University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She also 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:50.360 holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.240 where she is Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.080 Brain and Behavior. She's also given a very popular TED 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.360 talk that has over six million views. Now, all of 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.639 this will be in the show notes. Dr Lisa Feldman 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.960 Barrett's book that came out before Seven and a half 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.320 Lessons about the Brain, is called How Emotions Are Made. 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.840 But in this interview we do focus mainly on a 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.320 lot of the concepts from her most recent book, Seven 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.560 and a half Lessons about the Brain. And while that 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.400 book isn't about anxiety per se, it answered so many 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:30.480 questions about the brain that people often you know, answer 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.120 so many questions about the brain, but put to rest 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.440 so many myths that people often bring up about the brain. 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.360 In regards to anxiety. You know, I'm sure you've heard 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.360 people say that anxiety is your emotions, it's your lizard brain. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.120 Well that's not true. And the notion that we don't 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.360 have this lizard brain and that the brain is not 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:54.280 three parts has been proven to not be true for decades, 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.440 but people are still quoting disproven things. It's, as Dr 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.080 Feldman Barrett says, it's like if the flat earth theory 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.160 was still being taken seriously. I talked to her about 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.160 why this happens, Why people are not, you know, talking 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:10.960 about what's in her book. I mean, not that they're not. 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.240 That's I wasn't saying, why how come your book isn't popular? 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.640 It's huge, That's not what I mean. But why aren't 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.520 the other theories being put to rest? And she also 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.280 takes us on a step by step of what to 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.200 do during an onset of anxiety so that it doesn't 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.760 turn into a full blown panic attack. And she explains 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.320 exactly what our brain is doing in those moments, and no, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.440 it has nothing to do with the brain thinking it's 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.000 running away from a wooly mammoth. She helps us learn 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:47.440 what to do so that are anxious feelings become uncomfortable feelings. 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.960 That's right. The hope I offer you on this podcast 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.720 is that one day you'll just be uncomfortable instead of 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.800 so anxious. Anyway, I learned so much from reading her books, 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.240 and obviously even more from chatting with her, and I 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.080 hope you get as much out of my conversation with 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:14.040 Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett as I did enjoy. Thank you 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.800 so much for being here. Dr Barrett. I you know 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.760 I'm reading and I read your new book Seven and 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.280 a half Lessons about the Brain, and I know your 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.040 book before that was How Emotions Are Made, and I 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.400 think this interview will concentrate mostly on the book Seven 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.320 and a half Lessons about the Brain. Um, of course 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.240 we can talk about anything. But what I found so 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.520 interesting about this book because this podcast is about anxiety, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.800 and I will direct every conversation back to anxiety. But 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.200 something about this book, even though it's not your typical Hey, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.520 here's how you deal with anxiety. I think this is 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.680 one of the best books that someone with anxiety could 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:56.000 read that dismantles what a lot of other books are 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:02.000 saying about the brain. Yes, Actlee, I'm so you just 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.599 made my week. I mean because um, the idea behind 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.160 this book was to make, you know, a little book 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.800 of essays that would go down easy, that would you know, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.360 maybe have a tidbit of neuroscience that you could impress 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.080 your friends with at a dinner party or something. There 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.520 are a couple of jokes. I'm not actually the funny 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.680 one in my family, so you know, I'm like the 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.120 least funny of the of all of us. But you know, 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:29.719 there are a couple of little singers in there that 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:31.640 I'm very proud of that even now when I read them, 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.039 I still it's not polite to laugh at your own jokes, 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.560 but I do actually listen. I'm a comedian and you're 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.000 allowed to. And I laughed so much throughout this book, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:45.520 Thank you. That means a lot. But the goal was 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.839 to really invite people to think about human nature in 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.440 a little bit of a different way, and to think 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.039 about the kind of human you are or want to be, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:03.880 and to re evaluate maybe or reconsider some of the 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.800 truths about yourself and your life that you hold really dear. 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:13.039 Because even though the essays read quickly, the ideas lingered 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.680 for a while. And I think that anxiety is one 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.120 of the most misunderstood. It's probably right up there with depression. 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:27.599 Anxiety and depression are very very misunderstood phenomena. I think, UM, 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.680 and I'm really glad to hear that you um found 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:37.320 something helpful. What did it help you understand differently about 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.400 about anxiety in particular? Well, you know, for me, and 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.040 everyone's different, but I've been dealing with anxiety and obsessed 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:45.640 with you know, I had anxiety since I was eight. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.919 I'm forty six. It's been a long journey for me, 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:52.839 and I enjoy uh, the notion that I'm not special, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.039 the notion that there is a reason for this, and 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.919 the notion that you know, this is just how the 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.080 brain works. It's due in its thing, and it really 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.039 isn't this big emotional deal in a way that was 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.560 new to me, that the kind of like what you said, UM, 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.120 I wrote this down. I made a note on page 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.960 seventy six, and to me, this was the most important thing. 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.120 Whether I knew it somewhere deep inside me or not, 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.120 I just I circled. Brains aren't wired for accuracy. They're 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.720 wired to keep us alive. When you're predicting brain is right, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.520 it creates your reality. When it's wrong, it still creates 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.360 your reality. So that, to me is like what everyone 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.280 with anxiety needs to understand, that we are creating our 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.080 own reality when we are getting anxious, because we're usually 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.640 not anxious about actual threats. That's true. And I would 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.360 actually even go further and say that, And I'm speaking 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.040 as someone who also has dealt with anxiety her whole life, 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.760 whose daughter has social anxiety. You know, like the anxiety 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.480 is rampant in our culture. It's really a lot up 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.880 there with depression, I think, as a kind of an emergency. Yeah, 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.760 but actually when you start to think about anxiety from 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:07.560 the perspective of what is a brain and why do 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.760 we even have brains? Like, brains are really expensive organs there. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.280 You know, that three pound blob of meat between your 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.120 ears is the most expensive organ that you have. It 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:22.320 costs give or take your metabolic budget. That's more than 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.200 your heart, that's more than your lungs. That's more than 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.800 any of your muscles. Um. You know, um, And so 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:33.720 I mean individually worth it your muscles. So what's it for? 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.440 And the answer is it's you know, there'sn't one answer really, 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.600 but one important thing that your brain is for is 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.440 regulating the systems of your body, and so everything that 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:48.720 you feel, everything that you do, every you know, as 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:50.440 I say in the book, you know, every hug you give, 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.440 every insult you bear, every insult you give, you know 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.440 is um related actually to intimately to the state of 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:04.040 your own Audie. And so when you understand this, you 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.959 start to look at anxiety a little bit differently, or 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.120 at least I do. And I was giving an interview 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:15.679 to um Uh David Sharia Mandri at The Guardian, and 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.720 I was I was describing to him this experience that 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.560 I had right before the COVID pandemic took hold um 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:25.800 and and it will illustrate to you what I mean 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.040 by this about you. You start to look at your 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:32.800 own anxiety differently and maybe even deconstructed or dissolve it 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.760 into its more basic parts, which then makes it much 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.960 more manageable to deal with. So UM I was describing 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.760 to him the situation where I was in New Zealand 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:49.360 and um because every spring break I would accept speaking 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.760 engagements at universities or for my books so that I 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.960 could go somewhere nice with my daughter and take her 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.520 with me on holiday for her spring break. And so 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.160 I was in New Zealand, having done book fair and 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.960 this and that. You know, I gotta I was very 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.520 honored by a honorary degree at university and so on. 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.120 And I'm sitting in New Zealand. Wait, she's in the 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.240 air now, right in the air flying. It's a very 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.320 long flight, and I'm reading and listening to all of 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.040 this stuff erupting around the world about about the covid 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:26.760 Um virus. And I felt this increase in arousal that 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:32.319 was very unpleasant. And if I was anybody other than me, 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.600 I would have been anxious. I would have been anxious. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.120 And the way my brain would have made sense of 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.920 that arousal would have dictated what I did next, what 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.160 I felt next, and would have constructed in the blank 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.839 and I anxiety and you know, um, all sorts of 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.320 things would issue from that. Instead, though the way I 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.600 interpreted it was Okay, I'm having trouble predicting what's going 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.680 to happen next, And whenever I'm having trump whenever your 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.280 brain has trouble predicting, there's an increase in arousal because 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:09.640 your brain secretes chemicals that helps it attempt to learn 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.520 something in the moment to help predict better later, but 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:19.920 that arousal can feel like shit. But instead of anxiety, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.840 I felt high arousal that was unpleasant. And so, you know, 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:24.880 I got my sister in law on the phone and 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.120 I said, I'm feeling very you know, high arousal, unpleasant, 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.319 high arousal. And I because I don't know what to do. Yeah, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.000 should I meet her at the airport and we should 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:36.480 turn around and go home? Or should I you know, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.320 because it was this was we were still a few 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.079 days out before the official Uh. Yeah. By the way, 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.000 I just as a comedian, have to interrupt and say, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:45.760 I do love that your family knows you so well 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.360 that you can call the same experiencing arousal and they 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:54.520 know this isn't a creepy phone called it. I mean anxiety, exactly, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.800 Arousal in our world doesn't mean sexual, rausical. It means like, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.600 you know, you feel jittery and like your mind is 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.000 like flitting around, And you're right. But I think the 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.400 thing to understand is that the way that your brain 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.520 works is metabolically efficient, and that's hide directly to your 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.640 health for the rest of your life. A metabolically efficient 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.520 thing to do is for your brain to predict what's 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.080 going to happen next based on past experience. And if 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.800 your brain can't predict well for whatever reason, there are 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.439 lots of reasons why a brain can't predict well. If 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.840 there's a lot of uncertainty or ambiguity, there's an increase 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:33.080 in arousal, which you often feel directly as feeling worked up, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.160 feeling jittery, feeling like you can't concentrate, and the go 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.000 to way that your brain makes sense of that is anxiety, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:47.240 and that dictates your actions and also what you feel next. However, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.719 if you learn to make sense of those sensations differently, 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.920 you will act differently, and then it becomes maybe an 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.480 uncomfortable state, but it's not an anxiety. And I have 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.520 to tell you Jan, this is not like bullshit you 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.439 know Jedi ring games here, This is real well, I mean, 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.360 Jedis aren't bullshit. No offense to any Star Wars please, 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.120 we can't lose them. This is not like psychological mumbo jumbo. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.840 You know, your brain is always guessing at what sensations mean, 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:25.640 and when you learn to guess differently, you are architecting 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.160 your life that so that you will act differently and 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:34.920 experience things differently, sometimes with very profound effects. We'll be 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:43.960 right back. This brings me What you just said brings 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.000 me to the most mind blowing part of your book 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.280 that made me literally want to run in the streets 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.640 screaming why isn't anyone listening to this. I can go 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:54.840 on a tangent with you in a minute about the 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.640 sexism of it all, because I think there's some sexism here. 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.720 But what you just said is when we are feeling 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.199 those feelings of arousal, you know, the beginning of what 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.040 could be, for some of us, a panic attack. What 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.040 I was taught as a young twenty something, and I've 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.760 still been taught it to this day, is that when 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:17.040 that's happening, my body is just having some crazy reaction 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.000 because I used to be a caveman and all these 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.200 chemicals and my limbic brain and my lizard brain, and 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.120 you know, I never found that to be of comfort, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.800 because what I used to say is so you're telling 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.600 me my brain hasn't evolved at all, and that I'm 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.520 just this victim of this limbic, this lizard. I don't 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:37.960 like that at all. How the hell am I going 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.840 to overcome this? So the way you just described it 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:42.840 is actually what's happening in that moment is not a 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.400 helpless victim situation. Your body is actually doing something in 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.920 that moment to help you. It just needs a minute. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.160 But we don't have a minute when we're waiting for 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.320 our feelings to show up. So it's it's it's scrambling 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.600 to make sense of these feelings. Attach a story to 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.840 it so we know if what we're feeling is whatever. 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.680 And by that time, if we're not practiced like you, um, 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.120 we're adding our own thoughts into it. Now it's just 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.120 a jumble. Um, you know, we're telling ourselves a story 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.800 while our brain is trying to make a story. I'm 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.720 putting it very not scientifically, but basically what I ended 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.640 up having to do to work on my anxiety is 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.560 eventually get to where you started in your story, which is, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.200 you know, talk to myself during it to calm myself down. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.600 But the original thing positive to me was because lizard 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:35.040 brain caveman limbiic blah blah, and reading your book that 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.880 that is all bullshit, that we don't have three parts 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:39.880 of our brain, and that this is all back from 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.440 like men who worshiped Plato can you talk to me 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.200 about I'm going to give you your quote. Bad behavior 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.480 doesn't come from ancient and unbridled inner beasts. Good behavior 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.640 is not the result of rationality, rationality and emotion or 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.200 not at war. They do not even live in separate 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.000 parts of the brain. The three layered brain was proposed 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.840 by several scientists over the years. UM Paul McClean concluded 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.280 that mammal brains had a collection of parts that reptile 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.720 brains didn't, which he called the Olympic system. And now 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:12.200 the human origin story is born. Please dissect that, dismantle 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.200 it for me. Sure. So this idea that we have 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.920 this ancient lizard brain, and then layered on top of 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.720 that is this newer mammalian part called Olympic system, where 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.600 limbic means um border, that is the tissue that borders 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.320 you know, your lizard brain. And then on top of 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.640 that evolved, um, your you know, big neo cortex, which 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:39.280 is where rationality lives. And this idea UM has been 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.440 around really since the beginning I would say, modern neuroscience 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.080 in some ways. And when was that for for people 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:50.960 who don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, And actually I 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:55.160 have a whole section in um how emotions are made? 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:59.680 Where I dissect this history of like how did people 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.040 come to take this an idea really that you can 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.720 trace all the way back to Plato and tattooed onto 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.679 the brain and then make that, you know, um, the 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.560 origin story of human nature. Right, and and if you 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.560 go back to the Plato story, it's really interesting story 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.480 where he's he's in a number of places. You know, 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:24.480 he talks about the human psyche, which isn't exactly the 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.400 same as the modern human mind, but for present purposes 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.160 will just use them equivalently. Now, human mind can be 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:36.080 understood as two horses and a cherry tear. One horse 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:41.600 is your instincts, um, like you know, hunger and thirst 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.119 and sex drive and so on. Um that you know 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.320 a neuroscience joke ready is uh? People call it the 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:56.560 four fs, feeding, fleeing, fighting, and mating. Excuse me, doctor, 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.400 Mating does not begin with an F. She she means 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:04.320 to say fun exactly. So one horse is, you know, instincts. 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.800 One horse represents emotions. And then there's the chariots here 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.240 who's controlling the two beasts? Right? The human controlling the 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:16.720 two beasts? This is actually a morality tale in Plato's hands. 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.960 You know, this is a story of human morality, that 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:25.000 you've got these inner urges that have to be controlled 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:31.200 by your rational self. And in modern times we say, 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:36.359 you know, when your rationality controls your your inner beast, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.440 you are mentally healthy and you're a moral person. When 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.680 your inner beast gets the better of you, you are 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.760 either immoral because you didn't try hard enough to control yourself, 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.720 or you're sick because you can't control yourself. I mean. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.560 That's basically the um the narrative that you find embedded 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.760 in a lot of modern writing um uh, scientific and 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.840 popular writing about um right, that your mind and therefore 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.439 your brain is a battle ground between your inner beast 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.200 and your more rational self. The problem with this narrative 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.639 is that it it completely The science doesn't doesn't at 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.080 all back it up. That this reminds me of like 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.119 the flat Earth of neuroscience, I mean, and the fact 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.080 that it is in fact that it hasn't been laughed 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.119 out of society is frightening. That's so funny that you 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.479 said that, because the flat earth myth is something I 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.560 talk about in How Emotions Are Made. I got okay, 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:37.560 I read that book too. It must be in my brain. 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.359 I I lifted from you in front of you. But 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.480 but yeah, but the myth of the sort of the 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:49.080 battle ground in your brain is really pervasive, and I 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.879 think the the important thing to understand is that what 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:58.159 you feel is not in your body, it's actually in 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:03.000 your brain. You your brain or with your brain. You 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.040 smell with your brain, if you take your pulse, you 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:11.399 actually feel that pulse in your brain. Your brain is 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.199 modeling your body in the world. Well wait one, it's 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.200 like that could be very helpful. I'm going to mark 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:21.560 that for my listeners. Where again, this is even until recently. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.679 If I'm having an anxiety attack, I look at it 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.080 as a battle between my body and my brain. Right 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.119 I will think, now my body is having a rapid 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.000 heart rate and it's having a lien to that. Because 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.280 you know, for me, if I'm having a panic attack 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.640 these days, I always say that it's usually from very 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.800 physical reasons. I didn't sleep enough, too much coffee, bloody blood. 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.159 So I'll start to do that and I'll start to 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:45.760 see my body and brain is two different things. And 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:47.919 I might do a cognitive exercise like you did in 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.440 New Zealand or on the way to New Zealand. But 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:52.879 from now on I will stop thinking of it as 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.040 body versus brain. It is. That's right. My body can't 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.399 feel a damn thing or smell a damn thing if 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.639 I'm brain dead. And so maybe this helps our listeners, 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:03.760 who you know, I do want to go back to 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.520 it in a second. I do think some people might 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.160 not want to let go of the limbic lizard brain. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.520 It's fun and easy for them, but I want to 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.720 empower people to say, um, you're not a victim of 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.159 your own body. This isn't um something of to fight against. 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.479 You just have to know more about it. So so 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:22.400 I'm so sorry to interrupt. Continue what you were saying 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.720 that you can't you smell with your brain? You you 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.080 taste with your brain? Please feel feed interrupted, I'll probably 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.680 just natter on, but I think it's really important that 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.280 you have to understand that what your your brain is 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.840 modeling your body to control your body. So hopefully your 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.240 brain is accurate. Right, So your brain makes predictions about 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.560 what's happening in your body. It actually prepares. So for example, 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.280 if we were to hold time still, we just stopped time, 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.280 we look into your brain. Your brain is representing what 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.879 it believes to be occurring in your body and in 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.080 your brain and I mean and world, And based on 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.199 that it makes a set of predictions about what to 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:08.119 do next. So it starts to prepare the signals to 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.760 change your body so that you can do something that 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:19.119 will be beneficial. And what you experience are the consequences 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:24.439 of those motor and what we call visceral motor that is, 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:28.080 the changing of the internal state of the body. Those 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:33.480 motor signals actually give rise to what are called sensory predictions. 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:38.119 So your brain asks itself figuratively, the last time I 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.880 was in this physical state and I was about to 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:43.760 change my body in this way, what did I see? 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.400 What did I hear? What did I feel? And then 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:51.560 it starts to construct those experiences to prepare for the 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.320 sense data coming from the body and from the world, 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:59.640 that is expecting when you're battling, you're anxious, when you're 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.400 operating your less anxious. Yes. And I want to say 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.040 two things about this. I'll say the first the first 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.199 thing will follow up directly on what you said, And 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:10.760 then I want to say this other thing about why 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:12.960 does it matter that we understand how these things work? 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.720 The first things that to your point, if your brain 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:22.119 constructs anxiety, that is, it makes sense of since this 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.880 high arousal state unpleasant state as anxiety, and it leads 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:28.120 you to act in certain ways as opposed to other ways, 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:32.560 and so that prolongs the arousal and so on. You 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:38.600 suffer like you you you experience suffering, but you know 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:44.640 there is a difference between suffering and discomfort. I agree. 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.679 Can I say one quick thing that people know that 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:50.440 I talk about anxiety and that I having this podcast 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:52.640 come out and I will get emails from people saying 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:54.960 I suffer from anxiety. And I don't want to sound 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:57.600 woo woo, but I always say, if you keep saying 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:02.240 you're suffering, you will be suffering. Ring you have anxiety, anxieties, 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:05.840 your friend anxiety shows up. You're a human. But the 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:10.520 more people keep with the dramatic narrative I'm suffering, you 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.000 know you're not. You're uncomfortable. It sucks. It's scary. If 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:15.560 you don't know what the hell is going on, it 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:18.600 can feel like suffering, but you're not actually suffering. And 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:21.160 I feel like I want that to be good news 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:23.040 for people. But we like to hold on our story. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.639 So I know right now some people are you know, 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:27.639 turning the channel as I say and going, no, she 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.520 doesn't get it. But I agree, it's not suffering. Yeah, 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.040 So let me just say that I don't doubt for 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:39.840 a minute that people, when they experience anxiety, crippling anxiety, 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:42.919 that they suffer. They do suffer. The point is that, 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:45.880 I mean we all everyone has had this experience um 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:49.720 at least once and um. But what I and for 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:51.840 some people much longer. But what I'm trying to say 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:58.000 is that the suffering isn't obligatory, and that you have 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.399 more control than you think you do. And when I 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:02.200 say that you have more control than you think you too, 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:05.119 I'm not saying that you are therefore responsible for your 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:08.439 anxiety and suffering. I'm not saying you're culpable in some 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.560 like cosmic way. I am saying that you have more 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.040 control than you think you do, and you have maybe 0:25:15.080 --> 0:25:18.439 a little bit more responsibility for your feelings than you 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:21.520 think you do, not because you're to blame for them, 0:25:21.560 --> 0:25:24.720 but because you're the only one who can change them. 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:26.880 This is a point where I made you know when 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.680 I in my TED talk that I think people really 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:32.800 resonated to that you know, if you're responsible sometimes for 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:35.920 yourself and for the horrible, Like you know, if something 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:39.200 horrible happens to you, you're not to blame for that, 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:41.000 and you're also not to blame for all the ship 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:44.040 that comes from it. Yeah, but you're the only one 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:48.000 who can change it. And that means you are, in 0:25:48.080 --> 0:25:50.879 an unfortunate way kind of responsible. And that may feel 0:25:50.880 --> 0:25:53.760 to you like you're being victimized twice, and you are, maybe, 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:58.280 But what other options do you have? You There isn't one, 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:03.800 And so I think understanding that you can dissolve the suffering. 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:07.119 You might not be able to get rid of the discomfort, 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:12.720 you can dissolve the suffering into discomfort. That's actually a 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:19.480 really powerful set of abilities that you should cherish, practice 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:22.960 and cherish because you know what, when we exercise every day, 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:26.720 we're uncomfortable, but we have that effort as like an 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:29.840 investment in a healthier brain and body and a healthier 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:34.920 you in the future. And the same thing is true. Um, 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:38.919 anxiety is not your friend, but arousal is there for 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:41.720 a reason. It's uncomfortable and it might feel like shit, 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:46.119 but it's there for reason, and it's there actually, you know, 0:26:46.200 --> 0:26:50.040 in part because your brain believes something is important enough 0:26:50.080 --> 0:26:53.639 to learn or that you have to do something really hard, 0:26:54.200 --> 0:26:57.000 and so even if it's uncomfortable. And I also want 0:26:57.000 --> 0:27:01.160 to say that, you know, for example, research shows that 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:08.199 in chronic pain, if you learn to deconstruct that chronic 0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:16.280 pain into um, discomfort, you can not only reduce your 0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:20.080 own suffering experience of suffering, but you can like reduce 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:25.480 your dependence on opioids for example. Yeah, and I'm you 0:27:25.520 --> 0:27:29.280 know right now we're talking and uh, you know, I 0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:32.080 am three months out from major back surgery, Like I 0:27:32.119 --> 0:27:36.160 had a open back surgery, a spinal fusion at three levels. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:41.720 So I'm talking to you as a scientist. I'm talking 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:44.400 to you as someone who's sister in law suffers from 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:47.040 terrible chronic pain from my algy and she uses how 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:49.719 emotions are made actually as a little manual for her 0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:52.640 with her patients. I'm talking to you as someone who 0:27:52.680 --> 0:27:57.480 just had major back surgery. Yeah, and um, there's a 0:27:57.480 --> 0:27:59.600 guy named Eric Garland who's done a lot of research 0:27:59.680 --> 0:28:04.400 on meditation and other ways of learning to dissolve suffering 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:09.920 into discomfort and the consequences for opioid use, for example. 0:28:10.560 --> 0:28:12.919 So and I could go on and on and on 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.520 about this. I mean, there's an analogy I would say 0:28:16.560 --> 0:28:19.440 that a lot of people find really helpful. A while back, 0:28:19.440 --> 0:28:22.440 I was really interested to learn to paint, you know. Yeah, 0:28:22.760 --> 0:28:25.040 and so I took some lessons from a painter and 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:26.560 and and she explained to me, so I'm going to 0:28:26.640 --> 0:28:28.719 hold up a glass. Now, I'm holding up a glass 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:31.960 full of water. She explained to me that if you 0:28:32.080 --> 0:28:35.680 try to take this glass and it's a three dimensional 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:37.360 object and you want to render it on a two 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:40.440 dimensional canvas, you could just look at the object and 0:28:40.440 --> 0:28:42.360 then try to draw it on the canvas, and you'll 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:46.880 end up getting a pretty shitty looking drawing. Yeah. Or 0:28:47.000 --> 0:28:49.520 what you can do is do what classical painters do, 0:28:49.560 --> 0:28:52.320 which is they take the object and they deconstruct it 0:28:52.360 --> 0:28:56.720 into pieces of light. So you deconstruct this and you 0:28:56.760 --> 0:28:59.760 have to learn to kind of undo what your brain does. Naturally, 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:02.440 your brain us to sort of teach itself to see differently. 0:29:03.280 --> 0:29:05.120 And you can see I don't know about you, but 0:29:05.200 --> 0:29:08.000 I can see like even though it's a clear glass, Yeah, 0:29:08.040 --> 0:29:12.280 I see blues and black and gray, and there's actually 0:29:12.320 --> 0:29:17.200 some yellow like right there, like yellow. And then you 0:29:17.560 --> 0:29:21.360 paint the pieces of light on the canvas, and you 0:29:21.400 --> 0:29:24.920 get a pretty decent rendering of a three dimensional object 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:29.040 on a two dimensional canvas. Unless you're meat. Yeah, well 0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:35.280 me too. Anxiety Bites will be right back after a 0:29:35.360 --> 0:29:43.400 quick little message from one of our sponsors. You know, 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:45.920 most people I know who do not want to go 0:29:45.960 --> 0:29:48.840 to therapy, who do not want to work on their anxiety, 0:29:49.240 --> 0:29:53.320 they know somewhere, because you know, it's just in our culture, 0:29:53.440 --> 0:29:56.640 right that everything comes from somewhere. But at the end 0:29:56.680 --> 0:30:00.320 of the day, like if you find out, Okay, maybe 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.280 I'm anxious because my parents were anxious and I learned 0:30:03.320 --> 0:30:06.880 this from them or whatever, it's like going back in 0:30:06.960 --> 0:30:10.200 time doesn't really solve what you have to do anyway, 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:12.200 which is just learned skills you've never learned, like we 0:30:12.240 --> 0:30:14.600 talked about all the way to the beginning of this conversation. 0:30:14.680 --> 0:30:17.280 And so in that way, I feel like people are 0:30:17.320 --> 0:30:20.400 afraid to dive deep because they're like, what's not my fault? 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:22.120 I have anxiety. It's not my fault. I was born 0:30:22.480 --> 0:30:24.400 during a climate crisis, not my fault. But but and 0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:27.200 it's like, no, it's not. But are we only taking 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:29.840 care of ourselves when it's our fault. I mean, what 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:36.040 you're pointing to is the difference between culpability and responsibility. Yeah, 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:38.440 like you could be responsible for something that you're not 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:41.920 culpable for, meaning you're not to blame. Yeah, you are 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:45.200 responsible for for dealing with it. I mean I didn't 0:30:45.240 --> 0:30:49.120 learn something. I'd say I'd probably got some rusty tools 0:30:49.160 --> 0:30:51.080 handed down to me from my parents and dealing with 0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:53.960 anxiety or even just knowing what anxiety was. So I 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:56.600 had to get my own tools. But the way I 0:30:56.640 --> 0:30:58.840 look at it is great. I also had to get 0:30:58.880 --> 0:31:01.960 my own apartment. I to get my own clothes, Like 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:03.600 I'm not so walking around in the clothes that I 0:31:03.640 --> 0:31:05.680 wore as a toddler going. So my fault I grew, 0:31:06.120 --> 0:31:08.520 you know, like, well, okay, but now you have to dress, 0:31:08.560 --> 0:31:10.760 you know, and it and that can actually be fun. 0:31:10.920 --> 0:31:15.120 You can actually differentiate yourself from where you came and 0:31:15.240 --> 0:31:18.800 it can be really empowering, which helps reduce anxiety in 0:31:18.840 --> 0:31:21.640 my humble opinion, for sure. I mean I will say 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:27.720 that you aren't born knowing to construct anxiety out of 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:33.880 out of arousal. You learned that. So this culture is, 0:31:34.400 --> 0:31:37.840 you know, the cultural practices that we have in some 0:31:37.960 --> 0:31:44.560 ways are the perfect recipe for creating anxiety disorders and depression. Actually, 0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:51.160 there's so much uncertainty, yeah, in in so many domains, 0:31:51.840 --> 0:31:56.719 and the go to meaning that everybody makes is anxiety, 0:31:56.880 --> 0:31:59.920 and that dictates your actions and it dictates, like physically, 0:32:00.040 --> 0:32:03.600 what happens next. But that isn't the only explanation, That 0:32:03.800 --> 0:32:07.040 isn't the only narrative that's available. And you can deconstruct 0:32:07.040 --> 0:32:11.440 that anxiety into unpleasant arousal and have a completely different 0:32:11.440 --> 0:32:16.560 trajectory for what happens next. Oh, I love that, Which 0:32:16.560 --> 0:32:19.120 is why it's important to understand how your brain is 0:32:19.160 --> 0:32:23.680 constructing emotions, how is it constructing anxiety. So the techniques 0:32:23.720 --> 0:32:26.120 of like deep breathing and yoga and like, you know, 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:29.120 all these things are you know, reappraisal as it's called, 0:32:29.200 --> 0:32:31.840 or like you know, reconceptualizing making sense of things in 0:32:31.840 --> 0:32:36.560 a different way. All these um strategies work, but they 0:32:36.600 --> 0:32:39.080 don't work for the reasons that all the you know, 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:42.520 self help books say why is that important? It's important 0:32:42.520 --> 0:32:45.680 because in one situation they might not work or they 0:32:45.760 --> 0:32:50.280 might stop working. And then if you understand the principle, 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:56.080 you can figure out other strategies that you didn't read 0:32:56.080 --> 0:33:00.920 about that, follow that principle of brain funk shin. But 0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:05.160 if you are just following other people's recommendations and you 0:33:05.200 --> 0:33:11.560 don't understand how it works under the hood, then um, 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:15.280 you're stuck. When those strategies stopped working for you, which 0:33:15.400 --> 0:33:20.120 they will in certain circumstances. Not it's not you know, reconceptualizing, 0:33:20.560 --> 0:33:22.960 you know, trying to make sense of things differently doesn't 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:25.160 always work as a strategy, And so you need to 0:33:25.160 --> 0:33:27.719 have a tool, you know, a toolbox that's filled with 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:29.760 other tools, or you might even need to make your 0:33:29.800 --> 0:33:32.880 own tools on the fly, you know. And that's really 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:35.480 what seven and a half Lessons and the longer you 0:33:35.480 --> 0:33:37.200 Know and and How Motions Are Made, which is a 0:33:37.280 --> 0:33:40.600 much longer book. Yeah, it's really designed to to sort 0:33:40.600 --> 0:33:43.640 of impart well I And I love that because too. Yeah, 0:33:43.760 --> 0:33:45.920 I have so many people say to me, you know, um, 0:33:45.960 --> 0:33:49.640 I've tried everything for anxiety. Nothing works, and it's like, god, 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:51.800 you know, I wonder what they're doing, and it's it's 0:33:51.840 --> 0:33:55.560 like you said, they're probably it's probably not the right 0:33:55.560 --> 0:33:57.560 tools for them, you know, or even the right way 0:33:57.560 --> 0:34:00.240 of understanding what's going on under the hood. Yeah, I 0:34:00.280 --> 0:34:03.480 would say also that you know those like the list 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:06.560 of tools is is not a recipe, it's like a 0:34:06.640 --> 0:34:09.320 tasting menu, Like you've got to figure out what works 0:34:09.320 --> 0:34:12.400 for you and what doesn't in certain situations. Also, what 0:34:12.400 --> 0:34:16.440 does it mean to have something work exactly? It doesn't 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:19.680 mean that you know that the arousal goes away. It 0:34:19.719 --> 0:34:23.160 doesn't necessarily mean that your discomfort goes away. And also 0:34:24.120 --> 0:34:27.279 it's not like flipping on an awful light switch. You 0:34:27.280 --> 0:34:29.399 have to think of in terms of a trajectory, which 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:33.800 means you're nudging yourself, nudging yourself in a particular direction. 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:38.560 You know, every new experience that we cultivate for ourselves 0:34:38.560 --> 0:34:40.920 in the moment with effort, you know, it's like an 0:34:40.960 --> 0:34:44.879 investment in a in a different future. Right. But every 0:34:44.880 --> 0:34:48.880 new experience we have, every new experience the brain makes, 0:34:49.320 --> 0:34:53.880 the brain learns to make it again in the future. 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:57.960 And the more you practice it, the more this experience 0:34:58.080 --> 0:35:00.360 or the skill, the better you get at it, the 0:35:00.360 --> 0:35:02.640 more automatic you'll get it at like driving kind of 0:35:03.000 --> 0:35:05.640 So in a sense, what you're doing every moment of 0:35:05.640 --> 0:35:10.440 your life, you're really in a sense cultivating your past 0:35:11.920 --> 0:35:14.680 that will determine who you will be in the future, 0:35:15.440 --> 0:35:17.839 and by past you mean that moment you're driving will 0:35:17.880 --> 0:35:20.840 be the past someday when you're when your brain is 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:24.680 predicting next week. Yeah, if you with a tremendous effort 0:35:24.719 --> 0:35:28.200 and maybe even great um you know, sense of disbelief, 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:32.879 attempt to deconstruct your anxiety into unpleasant arousal. And it's 0:35:32.920 --> 0:35:35.440 really hard to do the first time you do it, 0:35:35.920 --> 0:35:37.680 and it's hard to do the second time you do it, 0:35:37.960 --> 0:35:41.600 and probably hard the thirtieth time you do it, and 0:35:41.719 --> 0:35:44.239 even after it gets automatic, it might be hard to 0:35:44.280 --> 0:35:47.359 do it occasionally. But it's hard to do. But the 0:35:47.400 --> 0:35:49.439 thing is that that every time you do it, you're 0:35:49.480 --> 0:35:55.120 training your brain is training itself. Yeah too, make meaning 0:35:55.880 --> 0:35:59.399 differently in the future. So the way that your brain 0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:04.200 works is it predicts what's going to happen next using 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:08.200 your past. So every experience you have, everything that you 0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:14.760 do in the present is basically like your brain training itself. Yeah, 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.640 it's like cultivating your past. Yeah, the past of the 0:36:18.680 --> 0:36:20.680 future that's come and you know, you know, it's like 0:36:20.719 --> 0:36:23.280 anything like I put a dollar in my savings account. 0:36:23.320 --> 0:36:25.600 I don't go, wow, you know, I've got no money. 0:36:25.640 --> 0:36:27.840 It's like, well, in twenty years that will be whatever dollars. 0:36:27.880 --> 0:36:30.200 And you know, same with working out, you know, it's 0:36:30.280 --> 0:36:33.239 it's it's exactly the same. Yeah. Now, okay, So as 0:36:33.239 --> 0:36:36.320 we're wrapping up, I I want to go nitty gritty 0:36:36.360 --> 0:36:39.640 into this and and circle back to this notion of 0:36:39.760 --> 0:36:42.200 this myth about the brain. So if we don't have 0:36:42.239 --> 0:36:44.080 a three part brain with a lizard and a limbic 0:36:44.120 --> 0:36:46.080 and a caveman. Now I'm throwing the caveman and there. 0:36:46.080 --> 0:36:48.440 You didn't really say that, but I'm throwing it in there. 0:36:48.440 --> 0:36:50.960 I might be wrong, but it's almost like, is our 0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:54.400 brain smarter and more functional than these myths give it 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:56.560 credit for? And and what is the brain if it's 0:36:56.600 --> 0:37:02.200 not this three part thing? Well yeah, yes, basically yes. 0:37:02.280 --> 0:37:04.520 But I would say the way I would think about 0:37:04.560 --> 0:37:09.680 it is that, um, this idea that anything about your 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:13.640 body or your brain being you know the same as 0:37:15.200 --> 0:37:18.040 you know from caveman or you know from the place 0:37:18.120 --> 0:37:23.800 our placed to see ancestors, you know under gathers is 0:37:23.800 --> 0:37:28.160 is a bit of an overstatement because genes don't work 0:37:28.239 --> 0:37:32.200 like that. And so you know, this whole idea that 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:36.520 we have this fixed human nature in the way that 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:38.520 our brain is structured and works in the way that 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:41.640 our bodies work, and that we have nurture. This kind 0:37:41.640 --> 0:37:45.920 of learning, which overlays or modifies this nature is wrong. 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:49.280 It's just it's not even wrong. It's such a profound 0:37:49.320 --> 0:37:53.640 misunderstanding of how genes work. Um, you know, we have 0:37:53.840 --> 0:37:58.719 the kind of nature that requires nurture. We have the 0:37:58.840 --> 0:38:02.160 kind of genes that require learning in order for your 0:38:02.160 --> 0:38:08.759 brain to even finish wiring itself after Okay, love it, Okay. 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:10.680 You know when you're born, your brain is not a 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:14.480 miniature and dull brain. It's a brain that is unfinished, 0:38:15.040 --> 0:38:19.440 and it's waiting for wiring instructions from the world and 0:38:19.520 --> 0:38:23.480 from your own body. And part of that is, you know, 0:38:23.560 --> 0:38:26.880 your brain wires itself to the distance between your eyes, 0:38:27.239 --> 0:38:29.480 and it wires itself to the shape of your ear, 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:33.040 and it wires itself to the amount of sunlight that 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:35.799 you get and when you get it throughout the day, 0:38:35.880 --> 0:38:38.600 And it wires itself in all these physical ways. But 0:38:38.719 --> 0:38:43.399 it's also wiring itself to the social feedback that you get. 0:38:43.480 --> 0:38:46.359 For example, how much do your parents talk to you, 0:38:46.600 --> 0:38:48.799 how much do they make eye contact with you, how 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:52.439 much do they use gaze to help you regulate what 0:38:52.480 --> 0:38:54.440 should you care about in the world and what can 0:38:54.480 --> 0:38:59.319 you ignore as noise? For example, if parents don't properly 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:03.399 use gays with their infants, there's not like one way 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:05.960 to do it. There are multiple ways. But basically with 0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:09.440 gays and with other things that we do, we're teaching 0:39:09.440 --> 0:39:13.560 our children are infants, these little developing brains. What do 0:39:13.600 --> 0:39:16.440 they have to care about in the world and what 0:39:16.520 --> 0:39:19.399 can they ignore as irrelevant? And if you don't do that, 0:39:19.560 --> 0:39:23.080 the child's brain will think that everything is potentially relevant. 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:28.719 That my friend is vigilance. Yes, and a lot of 0:39:28.760 --> 0:39:31.359 people with you know, chaotic homes or whatever, right, they're 0:39:31.400 --> 0:39:34.600 super vigilant. They end up being kind of anywhere from 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:39.879 like a codependent anxious right. Well, but remember if your 0:39:39.880 --> 0:39:43.080 brain can't predict, if it thinks every novel thing is 0:39:43.120 --> 0:39:49.319 potentially important, yeah, and there's gonna be a lot of arousal, 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:54.919 a lot of anxiety. And I will also say very 0:39:54.960 --> 0:40:00.160 metabolically costly, like every time you are vigilant and you 0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:04.160 don't need to be. Every time, when your brain prepares 0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:08.239 you for a big metabolic outlay and you don't need it, 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:13.120 you pay a tiny little metabolic tax and those taxes 0:40:13.960 --> 0:40:17.520 add up over time. Another myth I think that's as 0:40:17.560 --> 0:40:19.440 big as the myth of the try and brain is 0:40:19.480 --> 0:40:22.600 the idea that like cortisol is a stress wormon, the 0:40:22.680 --> 0:40:26.760 cortisol is not a stress wormon. Cortisol is a hormone 0:40:27.000 --> 0:40:31.080 that your brain directs your adrenal glance to secrete when 0:40:31.719 --> 0:40:34.240 your brain believes that you have a big metabolic outlay coming, 0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:38.200 So it gets cortisol just gets glucose into your bloodstream 0:40:38.239 --> 0:40:40.719 really fast. So I love that part of your book 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:42.640 where you say if you eat when you're stressed, that 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:46.279 adds a hundred calories to what you're eating. And that's 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:49.359 really the myth, the mythology right of the cortisol weight 0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:51.800 gain thing. It's like the mythology. But that's the explanation. 0:40:52.239 --> 0:40:54.799 That's one of the explanations. Basically, that's one of that's 0:40:54.880 --> 0:40:56.840 part of the explanation. I would say, But you know, 0:40:56.920 --> 0:40:58.400 before you wake up in the morning, you have a 0:40:58.400 --> 0:41:01.560 cortisol search because you're going in your brain is predicting, 0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:03.880 you know, based on past experience, that you're about to 0:41:03.960 --> 0:41:06.880 drag your ass out of bed. You need glue coast 0:41:07.080 --> 0:41:09.600 right and right before you exercise, and as you exercise, 0:41:09.640 --> 0:41:11.759 you have big portosul serge why because you need blue 0:41:11.760 --> 0:41:15.440 coast and your right But that secretion with when you 0:41:15.480 --> 0:41:18.360 don't actually need it, So your brain is being vigilant 0:41:18.800 --> 0:41:23.400 and UM doesn't know whether this novel thing or this 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:27.239 ambiguous situation, whether you know this is um you know 0:41:28.000 --> 0:41:31.120 some kind of like coping response is required not it's 0:41:31.160 --> 0:41:34.120 kind of prepare just in case it's going to attempt 0:41:34.160 --> 0:41:39.480 to learn just in case. That's an expense. And the 0:41:39.560 --> 0:41:43.960 more you spend when you don't need it, the more, uh, 0:41:44.360 --> 0:41:47.680 you know, you run, you drive your your body budget 0:41:47.680 --> 0:41:50.080 as as I that's the metaphor I use you bet 0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:53.840 your metabolism basically driving it into this like deficit state. 0:41:54.800 --> 0:41:58.480 And that's a very simplistic metaphor for a very complicated 0:41:58.480 --> 0:42:00.839 set of processes. But now the last I think it's 0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:05.839 a useful metaphor. Yeah, UM, to understand what's happening kind 0:42:05.840 --> 0:42:12.040 of under the hood. Anxiety bites will be right back 0:42:12.080 --> 0:42:20.080 after this message. Well, I'll let you go, but I 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:23.120 want to end on UM. In your book, you do 0:42:23.239 --> 0:42:26.200 mention it UM, and I'm sorry I couldn't quite remember it, 0:42:26.239 --> 0:42:31.760 but you were saying something about even in the nineteen sixties, Um, 0:42:31.800 --> 0:42:34.279 science knew that there was this was a myth of 0:42:34.280 --> 0:42:36.640 the three part brain and the kind of male mythology 0:42:36.719 --> 0:42:38.600 of you know, the all that stuff we talked about, 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:42.520 and yet no one's do you feel like in your community, 0:42:42.640 --> 0:42:46.560 you know, why is no one saying anything? Why isn't 0:42:46.560 --> 0:42:48.960 your book that just came out, like maybe it is? 0:42:48.960 --> 0:42:51.320 And I don't know what, like ending all these other myths, 0:42:51.320 --> 0:42:54.200 like why is this still allowed to persist at the 0:42:54.280 --> 0:42:56.279 same time as the truth? Like you said, the truth 0:42:56.320 --> 0:43:01.760 has been out there for decades. Yeah, So I think, Um, 0:43:01.800 --> 0:43:04.320 there are a couple of this is just speculation and 0:43:04.440 --> 0:43:07.160 mighty right, but a couple of reasons. I think one 0:43:07.239 --> 0:43:12.760 is that, you know, scientists don't like the afword. Fact 0:43:14.880 --> 0:43:21.000 that's scary, okays right, because it's it's always right, okay, 0:43:21.000 --> 0:43:22.920 so you know, and there might be it might be wrong, 0:43:23.080 --> 0:43:25.360 and you know, so we we concern ourselves with these 0:43:25.840 --> 0:43:28.759 probabilities and some one but I would say that the 0:43:28.840 --> 0:43:32.040 evidence that the trying brain is wrong. And I feel 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:35.040 at this point like it's I'm not going to mince words. 0:43:35.360 --> 0:43:37.839 It was a metaphor and it's not useful because it's 0:43:37.920 --> 0:43:44.640 it actually has it's incorrect. The evidence was sequestered away 0:43:44.960 --> 0:43:48.240 in a literature that's very very hard for people to read, 0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:54.759 even other scientists to read if you're not an expert. Yeah. 0:43:54.800 --> 0:43:59.319 So it's in the literature that requires knowledge of um 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:06.960 embryology for example, and deep knowledge of genetics. And I 0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:11.040 had to learn in fact Barb Finley, who's a a 0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:13.839 neurse scientist who I think, you know, she's The book 0:44:13.880 --> 0:44:16.359 is really dedicated to her and all the other nerth 0:44:16.440 --> 0:44:19.960 scientists who really trained me to be a neuroscientist after 0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:24.040 I was already professor of you know, psychology. I mean, 0:44:24.080 --> 0:44:27.080 she taught me how to read that literature. And she 0:44:27.200 --> 0:44:29.239 still meets with me. I meet with her for two 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:32.399 hours every week. She still is sort of acting like 0:44:32.480 --> 0:44:37.200 a guide for me. Um. You know, for certain literatures 0:44:37.200 --> 0:44:39.399 that I'm just you know, not familiar with. But I mean, 0:44:39.440 --> 0:44:43.880 it's just it was sequestered away and it still is 0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:47.040 to some extent siloed away. So a lot of people 0:44:47.080 --> 0:44:51.520 don't know about it. UM and it there's no it 0:44:51.560 --> 0:44:54.440 doesn't have a cheering section, you know, like there are 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:59.440 popular writers right who who um like science writers who 0:45:00.040 --> 0:45:04.400 popularize what they understand. And when you look at a 0:45:04.440 --> 0:45:07.279 brain and you look at these diagrams of brains, it 0:45:07.360 --> 0:45:10.520 looks like they have three layers, I mean using the 0:45:10.600 --> 0:45:16.240 naked eye. But the naked eye is not always the best. Um, 0:45:16.280 --> 0:45:18.640 it doesn't always give you all the information that we 0:45:18.640 --> 0:45:21.520 need to understand how something emerges and what its function is. 0:45:22.120 --> 0:45:24.000 It must be like looking at the Earth from the moon, 0:45:24.000 --> 0:45:25.920 where it looks like there's land and there's ocean, but 0:45:26.160 --> 0:45:30.160 really that's so interconnected. Yeah, well there's also land under 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:33.439 the water, right right, Yeah, and you can't really see 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:36.799 that with the naked eye. So we we really understand that. 0:45:37.040 --> 0:45:40.040 You know, we we develop tools as scientists that allow 0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:42.600 us to see things that we can't see with our 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:45.040 naked eye. That we can hear things that we can't 0:45:45.040 --> 0:45:48.400 hear hear with our ears alone. Um, and you know, 0:45:48.440 --> 0:45:52.360 we translate these other signals which we don't have sensory 0:45:52.400 --> 0:45:55.600 surfaces for that, we have no senses for these other signals, 0:45:55.840 --> 0:45:58.880 and we translate them into signals that we can that 0:45:59.000 --> 0:46:04.120 we can detect. And so molecular genetics, you know, the 0:46:04.160 --> 0:46:08.839 evidence from molecular genetics of how brains might have evolved, 0:46:09.080 --> 0:46:12.680 and the evidence the sort of anatomical evidence that uses 0:46:12.719 --> 0:46:16.360 that knowledge has been around for a long time, but 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:21.399 it requires a lot of background knowledge to really read 0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:24.200 that stuff. And as a consequence, every time, you know, 0:46:24.239 --> 0:46:29.480 even even neuroscientists who aren't familiar with that literature still 0:46:29.520 --> 0:46:34.600 are using try and brain ish type uh interpretations. So 0:46:34.680 --> 0:46:37.440 every time you hear that your prefrontal cortex regulates your 0:46:37.440 --> 0:46:41.560 amygdala right there, that's just that's the sign that that 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:45.120 person is making an assumption about the try and brain. 0:46:45.400 --> 0:46:49.239 Sometimes scientists who write for the public will rely on 0:46:50.440 --> 0:46:53.399 that you know, three layered structure idea of the sort 0:46:53.440 --> 0:46:58.759 of lizard limbic you know, neocortex because they understand that 0:46:58.840 --> 0:47:01.880 it's easier for the publick to to think that way. So, 0:47:01.960 --> 0:47:06.680 for example, yeah, Robert Sapolski in his book Behaved talks 0:47:06.719 --> 0:47:10.240 about the limbic system, and he knows there's no Olympics system, 0:47:10.239 --> 0:47:14.240 and he knows that that's you know, a myth, but 0:47:14.239 --> 0:47:17.919 but he uses it because it's easier for people too. 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:23.319 It's an easier platform for people to start with, so 0:47:23.360 --> 0:47:25.680 that he can get to the material he wants them 0:47:25.680 --> 0:47:29.080 to get to. Whereas I'm directly more concerned with that 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:31.759 material of like what is a brain? How is it structured? 0:47:31.800 --> 0:47:34.560 And why do you need to know? Yeah? And when 0:47:34.560 --> 0:47:36.440 you and you made it so easy. I mean, I 0:47:36.440 --> 0:47:38.480 I don't know if you like that people have said this, 0:47:38.600 --> 0:47:43.319 but um, people are calling it like a beach read 0:47:43.360 --> 0:47:46.319 about the brain, which I think is you know, their 0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:49.040 way of saying, it's digestible and fun to read it. 0:47:49.520 --> 0:47:51.359 I wrote it that, I mean, I read you wrote 0:47:51.400 --> 0:47:54.680 it on purpose, okay, like that way, because um, but 0:47:54.719 --> 0:47:57.120 it is so brilliant that you've just blown my mind. 0:47:57.160 --> 0:48:00.480 I mean, I'm I'm your biggest fan. I think you're genius. 0:48:00.520 --> 0:48:03.880 And thank you so much, Dr Barrett for chatting with 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:08.600 us today. And I hope you've blown minds, changed minds, 0:48:09.080 --> 0:48:13.000 helped people. And uh, I'm going to change this podcast 0:48:13.040 --> 0:48:18.640 now to uncomfortable arousal bites, not anxiety. It doesn't have 0:48:18.680 --> 0:48:21.080 the same kind of like lyrical ring to it. No, 0:48:21.239 --> 0:48:23.200 but we'll get people there. But thank you again for 0:48:23.239 --> 0:48:25.439 being on the show. My pleasure. Thank you so much. 0:48:28.960 --> 0:48:33.279 I hope you loved my talk with Dr Lisa. Let's 0:48:33.320 --> 0:48:37.800 just go over some of the bigger takeaways from my 0:48:37.960 --> 0:48:42.279 talk with her. Anxiety is a very misunderstood phenomena, so 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:46.760 don't worry if you don't fully understand it. The brain 0:48:47.000 --> 0:48:51.520 is for regulating systems of your body. Period. The function 0:48:51.560 --> 0:48:54.279 of your brain is to continue to predict so that 0:48:54.360 --> 0:48:58.200 it keeps you safe when it's having trouble predicting when 0:48:58.239 --> 0:49:00.600 it's not quite they are yet it hasn't come to 0:49:00.640 --> 0:49:05.520 its full conclusion. That's when there's an increase in arousal, which, 0:49:05.560 --> 0:49:09.480 as Dr Lisa says, feels like shit. But if you 0:49:09.600 --> 0:49:13.080 learn to make sense of these sensations when your brain 0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:17.279 is in arousal, you will begin to act differently and 0:49:17.920 --> 0:49:22.640 the state is reduced too simply an uncomfortable state. It 0:49:22.719 --> 0:49:26.879 is an absolute myth dating back to Plato, that rationality 0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:29.759 controls your inner beast, and if your inner beast gets 0:49:29.760 --> 0:49:32.439 the better of you, you're either immoral or you didn't 0:49:32.440 --> 0:49:36.400 try hard enough to control yourself. Suffering from anxiety and 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:41.080 anxious sensations is not obligatory. Now, you're not to blame 0:49:41.160 --> 0:49:42.719 for the bad things that have happened to you, or 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:45.640 for any of the wiring or nurture that you got 0:49:45.680 --> 0:49:48.880 that caused you to have you know, the habit of anxiety, 0:49:48.920 --> 0:49:53.279 but you are responsible for yourself. So unfortunately, you have 0:49:53.320 --> 0:49:55.680 no choice. If you want to get better, you do 0:49:55.800 --> 0:49:58.799 have to make a choice to work on this. Your 0:49:58.800 --> 0:50:01.600 brain has to teach self to see differently, and that's 0:50:01.600 --> 0:50:06.480 called reappraisal or reconceptualizing. It's basically just making sense of 0:50:06.480 --> 0:50:09.400 things in a different way. Don't forget there's lots of 0:50:09.440 --> 0:50:11.880 things you can do for anxiety, like you can do yoga, 0:50:11.960 --> 0:50:16.080 you can breathe, but don't just follow what someone else 0:50:16.120 --> 0:50:20.400 says works for them for their anxiety. You have to 0:50:20.520 --> 0:50:23.160 also understand the brain and the mind. And if you 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:27.760 don't understand how that works, what's going on under the hood, 0:50:27.800 --> 0:50:31.520 then you're going to be stuck with strategies that eventually 0:50:31.880 --> 0:50:35.120 stop working in certain circumstances and you'll thank God, I've 0:50:35.160 --> 0:50:37.920 tried everything it doesn't work. Now, having a list of 0:50:37.920 --> 0:50:45.000 tools for anxiety like yoga, meditation, breathing, talk, therapy, counting, 0:50:46.680 --> 0:50:49.200 is not a recipe. Think of it more as a 0:50:49.239 --> 0:50:53.160 tasting menu. You're going to to your what word was that? 0:50:53.400 --> 0:50:57.080 Your gun too. You're going to figure out what works 0:50:57.120 --> 0:51:02.719 for you and what doesn't in certain situations. Okay, so 0:51:02.760 --> 0:51:05.400 what does it mean to have something work don't forget 0:51:05.640 --> 0:51:09.239 when Dr Lisa said, it means decreasing your arousal so 0:51:09.280 --> 0:51:13.919 that you're merely uncomfortable. I'm sorry, we're not really able 0:51:13.960 --> 0:51:19.200 to get rid of uncomfortable feelings, but I think you'll 0:51:19.200 --> 0:51:22.080 know once you get to that level, it's a hell 0:51:22.120 --> 0:51:26.520 of a lot better than anxious feelings. Now, it's really 0:51:26.560 --> 0:51:30.520 hard for the first time to um, you know, deconstruct 0:51:30.520 --> 0:51:33.719 your anxiety. Your first attempt at it, it's may still 0:51:33.760 --> 0:51:37.480 go into unpleasant arousal, but as Dr Lisa says, maybe 0:51:37.520 --> 0:51:40.200 by the thirtieth time you do it, you'll get there. 0:51:40.239 --> 0:51:44.040 It becomes automatic. Now, don't forget. Every experience you have 0:51:44.280 --> 0:51:46.560 is the brain training itself for the future. So it 0:51:46.640 --> 0:51:51.640 really behooves you to keep trying to deconstruct your anxiety 0:51:51.719 --> 0:51:57.960 from arousal unpleasant arousal too uncomfortable. And we have the 0:51:58.040 --> 0:52:00.840 kind of nature that does require nurture, so we have 0:52:00.880 --> 0:52:04.400 the kind of genes that require learning. In order for 0:52:04.480 --> 0:52:08.600 your brain to finish wiring itself. You can rewire your brain. 0:52:09.600 --> 0:52:12.600 Well that's it. I'm gonna get busy rewiring my brain, 0:52:12.960 --> 0:52:16.680 and I hope that you will all join me next time. 0:52:17.360 --> 0:52:26.919 Don't forget anxiety bites, but you're in control. For more 0:52:26.960 --> 0:52:29.799 podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:32.880 Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.