Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast today. I'm really excited have
Speaker 1: Brad Stolberg on the show. Brad researches, writes, and speaks
Speaker 1: about health and the science of human performance. He's a
Speaker 1: columnist with Outside Magazine and New York Magazine, and he's
Speaker 1: also written for The Los Angeles Times, Runners World, Forbes, NPR,
Speaker 1: and the Harvard Public Health Review. Thanks for chatting with
Speaker 1: me today, Brad. Hey, Scott, great to be here. See
Speaker 1: you write about a lot of relating to mastery and performance,
Speaker 1: high performance and sort of how to get the best
Speaker 1: Reacher goals. So you're right about all stuff. So let's
Speaker 1: start with one of your most recent articles on how
Speaker 1: exercise can shape you far beyond the benefits of just
Speaker 1: the physical right. Yeah, exactly, So if you could talk
Speaker 1: a bit about that what is the latest research show
Speaker 1: about the benefits of exercise. Yeah, totally. So it's a
Speaker 1: topic that really intrigues me, and I approach this I
Speaker 1: guess empirically first, because it's something that I've lived. So
Speaker 1: I noticed that when I started really pushing myself hard
Speaker 1: and training in endurance sports. In addition to all of
Speaker 1: the kind of traditionally spoken about physiological benefits of exercise,
Speaker 1: so weight management, blood sugar. Hopefully it will help me
Speaker 1: avoid osteoporosis in the future, I noticed that everything else
Speaker 1: in my life that otherwise might have stressed me out
Speaker 1: or put me in a rudder caused great challenge. Everything
Speaker 1: just kind of became easier when I was training really
Speaker 1: hard physically. I mean, I'd say I probably first had
Speaker 1: this realization. I jotted it down in a journal. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Five six years ago, I was working
Speaker 1: at a consulting firm where my days were pretty stressful,
Speaker 1: and I started getting really into endurance sports, and things
Speaker 1: just got easier, even though nothing substantially changed about the
Speaker 1: work itself. So it's something I've lived for the past
Speaker 1: decade now, and or I guess half a decade maybe,
Speaker 1: but at least the past five to ten years and
Speaker 1: started researching it now in a writing capacity, and turns
Speaker 1: out there's I wouldn't say like a huge body of evidence,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's some evidence that does show that pushing
Speaker 1: yourself physically can kind of translate into other pursuits and
Speaker 1: not just improve your physical fitness, but at the risk
Speaker 1: of sounding cliche, it also kind of improves your life fitness.
Speaker 1: Are there certain kinds of exercise that are better than others? No?
Speaker 1: You know that was the interesting thing. I mean again,
Speaker 1: the studies generally just look at aerobic exercise, so they
Speaker 1: look at individuals that went from hardly running at all
Speaker 1: to taking up running. And I think in one study
Speaker 1: they also could have used other machines so like stare climber's,
Speaker 1: elliptical trainers and such. But I think the real benefit
Speaker 1: is coming from your choosing to do something that is
Speaker 1: hard and uncomfortable. And like I say in the article,
Speaker 1: you're practicing being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do talk about that a lot, So it is
Speaker 1: uncomfortable pushing yourself to the physical extremes. And you also
Speaker 1: have described it as like practicing suffering, So is that
Speaker 1: something is that like a muscle suffering, like a muscle
Speaker 1: you can practice, you know, I don't know. It's actually
Speaker 1: I went back and forth with my editor on whether
Speaker 1: or not to use the word suffering, and we did
Speaker 1: because I tend to not love to use that word,
Speaker 1: because there's also the kind of suffering of a terrible
Speaker 1: health diagnosis and spiritual suffering and all that comes with it.
Speaker 1: So this is purely the notion of your body telling
Speaker 1: you this really really hurts your mind, telling you this
Speaker 1: is really hard. I want to stop in you making
Speaker 1: the choice to continue to push yourself and continue to
Speaker 1: endure that pain in discomfort. So that's what I mean
Speaker 1: by suffering, and you know my experience, and again some
Speaker 1: emerging evidence cites that, Yeah, it probably is a muscle
Speaker 1: that can be trained, or at least your capacity to
Speaker 1: endorse suffering. So you trained for marathons, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I dabbled in traathlons and do currently I am running marathons? Yes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is that? Like you know, do you think like how
Speaker 1: does talent play a role in there? Like could anyone
Speaker 1: learn how to run a marathon? Yeah? Absolutely, you know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonave it me. Oh, totally. Scott really
Speaker 1: going to quote a good a good friend and mentor.
Speaker 1: His name is Mike Joyner. He's over at the Mayo
Speaker 1: Clinic and has a great lab on human performance, and
Speaker 1: he and I have literally, I'm not exaggerating, spent hours
Speaker 1: talking about nature versus nurture. And what Mike says is
Speaker 1: that it's very, very hard to be world class at anything,
Speaker 1: but most people can become pretty good at most things.
Speaker 1: And I think marathon running falls into that category. So
Speaker 1: you don't have to be world class to finish a marathon, correct.
Speaker 1: I really think that with the right attitude and training plan,
Speaker 1: anyone can run a marathon. So if I aim for
Speaker 1: if my goal is to get last place in a marathon, like,
Speaker 1: how hard work is that to like go through? Like
Speaker 1: what do I have to do to be able to
Speaker 1: at least just complete it? Well, I mean you have
Speaker 1: to run, I mean, can I Is there a time limit? No? So,
Speaker 1: oh you're talking about like the actual like logistics of marathons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So most marathons have cutoffs, but they're quite slow. I
Speaker 1: mean I don't know off the top of my head
Speaker 1: what they are, but you could probably find a marathon
Speaker 1: where you could walk the whole thing. That's what I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: Can you walk it and coming under a time limit?
Speaker 1: You probably could, But I mean, if you walk twenty
Speaker 1: six miles before, oh, I've not even walked a mile before,
Speaker 1: that's not true. I'm sure you have no I I'm joking,
Speaker 1: but twenty six miles, Like it's tough to walk twenty
Speaker 1: six miles. But yeah, I mean, marathons have have quite
Speaker 1: generous time cutoffs, and you know, it's something that I
Speaker 1: always come back to, Not to get too far off
Speaker 1: on a tangent with sports, is that even though I
Speaker 1: cover elite athletes and I'm kind of roped up into
Speaker 1: that circle, I myself and so far from an elite athlete,
Speaker 1: and I think being around them and covering them and
Speaker 1: getting to know them, it's making me realize just how
Speaker 1: slow I am. But that doesn't mean that you can't
Speaker 1: reap all the benefits of pushing yourself physically and exercise
Speaker 1: and setting goals. I guess what I'm getting is I
Speaker 1: really try to avoid it. It's fun to joke about,
Speaker 1: but an elitist attitude, like I think that the five
Speaker 1: and a half or six hour marathon finisher it has
Speaker 1: just as much to be proud of as the two
Speaker 1: and a half hour finisher. Wow, So you can run
Speaker 1: twenty six miles in one go, Yeah, I can. A
Speaker 1: lot of people can well. So what's your What are
Speaker 1: your cholesterol levels? You know? I don't know them off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. I haven't gotten I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten my blood work done in quite a while. I've
Speaker 1: got kind of an old school physician that is of
Speaker 1: the mindset that if you're not symptomatic, there's no real
Speaker 1: need to do blood work. Sounds like you're drinking a
Speaker 1: protein shake over there, water Battle. I'm imagining you like
Speaker 1: dosing up on your protein and your creatie. So you've
Speaker 1: also heard about how big goals could backfire. So what
Speaker 1: have you learned from Olympian athletes about goals? Goal setting? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I guess in a nutshell, goal setting is really important,
Speaker 1: and it's really important to have goals, and they should
Speaker 1: act as a north star and something to shoot for.
Speaker 1: But focusing too much on any one goal can be
Speaker 1: detrimental to performance and fulfillment and health and well being.
Speaker 1: It can really set you up for failure. The reason
Speaker 1: that I ended up covering this topic was at the
Speaker 1: Olympic Trials, which is the event to see who makes
Speaker 1: the Olympic team. A runner named Brenda Martinez who runs
Speaker 1: the eight hundred, which is two laps around the track,
Speaker 1: a very quick race. She was in prime position to
Speaker 1: qualify for the Olympic team. And Brenda's twenty eight years old.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that she's been working towards
Speaker 1: since she was probably ten. And the runner behind her
Speaker 1: lost her footing fell forward into Brenda, causing Brenda to
Speaker 1: trip and fall. Whoops, right, a big whoops, and that
Speaker 1: was it. I mean she got passed by I think
Speaker 1: like five or six gals and in a race that short,
Speaker 1: there's no way you're going to catch up. And I
Speaker 1: mean there's twelve years of training in Olympic dreams and
Speaker 1: her goal to make the Olympics in her marquee race.
Speaker 1: Why key and m Brenda is she was also registered
Speaker 1: to run the fifteen hundred, which is a race that
Speaker 1: is still pretty quick. I mean, you can do the math,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy, almost twice as long, but it's not
Speaker 1: her marquee event. She's not nearly as good at it.
Speaker 1: And she told me that if she wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: the incident in the eight hundred, she wouldn't have even
Speaker 1: participated in the fifteen hundred. So you can imagine right
Speaker 1: after getting tripped up and kind of missing out on
Speaker 1: your dream, you could be pretty down to straw and devastated.
Speaker 1: And she just got right back on her grind, went
Speaker 1: on to win three races in six days and ended
Speaker 1: up qualifying in the fifteen hundred to go to the Olympics,
Speaker 1: and ended up going to the Olympics. Nice. So I
Speaker 1: interviewed her for Outside magazine just about how she did it,
Speaker 1: and she kept on coming back to this notion of
Speaker 1: focusing on the process and kind of letting go of
Speaker 1: her goal, which was to make the Olympics in that
Speaker 1: marquee event of hers, the eight hundred, and just going
Speaker 1: back to, well, what do I have to do to
Speaker 1: run my best over the next week? In approaching each
Speaker 1: action as its own thing, and that's what got her
Speaker 1: through the week. And I just thought there was such
Speaker 1: a powerful message in that that applies well beyond sports. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you also come with a bunch of lessons for
Speaker 1: what's the problem with goals in the first place, as
Speaker 1: opposed to the process, And you actually list a bunch
Speaker 1: of things. Could you talk about some of them? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know again, I don't want to say that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't set goals. I think setting goals are important. I
Speaker 1: think this happens when you become too attached to some
Speaker 1: kind of end. Result is that well, first off, you
Speaker 1: can relinquish your sense of self worth to things that
Speaker 1: are outside of your control. So you might really really
Speaker 1: want to get promoted, and you might be doing everything right,
Speaker 1: but then your boss has a medical incident and has
Speaker 1: to take leave or retire. You might have done everything
Speaker 1: perfectly to train for your iron Man triathlon, but it
Speaker 1: storms that day, or you get a tire on the bike.
Speaker 1: You might write what you think is the perfect novel
Speaker 1: and the publishing house disagrees. Now, do these things make
Speaker 1: you a failure? Well, I mean it guess depends on
Speaker 1: how you look at it. Right, If you're only attached
Speaker 1: to whether or not you accomplish the goal, then they do.
Speaker 1: But if you are attached to more of the process
Speaker 1: and did you get better in the process of actually
Speaker 1: doing the work itself, then it's a whole different psychological
Speaker 1: framework that you're operating from. Right, Or if you tie
Speaker 1: it to your self worth right, exactly. Yeah, that seems
Speaker 1: quite right, and you do see a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a positive psychology distinction between harmonious and
Speaker 1: obsessive passion that people fit a positivechology study. Have you
Speaker 1: ever linked it to that distinction? Yeah, so, actually I
Speaker 1: think I mentioned that a little bit later on the article,
Speaker 1: so I have I know, I set you up. Yeah
Speaker 1: for that question, I think always and yeah, it's very similar.
Speaker 1: There is an interesting study looking at elite athletes. The
Speaker 1: researchers look at you know, they qualify them as either
Speaker 1: showing more harmonious passion or more obsessive passion, and those
Speaker 1: in the obsessive passion bucket end up being much more
Speaker 1: likely to cheat, which I thought it was interesting and
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And again, like I haven't seen studies,
Speaker 1: but I'd have to imagine that the same thing is
Speaker 1: true outside of sports. So like in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: my guess is, if people are just focused on results,
Speaker 1: they're probably the ones that are more likely to cross
Speaker 1: the slippery slope into unethical behavior. Yeah, no, I would
Speaker 1: expect that too. Well, that's a neat finding. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen that. I haven't seen that in the literature the
Speaker 1: cheating one. I've seen, you know, stress and burnout and
Speaker 1: things of that nature, but not cheating. So that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So in your other work that you've rt about, have
Speaker 1: you writ about the importance of something you call progressive
Speaker 1: overload or do you call it or does someone else
Speaker 1: call it that? Well, myself and someone else, So I
Speaker 1: did not come up with that term. It's an exercise
Speaker 1: science term. Okay, progress of overload? So how is that
Speaker 1: better than going to the gym? And you know, because
Speaker 1: I've been taught that I'm supposed to go to the
Speaker 1: gym and do like a different exercise to confuse my
Speaker 1: muscles and excite my muscles to striving for novelty. But
Speaker 1: you're saying that that's not necessarily the best way to go.
Speaker 1: Progressive overload might be better. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it depends on what your goals are. So if your
Speaker 1: goals are just to get to the gym and to
Speaker 1: get your heart rate up into to sweat, then pretty
Speaker 1: much anything is better than doing nothing. So go do
Speaker 1: different classes and different exercises. I mean, obviously be safe
Speaker 1: about it, but yeah, just go to the gym and sweat.
Speaker 1: But if you want to actually improve it a specific discipline,
Speaker 1: So it might be weightlifting. You might want to get
Speaker 1: better at a specific sport like running, rowing, a specific
Speaker 1: skill like squatting, you really have to kind of set
Speaker 1: up a plan to focus on mastering that particular capability.
Speaker 1: I guess i'd play it back to you, right, Scott, Like,
Speaker 1: if you approached your work instead of, you know, focusing
Speaker 1: on psychology. One day you read about astronomy, and one
Speaker 1: day you read about physics, and another day you read
Speaker 1: about business and you had real, no real path. You know,
Speaker 1: do you think that that would really lead to progression
Speaker 1: in your intellect? Right? Not in a unified intellect, but right,
Speaker 1: I might see unexpected connections and that I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: seen before. I mean, it's possible, but yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: get your point for sure. So yeah, so progressive overload again,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of a common theme in a
Speaker 1: lot of these stories I end up doing for New
Speaker 1: York Magazine. Is I see something in athletics, and then
Speaker 1: there's a fair amount of applicability elsewhere. So the notion
Speaker 1: of progressive overload is that to get better at something
Speaker 1: you have to be fairly specific. So if I want
Speaker 1: to make my bicep stronger. I have to do exercises
Speaker 1: that stress my bicep, and after I stress it, I
Speaker 1: have to let it rest and recover. And if I
Speaker 1: apply too much stress, I'm going to hurt my arm.
Speaker 1: If I don't recover, I'm going to hurt my arm.
Speaker 1: But if I don't stress it enough, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to grow. Nothing's going to happen. So it's operating in
Speaker 1: this cycle of stress something, let it rest and recover.
Speaker 1: That's when growth occurs. Stress it a little bit more,
Speaker 1: let it rest and recover, more growth occurs, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I thought that, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: really neat framework to look at, you know, again, well
Speaker 1: beyond the gym and well beyond sports progressing in other
Speaker 1: realms as well. No, yeah, that does make sense. So
Speaker 1: progressive overlord? Who else calls it that? You know? I
Speaker 1: don't know where the term initially came from. It's widely
Speaker 1: known amongst I mean, really just across the board in athletics,
Speaker 1: so weightlifting, endurance sports. Pretty much any strength and conditioning
Speaker 1: coach you'd speak with would probably be familiar with the
Speaker 1: term right on, right on. So now I'll sound like
Speaker 1: I'm a sporty person, like, I know what I'm talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's called periodization as well. Oh wow, that sounds
Speaker 1: fancy too, Yeah, giving you two fancy terms to throw around.
Speaker 1: Good Yeah, athlete cocktail parties. Thank you boring, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I wrote in Peace It Right,
Speaker 1: because it is, like you said, it's a lot more
Speaker 1: fun to do something different and to kind of chase
Speaker 1: the latest and greatest exercise routine. And I think that
Speaker 1: society really caters to that. If you were to read
Speaker 1: health and fitness magazines, and I'm somewhat complicit because I
Speaker 1: write for them, you'd think that it makes the most
Speaker 1: sense to change things up every month because every new
Speaker 1: magazine has this new plan that's the secret to fitness,
Speaker 1: when in fact you'd probably be better off, you know,
Speaker 1: staying on the same path. No, that makes sense and purpose.
Speaker 1: Is that also tied up with values? Yeah? I think so,
Speaker 1: And the research bears out that it's tied up with
Speaker 1: core values. So again, this was just an interesting linkage
Speaker 1: between kind of my two worlds of sport and I
Speaker 1: guess what you might want to call like the academic
Speaker 1: or intellectual realm, So For the piece, I interviewed a
Speaker 1: strength and conditioning coach named Brett Bartholomew works with all
Speaker 1: the top NFL fo I shouldn't say all, but many
Speaker 1: of the top NFL football players, and he trains their bodies,
Speaker 1: but he also works with them on their mindset, and
Speaker 1: he really preaches the importance of purpose and reflecting on
Speaker 1: your purpose and always asking why you're doing something and
Speaker 1: what am I trying to achieve and what are my values?
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because I know of some
Speaker 1: other literature out of public health that shows that if
Speaker 1: you have an individual reaffirm his or her core values,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to be successful in hard health behavior changes,
Speaker 1: so things like quitting smoking or eating healthier. So it seems,
Speaker 1: and I don't know the mechanism, but it seems that
Speaker 1: there's something about reaffirming your core values again closely linked
Speaker 1: to purpose in being thoughtful and reflective and perhaps being
Speaker 1: able to stay the course when it's hard. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like that link. That does seem to apply to a
Speaker 1: lot of things like grit for anything as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep you gritty? Yeah, I think so. I mean something
Speaker 1: that I learned in writing that story is really just
Speaker 1: the power of asking why, right, Like why am I
Speaker 1: doing something? And it seems so basic, But I think that,
Speaker 1: like and in my own life, if I were to
Speaker 1: do that more often, I'd probably be a lot happier
Speaker 1: and more productive, I think, So, I think, And it
Speaker 1: sounds like you do try to do it in your
Speaker 1: own life. Yeah, I try. It doesn't mean I'm successful.
Speaker 1: You wrote it, you wrote in an email to me.
Speaker 1: Also good stuff because I try and struggle to practice
Speaker 1: what I preach. In a sense, it can be easier
Speaker 1: to write about these things and to hold yourself accountable
Speaker 1: to living them. So you you do give this a go. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like a whole movement of like self experimentation. Like
Speaker 1: I've had some other guests in the show who are
Speaker 1: big into self experimentation, like aj Jacobs and Tim Ferriss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've listened to some of this podcast right on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you know, Scott, I think that,
Speaker 1: like it's a mix of two things, right, It's it's
Speaker 1: just downright fun to do some of the self experimentation,
Speaker 1: And then I think it livens up the writing, or
Speaker 1: at least it feels like to me, it makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to write about this stuff if
Speaker 1: I'm also trying it out and seeing how it impacts me.
Speaker 1: What I don't ever do and it annoys me when
Speaker 1: some people do, is you know, end of one experiments
Speaker 1: where I try something and because I have a result,
Speaker 1: therefore this science says that this works. So I guess
Speaker 1: that sometimes I maybe I operate in the opposite direction
Speaker 1: as I look to see where there's been a meta
Speaker 1: analysis or at least a study with the decent sample size,
Speaker 1: and then I go try that thing. Right, Well, that's great,
Speaker 1: I mean that's science personal experimentation exactly. Yeah, very interesting,
Speaker 1: very interesting angle to a unique niche there that you have. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've also talked about how stress is stress? Is
Speaker 1: that like sometimes the cigar is a cigar? Say more,
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. Freud said sometimes the cigar is
Speaker 1: just a cigar. Like sometimes we make a lot more,
Speaker 1: we project all sorts of things when we don't really
Speaker 1: see the things for what they are. I see, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say it's similar in nature. Yes,
Speaker 1: So you know when I say stress as stress. And
Speaker 1: this story was written for Outside magazine, it's about the
Speaker 1: notion that again coming I'll make a nice tie here
Speaker 1: coming back to progressive overload. Right. How to get better
Speaker 1: physiologically and athletically is you want to stress your body
Speaker 1: and then let it recover. And a lot of athletes,
Speaker 1: particular amateur athletes, professionals are very good about recovery, but
Speaker 1: amateurs aren't great about recovery. So they'll go out and
Speaker 1: they'll do a really really hard workout and then they'll
Speaker 1: run out the door to work. They'll forget to eat breakfast,
Speaker 1: we'll get to work. They'll be in a super stressful situation,
Speaker 1: whether it's like a big high stakes meeting or cranking
Speaker 1: on a memo on deadline, and even though they're no
Speaker 1: longer running those six minute miles, their body is still
Speaker 1: totally going for it. And what the research bears and
Speaker 1: what lots of the experts that are applying this have found,
Speaker 1: is that the body can't really differentiate very well between
Speaker 1: physical and psychological stress. So even though your workouts end
Speaker 1: and you should be recovering, your body is still in
Speaker 1: stress mode. Again, this is something that doesn't really affect
Speaker 1: professional athletes. It's one of the separating factors I think
Speaker 1: between amateurs and professionals is profession most really know how
Speaker 1: to recover, whereas amateur athletes often just operate in kind
Speaker 1: of a continuous cycle of stress. Continuous cycle of stress. Wow,
Speaker 1: I made that up. But does it sound like something
Speaker 1: I want to be in, right? I don't want to
Speaker 1: be in that, say I want to get out of
Speaker 1: that cycle. Just yeah, that can really these things can
Speaker 1: like perpetuate itself like dominoes. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: so when I say stress, I guess I should clarify
Speaker 1: I'm coming at it firstly in this instance, how I
Speaker 1: will be spoken about in exercise science. So stress is
Speaker 1: just simply something that is exerting a challenge on you.
Speaker 1: So stress doesn't necessarily need to be a fight with
Speaker 1: your spouse or a fight with your boss. But it
Speaker 1: means that, I guess, in a workplace setting, your kind
Speaker 1: of your shoulders are up, you're cranking on a demo
Speaker 1: or a memo, you feel some sense of urgency, whereas
Speaker 1: rest and recovery. You know, the apex of that is sleep,
Speaker 1: but it's more of a relaxing state. Yeah. I thought
Speaker 1: something really interesting for that article was a quote by
Speaker 1: kiehe k I E l I. You said, you definitely
Speaker 1: want to trigger a stress response, it's the key to growth. Well,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. That's like similar to like the post
Speaker 1: traumatic growth literature and positive psychology that we we grow
Speaker 1: from our getting meaning from our trauma or triggering that
Speaker 1: response and then ordering how to overcome it makes us
Speaker 1: more resilient. But you say that that's only good. You know,
Speaker 1: activating the stress response is only good for growth if
Speaker 1: it's acute. What does that mean? Yeah, so love that
Speaker 1: quote as well. I'm glad that you pulled it out.
Speaker 1: So acute means that it happens, there's a stress, and
Speaker 1: then it ends, and then you can shift into a
Speaker 1: more rastful state. So again, giving like a very a
Speaker 1: very extreme example in sports, it would be if you
Speaker 1: just constantly trained really really really hard and never stopped right,
Speaker 1: you'd get hurt or you'd burn out, like something bad
Speaker 1: would inevitably happened. So you need to keep this stress
Speaker 1: it's rather acute. If you train really really hard for
Speaker 1: two hours and then have that protein shake and relax
Speaker 1: and allow your body to calm down, then that stress
Speaker 1: can precipitate growth. Is it good to drink protein right
Speaker 1: after your workout? Ah? Man, I should just sign you
Speaker 1: up for some personal training. I mean it depends, right,
Speaker 1: do you want to be my personal trainer? I'd love to.
Speaker 1: Where do you live? I live in Oakland, California, so
Speaker 1: it'd be tough, but we could do it over skype. Interesting. Interesting?
Speaker 1: Maybe you can be my life coach? No you think
Speaker 1: you could be mine? Yeah? Sorry, go on? No? Where
Speaker 1: were we? My memory stinks? So yeah? Stress and stress
Speaker 1: in oh acute. So yeah, I think that the research
Speaker 1: bears out in physiology. So again I can only speak
Speaker 1: to the research that I know is that you only
Speaker 1: grow from stress from physiological stress if it's followed with recovery.
Speaker 1: I think some of the more interesting were in this
Speaker 1: field is there have been a couple of studies that
Speaker 1: show that in athletes that are still in school, like
Speaker 1: in collegiate athletes per se, that injuries go up during
Speaker 1: exam time, which kind of support I mean, again, it's correlation,
Speaker 1: but it supports the hypothesis that you know, if you
Speaker 1: exam times stressful cognitively, So if you go from practice
Speaker 1: really hard physical practice, but then you're nervous about exams
Speaker 1: or you're studying really harder, you're staying up at night,
Speaker 1: your body doesn't ever really get a chance to recover
Speaker 1: and you're more susceptible to an injury. That's very interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a I think there's some practical applications there, right,
Speaker 1: So how can you optimize your recovery? Then? What are
Speaker 1: some practical takeaways there? So I think the most important
Speaker 1: thing one I shouldn't say the most one of the
Speaker 1: most important things I've learned in all my research and
Speaker 1: reporting is just the importance of sleep for everything. This
Speaker 1: isn't just for optimizing your physical or recovery, also for
Speaker 1: optimizing your mental, your emotional just recovery. I've kind of
Speaker 1: come around to saying that sleep is one of the
Speaker 1: most productive things that you can do period. You know, listeners,
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this and it's late at night and we're looking like
Speaker 1: at the difference between six and a half or seven
Speaker 1: hours of sleep, like go to sleep, and that'll be
Speaker 1: like the most value of this podcast can give you.
Speaker 1: Sleep is really important. Do you just take another sip
Speaker 1: of your protein shake? So sleep is important. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: I've got I've got. If only we could do this
Speaker 1: on video you're making these, then people would actually like
Speaker 1: see me in what I look like. We'd be like,
Speaker 1: why is this guy talking about sports? What now you
Speaker 1: explore you to me when I just saw you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe it's because I have a hat on the hat lies.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay to me, I mean, compared to me,
Speaker 1: you look very sporty, right, I mean that's what I
Speaker 1: was kind of saying a little while ago. Right, It's
Speaker 1: it's all relative. And it's been super humbling being able
Speaker 1: to have these conversations with like the world's best performers.
Speaker 1: Because I don't want to say that I had an ego,
Speaker 1: but maybe three years ago, before I started doing this
Speaker 1: kind of reporting, I probably thought I was a better
Speaker 1: athlete than I was. Yeah, And it's very very humble,
Speaker 1: and it's, you know, I'm not a good athlete at
Speaker 1: all compared to them. So who am I to look
Speaker 1: at someone that is slower than me and say that
Speaker 1: they're not good? I mean, I think and a lot
Speaker 1: of the pros will say the same thing. And that's
Speaker 1: that's one of without getting too esoteric here, I think
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of sport is that you know, you're
Speaker 1: really competing against yourself. I mean, what, yeah, what are
Speaker 1: your own personal goals. I mean, you're not trying to
Speaker 1: be an elite athlete, right, You're just trying to be healthy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be healthy and get better. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that I love running is because
Speaker 1: it's it's and I guess it's probably now that I
Speaker 1: think about it, one of the reasons that I gravitate
Speaker 1: towards writing. It's like a craft in the sense that
Speaker 1: it's just you and running, and it's a very honest,
Speaker 1: objective measure of whether you succeed or fail, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you either get faster, you can run a longer distance.
Speaker 1: And to me, there's something very gratifying about having that
Speaker 1: kind of objective feedback that I think kind of get
Speaker 1: hooked me. Yeah. Yeah, everyone's quantifying or anything now, but
Speaker 1: that seems to be a good way to greach your goals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just kind of fulfillment, right, Like, Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: started in running, like I said, after school when I
Speaker 1: started working and I had a corporate job in consulting,
Speaker 1: and I think that we did a lot of good,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that good was very subjective in nature, right,
Speaker 1: So like in consulting, does the client actually do what
Speaker 1: you say? Is it based on politics at the organization
Speaker 1: that you're consulting to, Like, there are so many things
Speaker 1: in between the work that you did in an outcome
Speaker 1: that it's very very hard to say like, oh I
Speaker 1: did a good job, whereas if I went in Iran,
Speaker 1: it's like I ran five miles today. That was a
Speaker 1: half a mile more than yesterday. Like I got better,
Speaker 1: And I think that's really gratifying to me. This does
Speaker 1: sound very pery satisfying. Is the anything else you wanted
Speaker 1: to add to this interview today? No, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that this has been a really really good conversation.
Speaker 1: I guess the kind of takeaway, right, And what I'd
Speaker 1: say that my beat is is that there's so much
Speaker 1: and I know that you are, you know, mister creative
Speaker 1: over there, so I'm preaching to the choir, But I
Speaker 1: think that we often get caught up in very siloed
Speaker 1: thinking and kind of stuck in our own narrow lane
Speaker 1: in our domain. But there's so many commonalities across domains
Speaker 1: and slightly nuanced implementation of different concepts that you can
Speaker 1: pull from athletics and apply something into the business world.
Speaker 1: You can pull something from the business world and apply
Speaker 1: it into athletics, and I guess that's kind of my
Speaker 1: mission with writing, is to try to surface some of
Speaker 1: these things to make people think a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: Good stuff, brad Well, thanks for the good writing you
Speaker 1: do and bring in all the science to make it
Speaker 1: accessible to people. Yeah, thanks so much, Scott. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: with doctor Scott Barak Kauffman. I hope you found this
Speaker 1: episode just as thought for booking and interesting as I did.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to read the show notes for this
Speaker 1: episode or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.