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. If you think the stress
Speaker 1: in America is bad today, we'll count your blessings. Go
Speaker 1: back a hundred and forty years to one. That's when
Speaker 1: a medical doctor wrote a book that warned about the
Speaker 1: harrowing increase of nervousness in America and the causes he cited.
Speaker 1: And I kid you not the emergence of the railroad,
Speaker 1: Western Union and the pocket watch. I guess you could
Speaker 1: say it's a matter of degrees. According to doctor Bill
Speaker 1: sticks Rude, a clinical neuropsychologist in Silver Spring, Maryland and
Speaker 1: co author of the national bestseller The Self Driven Child,
Speaker 1: the impact of stress on life today is about ten
Speaker 1: thousand times greater compared to a hundred forty years ago. Obviously,
Speaker 1: doctor sticks Root is exaggerating a bit here, but he
Speaker 1: does so to make two key points. One, it is
Speaker 1: terrible out there, especially for our kids, and two, as parents,
Speaker 1: we can do something about it. I have known doctor
Speaker 1: sticks Rude as both a friend and a colleague for
Speaker 1: over twenty years. In addition to his private practice, he
Speaker 1: also serves as assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at
Speaker 1: the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Speaker 1: He has spent thirty years working with stressed out children, teens,
Speaker 1: and young adults. Doctor sticks Rude says, even before the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic make the levels of anxiety, depression, and
Speaker 1: other mental health problems were an epidemic proportions among kids.
Speaker 1: Now it's only gotten worse. Kids are suffocating under the
Speaker 1: pressure to get the best grades to get into the
Speaker 1: best schools. Parents often ask doctor sticks Root, will it
Speaker 1: get better for my kid in college? His answer, no,
Speaker 1: it actually gets worse. The reality is that the mental
Speaker 1: health crisis among college students has been escalating for years,
Speaker 1: and now colleges, including the most elite, can't hire mental
Speaker 1: health professionals fast enough. Doctor sticks Root has strong advice
Speaker 1: don't micromanage your teen's life lighten up quote. As parents,
Speaker 1: we need to be honest with ourselves. We don't always
Speaker 1: know what's best for our kids. We don't always have
Speaker 1: the right answers. The best message we can give a
Speaker 1: teenager besides I love you, is that I have confidence
Speaker 1: in your ability to make decisions about your own life.
Speaker 1: And I have confidence that you will learn from your
Speaker 1: own mistakes. And I want you to have tons of
Speaker 1: experience of both before you go off to college. The
Speaker 1: opposite approach certainly hasn't worked under the gaze of well
Speaker 1: meaning but overbearing parents. Kids work ferociously hard for much
Speaker 1: of their young lives to get into a top college,
Speaker 1: but once they arrive, they are emotionally unprepared for what
Speaker 1: follows doctor Sticks, who says there is one thing parents
Speaker 1: can do to take the pressure off their kids and
Speaker 1: give them a better shot at a healthy, happy life,
Speaker 1: and that is not to pressure them to work harder
Speaker 1: to do more. In fact, parents should encourage the opposite.
Speaker 1: Give your kids what he calls radical downtime. Schedule more
Speaker 1: time for things as simple and incredibly valuable as meditation
Speaker 1: and sleep, daydreaming and mind wandering doctor Sticks Truth said
Speaker 1: that teenagers need an average of nine and a quarter
Speaker 1: hours of sleep, and yet most kids sleep less than
Speaker 1: seven hours a night during the school year. That means
Speaker 1: your teen's cognitive capacity is more impaired than if he
Speaker 1: or she were legally drunk. But the best thing we
Speaker 1: as parents can do to send our kids safely off
Speaker 1: into the world is to foster an ongoing close relationship.
Speaker 1: Closeness with a parent is like a silver bullet for
Speaker 1: protecting our kids from emotional distress. He says. As parents,
Speaker 1: we should strive to become a non anxious presence in
Speaker 1: the lives of our kids. We all know it's much
Speaker 1: easier to soothe a crying infant if you stay calm.
Speaker 1: It's much easier to handle a three year old who
Speaker 1: is having a tantrum in a store if you stay calm.
Speaker 1: And if you've got a fifteen year old who comes
Speaker 1: home and his girlfriend just dumped him and he's really upset, well,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to listen and help problem solve if
Speaker 1: you stay calm. So I leave you with Bill sticks
Speaker 1: Dud's words, which, as you know, are the title of
Speaker 1: this podcast. Stay Calm, My advice is to follow Dr
Speaker 1: sticks Rud's advice, do everything you can to stay calm.
Speaker 1: The primary beneficiaries right after you will be your kids.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's end this time together doing something that
Speaker 1: I think should be a feature of our everyday life,
Speaker 1: and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds
Speaker 1: of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take
Speaker 1: a moment. It turns out when we do that, it's
Speaker 1: good for our health as well. I'll be right back
Speaker 1: all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope
Speaker 1: you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that
Speaker 1: you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth.
Speaker 1: Stay calm. Hey, all of you out there, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can send me your stories,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect
Speaker 1: with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at Meditation Bob.
Speaker 1: You can also send me an email at meditation Bob
Speaker 1: Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing
Speaker 1: from you.