Speaker 1: Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stay Calm, your daily dose of calmness. I'm Bob Roth,
Speaker 1: and I've been teaching people to meditate for fifty years,
Speaker 1: helping them to stay calm under pressure, reboot and re
Speaker 1: energize their lives, and basically be a happier, healthier version
Speaker 1: of themselves. And now I want to help you do
Speaker 1: the same. Ready, sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths,
Speaker 1: and let's begin today's journey. You know how one day,
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't sleep well, and you wake up a
Speaker 1: bit cranky, and someone does something and it gets under
Speaker 1: your skin. But the next day you slept better. Maybe
Speaker 1: you got in some exercise and the same person does
Speaker 1: the exact same thing, and this time you don't even notice.
Speaker 1: No big deal, you think. So one day you're perceived
Speaker 1: a behavior is annoying, and the next day you perceived
Speaker 1: the exact same behavior as no big deal. What happened.
Speaker 1: Your perception of the situation changed, so your response to
Speaker 1: the situation changed. The American Psychological Association explains that when
Speaker 1: someone perceives a situation to be challenging, threatening, or uncontrollable,
Speaker 1: then the brain produces an excess of the stress hormone cortisol.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, well, you get caught in the
Speaker 1: middle of a vicious cycle of stress and cortisol. When
Speaker 1: that continues to happen day after day, year after year,
Speaker 1: then you can become chronically anxious, chronically depressed. You can
Speaker 1: gain an unhealthy amount of weight, or you could get
Speaker 1: high blood pressure or diabetes. So why do we get stressed? Well,
Speaker 1: there are two factors involved in the process. One we
Speaker 1: often have no control over, and the other we can
Speaker 1: have a lot of control over. The first is called stressors.
Speaker 1: These are the external situations thread its demands, challenges, pressures.
Speaker 1: The stressor can be very big, such as a family
Speaker 1: member who gets diagnosed with a serious illness, to something
Speaker 1: smaller like you're trying to work from home but your
Speaker 1: kids are squabbling and you can't focus, or you get
Speaker 1: a snarky text message from someone who's supposed to be
Speaker 1: a good friend. The second factor is called the stress response,
Speaker 1: and that's how we respond to stressors. We're on a
Speaker 1: good routine and feeling healthy and energetic, we handle the
Speaker 1: news of a sick family member so much better. Same
Speaker 1: with every other stressor that comes our way. But if
Speaker 1: we're not sleeping well and could use a little TLC
Speaker 1: and someone sends that snarky message or our kid acts
Speaker 1: out well, then our brain sends a signal to the
Speaker 1: adrenals to pump out cortisol because we're feeling under attack.
Speaker 1: We are stressed, and how does that stress hit us?
Speaker 1: According to science, in so many to bilitating ways. First,
Speaker 1: on a muscular level, our body tenses up. We can
Speaker 1: get attention headache where our jaws tightened up, or stomach
Speaker 1: knots up, or we get back pain our blood vessels constrict. Second, again,
Speaker 1: our adrenal glands pump out cortisol. Yes, we all need
Speaker 1: some cortisol to get through the day, But the big
Speaker 1: problem these days is that the adrenals produced way too
Speaker 1: much of it, and now we're getting anxious, jumpy, irritable.
Speaker 1: A lot too much cortisol compromises the immune system. That's
Speaker 1: why we get sick more often when we're stressed. Cortisol
Speaker 1: also floods the memory center of the brain, the hippocampus.
Speaker 1: That's why we forget where we put the keys, forget
Speaker 1: answers to questions on an exam, forget important people we're
Speaker 1: supposed to call, and finally the amigdali in the brain
Speaker 1: gets hyper aroused, and now we're in a fight or
Speaker 1: flight mode and we overreact to everything. It can take
Speaker 1: hours for a spike in cortisol to come down for
Speaker 1: us to stop feeling upset and get back to normal.
Speaker 1: So what can we do to address this all too
Speaker 1: familiar situation. Ultimately, the best thing we can do to
Speaker 1: reduce cortisol is to give our body very, very deep rest,
Speaker 1: and that's where meditation comes in, because during the transcending process,
Speaker 1: your body experiences a state of RESTful alertness, and during
Speaker 1: this deep relaxation there is a thirty to reduction in
Speaker 1: cortisol levels, and that is a far greater reduction in
Speaker 1: cortisol than anything you can get from a good night's
Speaker 1: sleep or even physical exercise. But still some people say, yeah,
Speaker 1: meditation is good, I just don't have the time. Well,
Speaker 1: consider this. There are one thousand, four hundred and forty
Speaker 1: minutes in a day. Now consider how much time we
Speaker 1: waste messing around with social media or just being easily
Speaker 1: distracted and not using our time wisely. So if we
Speaker 1: think we don't have a few minutes to meditate and
Speaker 1: do a little self care for our brain. Then we
Speaker 1: may need to reevaluate the priorities of our day, and
Speaker 1: we may even want to consider re evaluating the priorities
Speaker 1: of our life. I leave you with this quote, anonymously
Speaker 1: written but so appropriate. Stop trying to calm the storm.
Speaker 1: Calm yourself and the storm will pass, all right. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me today. I hope you heard something
Speaker 1: that inspires, that uplifts you and that you can incorporate
Speaker 1: into your own life. This is Bob Roth. Stay calm. Hey,
Speaker 1: all of you out there, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Can send me your stories, your questions, or anything else
Speaker 1: on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me
Speaker 1: an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I look forward to hearing from you.