Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, doctor Laurie Santo's here here at the Happiness Lab.
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time talking about the happiness
Speaker 1: benefits of being a fan, and it just so happens
Speaker 1: that another Pushkin podcast has gone deep into this topic.
Speaker 1: It's a show called Against the Rules, hosted by best
Speaker 1: selling author Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis is the brains behind
Speaker 1: books like Moneyball, The Big Shore, and Liar's Poker. This
Speaker 1: season of Against the Rules is all about sports fandom,
Speaker 1: but also sports gambling, which was legalized in the US
Speaker 1: just a few years ago. From a happiness perspective, this
Speaker 1: is a fascinating topic. Michael talks with gambling addicts, but
Speaker 1: also pro basketball stars, Vegas bookies, and even experts in
Speaker 1: casino design. I also get to make an appearance. I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed our conversation, So if you're a little bit curious,
Speaker 1: I urge you to check out Against the Rules and
Speaker 1: subscribe time wherever you get your podcasts. Stress sucks, but
Speaker 1: it's also a normal part of life and one that's
Speaker 1: also kind of useful. Our stress response is just the
Speaker 1: body's natural reaction to a perceived threat. Whenever we detect
Speaker 1: an incoming challenge, the limpic systems of our brains kick in.
Speaker 1: We switch from our usual breathing and digesting to a
Speaker 1: physiological state that's revved up for action. Our stress response
Speaker 1: is there to prepare us for big, scary events like
Speaker 1: fighting off a tiger, giving an important presentation, or having
Speaker 1: a tough conversation with our boss. But once less stressful
Speaker 1: events are over, our bodies are supposed to return to normal.
Speaker 1: Our breathing should slow down, and we should go back
Speaker 1: to digesting lunch.
Speaker 2: At least that's the idea.
Speaker 1: Sadly, our modern stress responses aren't all that great at
Speaker 1: turning off, especially since we keep challenges alive, ruminating about
Speaker 1: past events and worrying about problems that haven't even come
Speaker 1: up yet. Thought patterns like these cause our bodies to
Speaker 1: react as if we're in immediate danger even when we are.
Speaker 1: And what's most ironic, since we know that stress is
Speaker 1: bad for us, we often get stressed out about just
Speaker 1: feeling stressed. So how can we stop stressing about stress?
Speaker 1: To figure that out, I've turned to one of my
Speaker 1: favorite experts.
Speaker 2: My name is doctor Jenny Tates. I'm a clinical psychologist,
Speaker 2: and i am the author of stress resets how to
Speaker 2: soothe your body and mind in minutes.
Speaker 1: You're kind of an expert on this, But what is
Speaker 1: stress like? How would we define it?
Speaker 2: So, stress is when there's like this mismatch between our resources,
Speaker 2: what we have internally and the demands that we're facing.
Speaker 2: It's almost like our bandwidth. It's when there's just too
Speaker 2: much coming at us and we feel like there's not
Speaker 2: enough in us to cope. But the good news is
Speaker 2: there's a lot we can do to improve our relationship
Speaker 2: with stress. Small things can make a huge difference in
Speaker 2: how we face stress. And the most common measure of
Speaker 2: stress is actually the perceived stress scale, which says so
Speaker 2: much about how stress is a lot about our perception.
Speaker 1: And so give me a sense of like how stressed
Speaker 1: out people are these days? Like, what are some stats
Speaker 1: on what we're self reporting about our stress?
Speaker 2: Recorders of people say that stress is a huge issue
Speaker 2: in their lives, and stress is the most commonly searched
Speaker 2: term that people want help with that they're asking Google
Speaker 2: to help them solve. And that's kind of why I
Speaker 2: wrote this book, because you shouldn't have to ask Google
Speaker 2: for help with this. There are experts and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of counterintuitive wisdom that a lot of people just
Speaker 2: don't know about that I want people to know, and
Speaker 2: a lot of it was even surprising to me and
Speaker 2: researching this book.
Speaker 1: As we think about stressors in some way, it sort
Speaker 1: of makes sense evolutionarily, right, Like all animals have stress,
Speaker 1: they've defined food, or maybe there's predators and so on.
Speaker 1: But an interesting thing about humans is that we seem
Speaker 1: to do it a little bit differently. We seem to
Speaker 1: kind of exacerbate the normal kinds of stress. And so
Speaker 1: explain why this is, like how humans make things worse
Speaker 1: by the way we think about stress.
Speaker 2: I love this. I mean, I think a downside to
Speaker 2: being human is we have an when stress shows up
Speaker 2: in our lives for inadvertently making it so much worse.
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost like if you imagine you have
Speaker 2: a small stain and you start trying to remove it
Speaker 2: in a way that only spreads it. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: painfully ironic. It's like people that are worried about money
Speaker 2: can easily go into overspending. People that have a tough
Speaker 2: deadline that there is ambitious to reach go into like
Speaker 2: hyper perfectionism or total avoidance. And so I think one
Speaker 2: of the reasons that stress excites me is when the
Speaker 2: limbic system is on fire, we just don't think clearly.
Speaker 2: But people are incredibly good at getting better if they're
Speaker 2: given the right tools. And so if you even just
Speaker 2: take a step back and think about it, I want
Speaker 2: to first start by validating stress is a lot of
Speaker 2: us are stressed for very good reasons right now. And
Speaker 2: also that's all the more reason that we deserve to
Speaker 2: be really kind to ourselves and compassionately. Notice if once
Speaker 2: stress shows up in our lives, we fall into patterns
Speaker 2: like overthinking and avoiding or acting in ways that keep
Speaker 2: stress afloat. That could even be avoiding the thing that
Speaker 2: might help you, like spending time with family or sticking
Speaker 2: with a nice plan for yourself or an exercise goal,
Speaker 2: even if the work is really piling on. And so
Speaker 2: I think stress is real. And also we as people
Speaker 2: animals don't overthink. We overthink, and that's a deep downside
Speaker 2: to being human. But with the right strategies, we can
Speaker 2: reduce our stress, I think exponentially.
Speaker 1: And this is why I love your book so much,
Speaker 1: because it's like this, like almost like a medicine cabinet
Speaker 1: of different strategies that we can use when we're feeling
Speaker 1: stressed out, Like if I'm feeling sick, like I could
Speaker 1: go to my medicine cabinet and there are some like
Speaker 1: cough drops, or I view profit or if I need
Speaker 1: a band aid if I'm cut, and like your book
Speaker 1: is almost like a version of this for stress. I
Speaker 1: took away so many very practical tips that I've been using,
Speaker 1: and then I'm so excited to share with my Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab listeners. And so I want to go through my
Speaker 1: favorite tips that we get from your book, starting with
Speaker 1: tip number one, which is that there are strategies we
Speaker 1: can use when we need to reevaluate stress. Explain why
Speaker 1: how we think about stress.
Speaker 2: Seems to matter. What we think about stress is so impawt,
Speaker 2: so much so that people who have stress and believe
Speaker 2: stress is bad for their health actually are forty three
Speaker 2: percent more likely to die do to stress related causes.
Speaker 2: And so worrying about stress just compound stress and make
Speaker 2: stress more harmful and stresses you out more. It's almost like,
Speaker 2: once you're really stressed, then someone tells you to calm
Speaker 2: down might write you out more. And on the flip side,
Speaker 2: normalizing stress seeing it as an opportunity for growth, almost
Speaker 2: seeing it as a pop quiz in life about your
Speaker 2: ability to manage emotions and live by your values. Seeing
Speaker 2: stress as normal and adoptive, and also framing your body
Speaker 2: stress response as helpful and useful and supporting you and
Speaker 2: moving towards your goals actually reduces the negative impacts of corticol,
Speaker 2: reduces your corticel levels and allows you to persist in
Speaker 2: pursuing meaningful goals.
Speaker 1: And so any specific strategies for helping us to reappraise
Speaker 1: stress is a more positive thing.
Speaker 2: I think to really believe, and this is something that
Speaker 2: I wholeheartedly believe that stress is the price of a
Speaker 2: meaningful life. That is not sitting on the couch watching
Speaker 2: sports all day and eating whatever and barely having any
Speaker 2: steps taken. That is doing hard things. And we know
Speaker 2: when we treat patients with depression that behavioral activation creating
Speaker 2: a schedule full of opportunities for both pleasure and accomplishment
Speaker 2: and social connection which can be stressful, that is the
Speaker 2: path forward. And so really changing your mindset about stress
Speaker 2: and also looking at yourself of like what am I
Speaker 2: doing when I'm living my best life? Maybe the things
Speaker 2: that are most meaningful are also kind of stressful.
Speaker 1: You've also talked about how we can reevaluate how our
Speaker 1: emotions work. I think when we're in the thick of
Speaker 1: really strong emotions like anxiety or kind of frustration, it
Speaker 1: can feel like we're going to feel like that forever.
Speaker 1: But what does the research really show about how quickly
Speaker 1: emotions change? I love this, So emotions are really transient.
Speaker 1: I was going to get a tattoo, which I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get. It would be a small little picture
Speaker 1: of a wave because this is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to remind myself of Emotions come in waves, and again,
Speaker 1: the downside to being human is when something's upsetting.
Speaker 2: Our brain goes to I'm going to feel this way forever.
Speaker 2: It's getting worse. This is how I feel now, I'll
Speaker 2: never be able to survive. But that's just not life.
Speaker 2: Our emotions really ebb and flow, and psychologists call this
Speaker 2: effective forecasting. We're notoriously bad at predicting how we're going
Speaker 2: to feel in the future, and we grossly underestimate our
Speaker 2: ability to bounce back. And one of the interesting things
Speaker 2: that I do with my clients is we watch movie clips.
Speaker 2: I mean, people don't go to therapy expecting to watch
Speaker 2: short movie clips, And we watch short clips of a
Speaker 2: deathbed scene, which will make any person with a heart
Speaker 2: you'll move to tears in a matter of sixty seconds.
Speaker 2: We watch a scene where there's a gunshot and that
Speaker 2: also understandably would evoke fear, so we go from sadness
Speaker 2: to fear. There's a short clip on the cost of
Speaker 2: college tuitions and how difficult it is to pay off
Speaker 2: your college loans, which if evokes anger in most people.
Speaker 2: Then we watch something happy and the Pharrell Happy song,
Speaker 2: and people are dancing in their chair, and in a
Speaker 2: mere matter of minutes people have gone through so many
Speaker 2: different emotions, and in our own lives, we might get
Speaker 2: really disappointing news. But then also if we're able to
Speaker 2: anchor ourselves in the present moment, be fully present. We
Speaker 2: might have a moment of awe when looking at an
Speaker 2: adorable puppy passing us by, but the key is really
Speaker 2: anchoring ourselves in the present moment.
Speaker 1: It's time to take a quick break, but we'll soon
Speaker 1: be back with another top tip, one that's especially helpful
Speaker 1: if you let stress throw you into a doom loop.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab will be right back. Clinical psychologist doctor
Speaker 1: Jenny Tates believes that stress is the price of a
Speaker 1: meaningful life. But what we do need to guard against,
Speaker 1: she says, is dwelling on what's stressful, worrying about it,
Speaker 1: and fearing it.
Speaker 2: Rumination is what turns something briefly stressful into something chronically stressful.
Speaker 2: So an event could have been a two minute exchange
Speaker 2: with someone at work, and literally two weeks later it
Speaker 2: could still be replaying on your mind. And this is
Speaker 2: one of the habits that really correlates with an increased
Speaker 2: risk of depression and anxiety. It is just awful for
Speaker 2: our mental health. And as many of us know, we
Speaker 2: could ruminate almost constantly. I talk about this myself, noticing
Speaker 2: earlier in my career that I used to be in
Speaker 2: yoga cross and notice that my mind was totally somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And so this is such a sneaky habit that we
Speaker 2: could have an internal news ticker that's going all the time,
Speaker 2: that's very unpleasant, that steals any opportunity for present joy.
Speaker 2: And if a person is asked in a research setting
Speaker 2: to talk about in detail the most upsetting thing that
Speaker 2: happened to them, even if it occurred decades ago, their
Speaker 2: body recreates the same physiological stress response decades later. And
Speaker 2: so even talking about your stressors in a lot of
Speaker 2: detail might seem therapeutic and cathartic, but it actually can
Speaker 2: be kind of a version of reminating out loud. And
Speaker 2: even if you feel like you are a professional ruminator,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that you can do
Speaker 2: to break free of this noxious, sneaky habit.
Speaker 1: So give us the details. How can we break for you?
Speaker 1: What are some strategies we give you.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing is taking a step back
Speaker 2: and asking yourself what do you make of your thinking habit?
Speaker 2: Because a lot of people have very interesting metacognition, these
Speaker 2: beliefs about their thoughts. Some people think if there's a
Speaker 2: problem that hasn't been solved, thinking about it is somehow
Speaker 2: inching me closer to some sort of big solution or epiphany.
Speaker 2: Other people think, I'm going to drive myself crazy. And
Speaker 2: what's interesting is like the same person can have both
Speaker 2: very negative and very positive beliefs about their thinking. So
Speaker 2: I think taking a step back and really taking a
Speaker 2: look at is this habit helping you? Are you getting
Speaker 2: closer to your goals? Or is this removing you from
Speaker 2: the ability to have a better perspective and managing your
Speaker 2: emotions for a better problem solving. So I think the
Speaker 2: first thing is really deciding that this is something you
Speaker 2: want to put two feet into working on. And of
Speaker 2: course if you do want to think about it, they're
Speaker 2: constructive ways to think in a more thoughtful way. Problem
Speaker 2: with solving is very different than this circular, vicious loop
Speaker 2: that's unproductive. And if someone wants to start to work
Speaker 2: on this and they feel like they do this all
Speaker 2: the time, I think it's helpful to get really clear
Speaker 2: on a specific goal. And so if you find that
Speaker 2: you're repeating and upsetting work exchange age after hours and
Speaker 2: it's coming up in your dinner conversations and it's gnawing
Speaker 2: at you before work, really setting a goal of like
Speaker 2: from six to seven thirty pm, I am going to
Speaker 2: be present from seven am to eight am during my
Speaker 2: morning commute and getting ready, I'm going to be setting
Speaker 2: myself up for a better day. So setting reasonable goals.
Speaker 2: I also really love swapping why thoughts with how thoughts?
Speaker 2: Why did this happen? Why was I assign this annoying
Speaker 2: assignment and someone else got a promotion. The why thoughts
Speaker 2: with how how can I move forward? Because one is
Speaker 2: kind of the tornado and a dead end and another
Speaker 2: is kind of an empowered plan.
Speaker 1: One of the ones I really love, and one that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the Happiness Lab before, is the
Speaker 1: importance of switching from ruminating in your head to ruminating
Speaker 1: maybe on paper, to kind of get into the mode
Speaker 1: of expressive writing. How can writing help us kind of
Speaker 1: get out of the ruminutative loop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say that writing is a little
Speaker 2: bit different than rumination because rumination is pretty circular, and
Speaker 2: writing has a beginning, middle, and end, so it kind
Speaker 2: of closes things out rather then keeps things in a spiral.
Speaker 2: And the goal with expressive writing is to actually go
Speaker 2: deeper into your feelings and so instead of just glossing
Speaker 2: over things. The instruction that's given to people college students
Speaker 2: who were given an assignment to write about the most
Speaker 2: upsetting thing that happened to them in detail for twenty minutes,
Speaker 2: and then go back the next day for twenty minutes
Speaker 2: and write about how it had affected their life in
Speaker 2: the past, and write again a third day for twenty
Speaker 2: minutes about how it's affecting them in the present how
Speaker 2: it might affect them in the future. People that wrote
Speaker 2: in this very detailed, structured way, going deeper into their
Speaker 2: feelings and actually like processing, were much less likely to
Speaker 2: be depressed and had reductions on scores and rumination even
Speaker 2: six months later, because writing is actually creating some working
Speaker 2: distance and allowing you to feel rather than kind of
Speaker 2: glossing over details with no structure.
Speaker 1: So those are awesome tips for nipping your rumination in
Speaker 1: the bud. Now we get to tip number three, which
Speaker 1: is that we can reduce our stress by engaging in
Speaker 1: a little distress tolerance. What's distress tolerance? Stress tolerance is
Speaker 1: a combination of things. Distress tolerance is I like to
Speaker 1: think about if you step back and think.
Speaker 2: About, how are you making your life worse? You're usually
Speaker 2: not accepting, overthinking and doing things that make you feel
Speaker 2: better short term, but that are like high interest credit cards,
Speaker 2: you pay a big price for it later. And so
Speaker 2: distress tolerance is all about learning to radically accept what
Speaker 2: is just as it is in this very moment that
Speaker 2: sounds overwhelming, even accepting with your face, just relaxing your face.
Speaker 2: The facial expression of acceptance actually creates this mindset that
Speaker 2: allows you to be more accepting. If I'm sitting in
Speaker 2: traffic and clenching and tensing, that's just creating a space
Speaker 2: for me to get more judgmental in my mind. But
Speaker 2: relaxing my face for myself, not for other people, actually
Speaker 2: kind of starts from the outside and I start to
Speaker 2: feel more accepting. I love the story. I have to
Speaker 2: tell you. I just taught radical acceptance in a prison
Speaker 2: last week, and I learned something so brilliant from one
Speaker 2: of the people in my class who said it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be called radical acceptance, it should be called radical options,
Speaker 2: because when you stop fighting so many options. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it's so insightful.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've also talked about how we can do
Speaker 1: this simply through the act of labeling, just by kind
Speaker 1: of being a little bit more specific about which kinds
Speaker 1: of distress tolerance we're going through.
Speaker 2: Right, Even labeling your emotions, just putting a word onto
Speaker 2: what you're feeling, whether that's angry, then getting really specific
Speaker 2: about it. I'm feeling angry, like on a zero to
Speaker 2: a ten scale, at a five. Just putting labels on
Speaker 2: your emotions actually activates the part of your brain that
Speaker 2: will help you regulate your emotions. And so it seems
Speaker 2: very simple, like putting a word on your emotion, but
Speaker 2: it actually starts the process of regulating your emotions. And
Speaker 2: I even just think about it as like you go
Speaker 2: from kind of swimming in it to getting some working
Speaker 2: distance from it.
Speaker 1: Using your example of the traffic, this is something that
Speaker 1: I learned from your book. Is like the last time
Speaker 1: I was sitting in really terrible traffic, I was likeugh,
Speaker 1: limpic systems, you know, going ridiculously crazy. I'm going to
Speaker 1: just use the effect labeling. I was just like frustrated,
Speaker 1: like really frustrated and you know, kind of like annoyed,
Speaker 1: a little bit sad, And it was so funny. It
Speaker 1: sounds so silly, and I think even when I first
Speaker 1: started it, I was almost doing it a little like facetiously,
Speaker 1: like I'm doing effectly, but I'm kind of not sure
Speaker 1: it's going to work well. Like ultimately I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's frustrated, Like that's what it is, Like, it's
Speaker 1: just an emotion. I'll kind of get through it. So
Speaker 1: it has this this active labeling has this power that
Speaker 1: I think we often don't expect where it really takes
Speaker 1: like the own thlot of our emotions when we realize,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a thing I'm experiencing.
Speaker 2: Totally and one thing that I like to do. That's
Speaker 2: kind of the next step to this, even just noticing
Speaker 2: beyond the specific emotion. We all have different states of mind.
Speaker 2: We all have a kind of an emotional mind where
Speaker 2: we're governed by our feelings. We all have a reasonable
Speaker 2: mind where we're just focused on the facts, and then
Speaker 2: we all also have like wise mind, which is the
Speaker 2: integration of head and part and our intuition. And so
Speaker 2: sometimes we're feeling really intense emotions and we keep them
Speaker 2: afloat by we're really angry, and then we're thinking more
Speaker 2: angry thoughts and getting more suspicious and agitated. And even
Speaker 2: just simply categorizing I feel angry, and an emotion mind
Speaker 2: very likely to be like velcrow or quicksand for all
Speaker 2: sorts of content that is going to exacerbate that feeling.
Speaker 2: We have spam filters in our inboxes, but we need
Speaker 2: kind of test spam filters in our minds. And this
Speaker 2: is one of the first most practical steps to mindfulness
Speaker 2: is just noticing I'm an emotion mind. I feel anxious,
Speaker 2: I'm in emotion mind, and there's nothing wrong. By the way,
Speaker 2: emotion mind is amazing. If you are at a concert,
Speaker 2: if you're dancing, if you're watching an amazing movie, emotion
Speaker 2: mind is amazing. We just want to make sure that
Speaker 2: you're in the right state of mind at the right time.
Speaker 2: So if you're about to go into a meeting and
Speaker 2: you feel angry, noticing that you're on an emotion mind
Speaker 2: is going to be a path towards freedom and wisdom.
Speaker 1: And so that's a tip of we can like navigate
Speaker 1: our distress. But you've also argued that we don't just
Speaker 1: need to sit with our distress. We can do something different.
Speaker 1: We can take action so that we feel less stressed.
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to remember that we can
Speaker 1: kind of change our stressor out and take action to
Speaker 1: fix things.
Speaker 2: When we're stressed, we're just not thinking clearly. Our mind
Speaker 2: goes to like big fixes. But I think we need
Speaker 2: to remember that, like small wheels on a big suitcase,
Speaker 2: a little can go a long way. And so because
Speaker 2: we're bad at remembering this, I like to encourage people
Speaker 2: to create a hope kit, like a collection of items
Speaker 2: that you can keep handy that just reminds you about
Speaker 2: the things that have enriched your life and give you
Speaker 2: a sense of faith and perspective and joy and just
Speaker 2: looking at them. And this sounds kind of silly, but
Speaker 2: even people that are struggling with suicidality or people who
Speaker 2: are facing a cancer diagnosis, having a hope kit actually
Speaker 2: significantly increased hope. So again, our mind goes to kind
Speaker 2: of selectively filtering. Everything is terrible. I need to do
Speaker 2: something big that's going to make me feel better right
Speaker 2: now and make me feel so much worse later. But
Speaker 2: if we do something small that's less sexy, we've created
Speaker 2: in a time of wisdom that we can access quickly,
Speaker 2: we can make so much headway. And so for me,
Speaker 2: just having a couple of notes people have written to
Speaker 2: me handy and a picture of my grandma holding me
Speaker 2: when I was a baby me bounce back so much
Speaker 2: more in the face of rejection than what my mind
Speaker 2: wants to do, which is like love every rejection on
Speaker 2: top of the one that I'm experiencing in this moment.
Speaker 2: And different things work for different people, and for people
Speaker 2: thinking about what would I want to put in a
Speaker 2: hope kit, I think really thinking about things that touch
Speaker 2: your senses that help you be mindful. But it's really
Speaker 2: hard to be mindful. But if you can be mindful
Speaker 2: by really taking a few minutes to look at photos
Speaker 2: of you and your friends and maybe have a nice
Speaker 2: playlist going with the photos, and have your favorite scented candle,
Speaker 2: you know, right at your desk so you don't have
Speaker 2: to grab it from a closet, or like being truly
Speaker 2: self compassionate. That the thing that I want to tell
Speaker 2: people is like the difference between healthy self soothing or
Speaker 2: having a hope kit, And what we often want to
Speaker 2: do is we often kind of totally avoid and don't
Speaker 2: do things to kind of give ourselves a quick pick
Speaker 2: me up. We take a total like detour. We you know,
Speaker 2: maybe we need a little bit of gas, but we
Speaker 2: don't want to like park ourselves in the gas station
Speaker 2: and not go to our final destination. And so the
Speaker 2: hope kit is kind of a little pick me up
Speaker 2: that can then actually bring you forward.
Speaker 1: Another way that we can take action is to literally
Speaker 1: act with the opposite. You've actually referred to this as
Speaker 1: the ultimate mental health hack, this idea of behavioral activation.
Speaker 2: What does this mean? So all Emotions aren't just something
Speaker 2: that we feel. Emotions are created when we have thoughts,
Speaker 2: and then the thoughts create physical sensations in our bodies,
Speaker 2: and then we have action urges. And so if I
Speaker 2: feel sad, I'm probably thinking thoughts about not being good
Speaker 2: enough for things or too much for me to handle,
Speaker 2: and I'm really overwhelmed and lonely, and then maybe in
Speaker 2: my body I feel heaviness and tension, and then my
Speaker 2: behavior might be something like withdrawing or overthinking or just
Speaker 2: mindlessly doom scrolling. And so emotions don't just happen to us,
Speaker 2: but we have a huge role in co creating them,
Speaker 2: the same way we can co create our stress. And
Speaker 2: so a lot of times people think that acting how
Speaker 2: they feel will kind of help them, but these are
Speaker 2: actually technically known as emotion driven behaviors, and what they
Speaker 2: do is they intensify our feelings. And so you need
Speaker 2: to take a step back and notice what is the
Speaker 2: emotion that you're feeling, what is the emotion driving you
Speaker 2: to do, and is doing that thing ultimately going to
Speaker 2: help you? And so short term, it might feel kind
Speaker 2: of nice to do the thing that your emotion wants
Speaker 2: you to do, but if you actually want to change
Speaker 2: the course of your life, you need to act differently
Speaker 2: than how you feel. So if you feel ashamed and
Speaker 2: you withdraw, you're giving into shame. Shame is winning, you
Speaker 2: are losing. You're going to maintain shame. You're going to
Speaker 2: grow shame. Shame is going to be the defining quality
Speaker 2: of your life. You're going to continue to feel like
Speaker 2: the biggest loser. But if you feel shame and put
Speaker 2: your phone away and make eye contact with people at
Speaker 2: a party and introduce yourself to the people that you
Speaker 2: actually want to speak to, like it's hard to believe,
Speaker 2: like I'm okay. But when you have lived experience that
Speaker 2: people are nodding and people are validating you, your shame
Speaker 2: starts to shrink, and so across all mental health conditions.
Speaker 2: The evidence based treatment is what an emotion is not justified.
Speaker 2: Acting opposite the emotion will significantly improve not only how
Speaker 2: you feel, but your quality of life. And so, if
Speaker 2: you're unhappy in your marriage, maybe you want to like
Speaker 2: replay the pass with mistakes and send angry text messages
Speaker 2: and complain to people, but doing something slightly nice for
Speaker 2: your partner that feels like something you could do without
Speaker 2: being resentful or begrudging. And the trick is that you
Speaker 2: need to do this all the way. Opposite action is
Speaker 2: like not the splits. It's two feet in it's mind
Speaker 2: and body. So if you're doing something nice, you're not
Speaker 2: having an inner narrative of no one does this for me,
Speaker 2: This isn't right. It's with your head and heart that
Speaker 2: I care about this person. I want them to have
Speaker 2: a delicious cup of coffee when they wake up, and
Speaker 2: see if my feelings will change as a result of this.
Speaker 2: So opposit action is helpful with couples therapy. Opposite action
Speaker 2: is the cornerstone of all treatments for anxiety disorders. When
Speaker 2: your fear does not fit the situation you're in, acting
Speaker 2: different than how you feel, whether that's actsing panic as
Speaker 2: a cure for panic, or taking up public speaking if
Speaker 2: that makes you want to run the other way.
Speaker 1: And I think even kind of the typical emotions that
Speaker 1: often go with stress, right like even when you're feeling overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes acting opposite has been the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that helps me, right Like I'll look at my
Speaker 1: calendar and the calendar will just be feeling like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's overflowing. I'll take a moment and think like, well,
Speaker 1: what are we doing If my calendar wasn't overflowing and
Speaker 1: I was feeling overwhelmed, like I'd text a friend and
Speaker 1: sort of check in. I'd use these five minutes and
Speaker 1: there's sort of durishing ways rather than sort of rumitting
Speaker 1: and checking my email and all of a sudden, When
Speaker 1: you act like that, it doesn't change the overflowing schedule,
Speaker 1: but it just puts you in a better mindset so
Speaker 1: that your physiology is not feeling kind of overflowing and
Speaker 1: overwhelmed in the same way. It's like such a powerful hack,
Speaker 1: like even when you don't expect it to work, and
Speaker 1: it's different than faking it. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the things that people get wrong about, this idea
Speaker 1: of acting opposite. You think, well, I'll just pretend like
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling overwhelmed.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: No, it's really about engaging in the actions right and
Speaker 1: just to come back to the stress, because I think
Speaker 1: that's so powerful. When we're stressed, we're often juggling too much.
Speaker 2: We're again putting ourselves in this place where we can't
Speaker 2: possibly meet the demands because we're juggling too many things.
Speaker 2: We're carrying too many bags. Something's going to break. But
Speaker 2: what if we just do one thing at a time.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes when we're stressed, also we start doing like pseudo productivity,
Speaker 2: which is called procrestivity, which is like clearing out your
Speaker 2: inbox rather than working on the dog that you need
Speaker 2: to do. And so just starting with a workable goal
Speaker 2: and doing it with your singular focus and being clear
Speaker 2: on like what is the thing I would do if
Speaker 2: I felt capable of doing this, or if I really
Speaker 2: was being a good friend to myself and a good cheerleader.
Speaker 2: And so I love this because I think the only
Speaker 2: way out of stress is doing what you would do
Speaker 2: if you were acting spacious, which is, you know, not
Speaker 2: being overly perfectionistic and actually facing the thing that you
Speaker 2: need to face, one thing at a time.
Speaker 1: And stopping this procrastivity. I had not heard that word,
Speaker 1: and it's like my new favorite word for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That is a thing I need to reject very very much.
Speaker 2: The cool thing about that is even noticing it is
Speaker 2: kind of like labeling your emotions. It's like this light
Speaker 2: bulb moment where it's like, oh no, I think I
Speaker 2: need to start cleaning up my desk procrastivity, and then
Speaker 2: it's like a nice pivot. The thing about faking it
Speaker 2: is faking it is And when I think about that,
Speaker 2: it's that sounds almost like suppressing your emotions. So it's
Speaker 2: like pretending that you feel really calm when you're giving
Speaker 2: a keynote, and that is going to be really stressful
Speaker 2: if you feel really stressed. If instead you accept it
Speaker 2: makes total sense that I feel a little shaky because
Speaker 2: this situation really matters to me. And allow yourself to
Speaker 2: feel those feelings, you're going to be in a much
Speaker 2: better position to actually speak and sign up for those
Speaker 2: kinds of opportunities. And so it's not faking it. And
Speaker 2: some of my clients tell me that they don't feel
Speaker 2: like their emotions are changing right away, and what I
Speaker 2: tell them is it's okay. Like if you feel really
Speaker 2: annoyed with someone in your family, but it matters to you.
Speaker 2: Part of one of your values is including them in
Speaker 2: your life, it's okay the first time you meet up
Speaker 2: with them for coffee, don't immediately have more feelings. The
Speaker 2: goal of opposite action is not just to feel better,
Speaker 2: it's to have the life that you want to live.
Speaker 1: Taking opposite action is such a clever strategy. If you're
Speaker 1: feeling flustered and panicky, just act relaxed and you can
Speaker 1: slow your role. If you're feeling like you want to
Speaker 1: scream and let out your inner hulk, force yourself to
Speaker 1: speak as calmly.
Speaker 2: And gently as possible.
Speaker 1: It's time for another short break, but Jenny will be
Speaker 1: back with more tips when the Happiness Lab returns in
Speaker 1: a moment.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: This final portion of the Happiness Labs guide on how
Speaker 1: to Stop Stressing about stress is presented by Amazon. So far,
Speaker 1: doctor Jenny Tates has explained that we need to acknowledge
Speaker 1: and accept our stress response. But our next tip was
Speaker 1: a big revelation, at least for me. Jenny says, we
Speaker 1: deal better with stressful situations if we can keep in
Speaker 1: mind that we're enduring the stress for some greater noble cause.
Speaker 2: I think when we're stressed, we're just zooming in on
Speaker 2: what's immediately in front of us, and we don't have
Speaker 2: a broad perspective about what matters. And there's like a
Speaker 2: Zen story about a man riding a horse and someone
Speaker 2: asks him where you're going, and he says, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Asd a horse, and that is a really stressful way
Speaker 2: to live. The only reason to work in a job
Speaker 2: that you don't necessarily like might be to feed your family.
Speaker 2: And connecting the dots that I'm willing to do this
Speaker 2: even though it's uncomfortable because I care about putting food
Speaker 2: on the table actually makes something that's difficult a little
Speaker 2: bit more tolerable and meaningful. And so having a larger
Speaker 2: sense of purpose actually helps us me in out our
Speaker 2: emotions and studies people that have a clear sense of
Speaker 2: their life purpose actually bounce back faster when they're faced
Speaker 2: with emotional content, like looking at painful pictures. People that
Speaker 2: have a clear sense of purpose, their body stress response
Speaker 2: bounces back faster. I just think if we just practically,
Speaker 2: we all deserve to have kind of a sense of
Speaker 2: what we want our lives to stand for. And one
Speaker 2: of my favorite things to do when stress feels like
Speaker 2: it's all consuming is simply taking a step back and listing.
Speaker 2: If you like, I'm too busy, I don't have time
Speaker 2: to think about my life purpose in like a big
Speaker 2: way or like a mission statement that's really solidified, simply
Speaker 2: taking a step back and thinking about, Okay, these are
Speaker 2: the things in my life that matter to me. You know,
Speaker 2: I would love for people to take a moment to
Speaker 2: think about this right now. You know, health, relationships, hobbies,
Speaker 2: giving back, career, and there's so many things that matter
Speaker 2: to us, right and taking a step back to write
Speaker 2: out what matters to you and then maybe how you
Speaker 2: want to show up in each of those domains, and
Speaker 2: then depicting the relative weight of each of those facets
Speaker 2: of your life in a pie chart can even help
Speaker 2: give me some perspective. If things are not going well
Speaker 2: right now with a specific relationship, maybe that's ten percent
Speaker 2: of your life II, but in our minds it can
Speaker 2: easily become eighty five percent of our life by And
Speaker 2: so having a clear purpose helps us see our lives
Speaker 2: more holistically and helps us be more willing to do
Speaker 2: the things that are hard.
Speaker 1: As we talked about these strategies, like you've given us
Speaker 1: so many awesome evidence based tips, but I know that
Speaker 1: sometimes what happens when I'm stressed is like I know
Speaker 1: these tips, but it can still feel like really overwhelming
Speaker 1: to kind of engage with them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: There's this sort of hesitation that creeps in that even
Speaker 1: though I know these strategies. It's like, Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: have time to think about my purpose. I just need
Speaker 1: to do something that's an incredibly quick hack. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I really love your book is that
Speaker 1: you also have strategies for that too. When everything is
Speaker 1: feeling really overwhelming. And that gets to tip number six,
Speaker 1: which is it when all else fails, we can sort
Speaker 1: of hack our body. Why is hacking our body so
Speaker 1: helpful when it comes to stress?
Speaker 2: So many people think that they need something outside of
Speaker 2: themselvescation or drink to feel better. But your body's actually
Speaker 2: your best pharmacy, and we often forget how to lean
Speaker 2: into our body being our best pharmacy. But in a
Speaker 2: matter of minutes, you can dramatically improve how you feel
Speaker 2: if you know how.
Speaker 1: And so what are some like super simple hacks of
Speaker 1: changing the way our body is responding.
Speaker 2: There's one that I introduce called TIP, which I think
Speaker 2: about as almost like the control all delete for your body.
Speaker 2: And TIP is an acronym. TEA stands for temperature, I
Speaker 2: is intense exercise, PA is paste breathing. At the final
Speaker 2: PA is progressive muscle relaxation. And we'll go through those.
Speaker 2: The first thing with the temperature is taking a salad
Speaker 2: bowl and filling it with ice water and setting a
Speaker 2: timer for thirty seconds, holding your breath, and submerging your
Speaker 2: face in the ice water. This sounds like some sort
Speaker 2: of weird TikTok trend, but there's a lot of research
Speaker 2: behind it. We all have a minmilion diver reflex, and
Speaker 2: when the human body is submerged in cold water without oxygen,
Speaker 2: it slows down our heart rate and redirects blood flow
Speaker 2: from not a sen to essential organs. And so even
Speaker 2: if this sounds really weird, if you are wearing an
Speaker 2: Apple watch, your heart rate will decrease significantly when you
Speaker 2: do this. And yes, the point of life is not
Speaker 2: to be submerging your face in ice water. But if
Speaker 2: you're in a moment and you're making things worse for yourself,
Speaker 2: and you feel like you're panicking, and you have thoughts
Speaker 2: that aren't serving you, in thirty seconds, you can do
Speaker 2: something that shifts your physiology and also shifts your mental
Speaker 2: state and also reminds you that you can do something
Speaker 2: difficult and that you can feel different in a matter
Speaker 2: of seconds. I should just say that this is not
Speaker 2: a good strategy for people that have part conditions, because
Speaker 2: your heart rate will come down quickly. But the ice
Speaker 2: face is something that people are really surprised when they're
Speaker 2: in a vicious cycle of rumination or if they feel frozen.
Speaker 2: Freezing your face will surprisingly unfreeze you. And then eye
Speaker 2: is intense exercise. And this is not running a marathon
Speaker 2: or going to a sixty minute workout class, just briefly
Speaker 2: doing something like burpies for a minute or two, or
Speaker 2: running in place, but bringing your knees up to your
Speaker 2: nose as best you can. I'm doing something like that.
Speaker 2: These things are changing your body and also in your mind,
Speaker 2: you're not going to be able to be thinking the
Speaker 2: same thoughts. Is peace. Breathing is slowing down your respiratory rate.
Speaker 2: On average, we breathe about eighteen breaths per minute, and
Speaker 2: if we slow our breath to about a third of
Speaker 2: that by breathing in for five, we can all do
Speaker 2: this together through your nose. You could gently close your
Speaker 2: lips in for five and out for five. You do
Speaker 2: that for several minutes, that actually lowers your blood pressure, or.
Speaker 1: Even just once. Honestly, I just did that with you,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: actually do feel better.
Speaker 2: Just so funny.
Speaker 1: It's one of these things where people tell you if
Speaker 1: you're upset, like take a deep breath, and it sounds
Speaker 1: so kind of frustrating, but what it's really doing is
Speaker 1: it's hacking a part of your body that's kind of
Speaker 1: incredibly hard to hack. You really hacking your parisipittic nervousness totally.
Speaker 2: I think the only qualifiers if you feel like you
Speaker 2: can't breathe, that is not the one I would go to.
Speaker 2: But other than times when you're feeling panic, yeah, taking
Speaker 2: a deep breath. And I have to tell you, Laurie,
Speaker 2: I was blown open working on this book. I interviewed
Speaker 2: doctor Richard Brown and doctor Patricia Gerbarg, who or psychiatrists
Speaker 2: affiliated with Columbia University who moved away from prescribing medications
Speaker 2: to prescribing breath work, who are teaching breathing all over
Speaker 2: the world, therapeutic breathing exercises, even right now to people
Speaker 2: in Ukraine. And they are telling me that people in
Speaker 2: war zones are actually finding tranquility within. And I was
Speaker 2: so moved by this fact that a portion of the
Speaker 2: proceeds from my book is going to their foundation. Because
Speaker 2: we think, yeah, taking a breath is not going to
Speaker 2: really change my reality, but it does. It expands your
Speaker 2: ability to cope with your reality. And we need to
Speaker 2: strengthen our inner system to deal with a stressful outer system.
Speaker 2: And then the final p is progressive muscle relaxation. And
Speaker 2: so a lot of times it might feel like the
Speaker 2: only way for you to relax is to get a massage,
Speaker 2: but you couldn't give yourself a quick massage. Even if
Speaker 2: this isn't something you've tried before, this is quite easy
Speaker 2: to do by tensing your forehead and releasing and noticing
Speaker 2: the difference between tension and relaxation your forehead, then with
Speaker 2: each in and out breath, releasing more, and then doing
Speaker 2: the same with your lips, tensing your lips by bringing
Speaker 2: your lips together releasing. A lot of us don't even
Speaker 2: realize that we're our shoulders are touching our ears, and
Speaker 2: we're scowling, and we're tightening our fists especially, and there's
Speaker 2: so many things we can do to just create a
Speaker 2: little bit more space in our bodies. And again, the temperature,
Speaker 2: intense exercise, pacee breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation are things
Speaker 2: we can all do really quickly in a matter of minutes,
Speaker 2: and I don't think that you're going to have anything
Speaker 2: but a sense of expansiveness and present focus.
Speaker 1: Another thing we can do in a matter of minutes
Speaker 1: is your tip number seven, which is that we can
Speaker 1: hack our senses. One of my favorite versions of this
Speaker 1: is your idea that we can comfort ourself with touch,
Speaker 1: which is something that I've taken from your book, just
Speaker 1: kind of remembering like, oh, I can put on some
Speaker 1: fuzzy socks, you know, I can give myself a little
Speaker 1: self hug. Talk about why our senses can be so
Speaker 1: powerful for changing our stress response.
Speaker 2: We get into this two punch of our mind is
Speaker 2: bowling us and then our bodies feel like they're rebelling
Speaker 2: it us. But doing something like if you just received
Speaker 2: difficult feedback, like putting two hands on your heart can
Speaker 2: really feel like a hug. And this sounds corny, but
Speaker 2: there are studies that showed us to be true and
Speaker 2: doing small things to self validate that communicate that our
Speaker 2: feelings are moramal and to be expected. And I mean,
Speaker 2: I think self compassion is so key and finding ways
Speaker 2: through touch and from the moment we're born we're comforted
Speaker 2: by touch, and this is something that people really crave
Speaker 2: and really complained about during periods of isolation during the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and giving your friends a hug is so lovely. And
Speaker 2: if you're on your own, you know, massaging your shoulder.
Speaker 1: Given yourself a hug works pretty well too. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: those are all strategies we can use maybe after something
Speaker 1: stressful happens, but your book also goes through things we
Speaker 1: can do to get ahead of things before stress starts,
Speaker 1: so we can kind of beat it. And one of
Speaker 1: my favorite strategies in this, which is my tip number eight,
Speaker 1: is that we could mentally rehearse to kind of protect ourselves.
Speaker 1: What do you mean my mental rehearsal here, So.
Speaker 2: There's this incredible thing that when we imagine a situation
Speaker 2: in our mind, if we actually rehearse ourselves in that situation,
Speaker 2: we use the same parts of our brain that will
Speaker 2: actually use in the situation. And so oftentimes we're facing
Speaker 2: something that seems overwhelming and we do the opposite of this.
Speaker 2: We worry, we dread, we expect the worst. But if
Speaker 2: we swap dread with coping ahead actually imagining, not overly idealistically,
Speaker 2: but realistically, this thing is going to come up. I'm
Speaker 2: going to sit down at my desk. I'm going to
Speaker 2: want to go bounce around social media and news sites,
Speaker 2: but instead I'm going to close everything out, set a
Speaker 2: time or for this amount of time that actually sets
Speaker 2: us up to do just that. The mental rehearsal, this
Speaker 2: is something that a lot of sports psychologists use. It's
Speaker 2: really helpful. I found it personally helpful with writing this book,
Speaker 2: or just like the mental rehearsal of sitting down to
Speaker 2: do deep work. But I think it's a powerful way
Speaker 2: to use our resources to set us up for success
Speaker 2: rather than to set us up for not believing in
Speaker 2: ourselves and struggling.
Speaker 1: Another resource we can use to help ourselves kind of
Speaker 1: ahead of time is we can use a little bit
Speaker 1: more humor. We can find humor before the stress kicks in.
Speaker 1: How is humor so hopeful for fighting stress?
Speaker 2: Oh? I love this. I just feel like if you
Speaker 2: can make someone laugh and a hard moment, that really
Speaker 2: shifts their perspective. I find humor so personally liberating and
Speaker 2: joyful and we all need. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 2: almost like life is like a seesaw. The more positive
Speaker 2: emotions we elevate, the more negative emotions come down. And
Speaker 2: this is something that's true even in the research people
Speaker 2: that are focused on a newer treatment called positive ethic therapy,
Speaker 2: they reduce their anxiety and depression, even if that's not targeted,
Speaker 2: and so be able to laugh and play with yourself
Speaker 2: and giving your anxiety of funny Like I don't know,
Speaker 2: when I was living in New York, I lived on
Speaker 2: top of a candy store, and in the window of
Speaker 2: the candy store there was this big stuffed animal called
Speaker 2: grumpy cat. Mayven just you know, noticing like, okay, grumpy
Speaker 2: cats coming around. That's a quick way to kind of
Speaker 2: get some distance and perspective and to play with it.
Speaker 2: And I think going through life looking for funny things
Speaker 2: kind of shifts your perspective and humor is not only
Speaker 2: good for you, but also for the people around you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a way of kind of regulating not just
Speaker 1: your stress, but the stress of the people that you
Speaker 1: happen to find yourself with. It's such a good tip
Speaker 1: Number nine. Now we get to my final tip, which
Speaker 1: sort of builds on this idea of bringing in positive emotions.
Speaker 1: We can protect ourselves by plotting out our joy, and
Speaker 1: you argue you should even make appointments with our joy
Speaker 1: kind of explain what.
Speaker 2: You mean there. It's so easy to feel like when
Speaker 2: I have time, then I will call that friend or
Speaker 2: finally go to see a movie in the theater, or
Speaker 2: figure out a nice hiking trail in my neighborhood. But actually,
Speaker 2: like we need to plot joy to have the energy
Speaker 2: we need to again expand our inner resources and doing
Speaker 2: things to cultivate positive emotions actually reduces our vulnerability to
Speaker 2: negative emotions and creates a buffer for stress. And so
Speaker 2: intentionally planning things to look forward to and then learning
Speaker 2: to actually really savor them. So if you did something pleasant,
Speaker 2: to repeat it in your mind or even actually say
Speaker 2: it out loud is what experts say to do the
Speaker 2: specific highlight of that experience, like if you met up
Speaker 2: with a friend, like even just the moment of your
Speaker 2: eyes catching one another's across the room and then running
Speaker 2: to give each other a hug, like in this cute
Speaker 2: coffee shop that smelled like I don't know a fall.
Speaker 2: That is so helpful because again, I think we just
Speaker 2: go from hard time to hard time, and we need
Speaker 2: to realize that planning and savoring moments of pleasures like
Speaker 2: putting money in your bank account that offsets your stress
Speaker 2: and also allows you to enjoy your life. And a
Speaker 2: huge thing that we need to remember is doing these
Speaker 2: things is not just good for us, but good for
Speaker 2: the people around us. And it's really hard to bring
Speaker 2: positivity to the people that you care about if you
Speaker 2: are running low.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about the strategy is that
Speaker 1: you talk about planning this ahead of time, because I
Speaker 1: know that for me, especially when I'm feeling really stressed
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed, there can be some friction about adding in
Speaker 1: these pleasant things. But if it's already in the calendar,
Speaker 1: right I already have a movie night with my friends,
Speaker 1: or I've already planned dinner, you know, with people I
Speaker 1: really care about, I'm going to have a really fun
Speaker 1: time with weeks in advance, then it winds up sticking around.
Speaker 1: So I love the sort of antsicipiatory adding the pleasure
Speaker 1: in ahead of time so that it's there when you
Speaker 1: really need it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what you're saying is so impactful
Speaker 2: because we can anticipate it and savor it and then
Speaker 2: re experience it afterwards. And then I think also just
Speaker 2: strategically having it in your calendar. This happens to me
Speaker 2: all the time. If I know that I have a
Speaker 2: hard stop time, that makes the time right before that
Speaker 2: much more productive. And so I think just knowing I
Speaker 2: got to be finished by this time because I have
Speaker 2: this dinner on the calendar actually leads to less you know,
Speaker 2: bouncing around between tasks and more monotasking, and so I
Speaker 2: think it's good for joint. It's also good for the
Speaker 2: things that are stressing us out to actually tackle those.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about kind of ways that we can
Speaker 1: deal with stress, but you know, sometimes stress dips into
Speaker 1: the clinical right for example, if somebody is going through
Speaker 1: a moment of total panic, any particular tips for tackling
Speaker 1: that when things get really out of hand for.
Speaker 2: People that have panic. One of the most surprising things
Speaker 2: people don't realize is that practicing panic is the path
Speaker 2: out of panic. And so rather than worrying, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be on the freeway and I'm going to start sweating,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to feel like I can't breathe, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to feel like I can't drive safely. Rather
Speaker 2: than waiting for that moment to surprise you and catch
Speaker 2: you off guard. If you can practice panic, if you
Speaker 2: can recreate those very physical sensations that you are I
Speaker 2: will never pop up in your life if you can
Speaker 2: actually practice those on purpose in a safe space, spend
Speaker 2: a minute hyperventilating surprisingly introceptive exposure or facing those physical
Speaker 2: sensations that you want to avoid is one of the
Speaker 2: most proven paths out of panic, and it works surprisingly well,
Speaker 2: and it works in a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 2: Doing this in a safe environment helps you kind of
Speaker 2: metaphorically put out a welcome that when these things show up,
Speaker 2: because we often do as almost like a Chinese finger trap,
Speaker 2: we feel physically uncomfortable, we judge it, we feel more constrictive.
Speaker 2: The more we fight, the more stuck we are. But
Speaker 2: if we can lean in and have an attitude of
Speaker 2: been there, done that. I've practiced this at home, I
Speaker 2: know what this is, just like my emotions come in waves,
Speaker 2: my physiology changes when I don't hyper focus on it.
Speaker 2: It's a really liberating technique that I've been blown away
Speaker 2: by its impact on my clients.
Speaker 1: So listeners should definitely check out the book, and they
Speaker 1: should also check out this stress reset deck you have,
Speaker 1: which is just like little cards I explain these things,
Speaker 1: you don't have to flip through a whole book to
Speaker 1: find them. I'm just so curious writing this book has
Speaker 1: kind of having all these strategies that they're ready helped
Speaker 1: you get through really stressful periods.
Speaker 2: I wrote this book because having these strategies that I've
Speaker 2: learned over the past couple of decades has changed my life.
Speaker 2: I mean, these are like beads of a necklace that
Speaker 2: I wear constantly, and I feel like they're too precious
Speaker 2: to keep to myself and I want everyone to access them.
Speaker 2: And certainly in moments when I stressed out, I take
Speaker 2: a step back and notice what am I doing? How
Speaker 2: is my thinking not serving me? And what is a
Speaker 2: change in my behavior that I can quickly pivot towards.
Speaker 2: Because we all deserve to improve our moments, and these
Speaker 2: improve our days, and this improves our whole life, and
Speaker 2: this creates a positive ripple effect not only in us,
Speaker 2: but with the people around us. And so they certainly
Speaker 2: have changed my life and opposite action is a total
Speaker 2: way that I live my life lifestyle.
Speaker 1: That final part of my interview with Jenny Tates on
Speaker 1: how to Stop Stressing about stress was presented by Amazon
Speaker 1: Pharmacy and Amazon one Medical Healthcare just got less painful.
Speaker 1: Learn more at health dot Amazon dot com. I can't
Speaker 1: recommend Jenny's Stress Resets book enough.
Speaker 2: It's packed with so much.
Speaker 1: Good advice, far more than we've been able to fit
Speaker 1: into the show. Well, let's recap the wisdom that Jenny's shared.
Speaker 1: Tip one sounds simple, but it's hard. You have to
Speaker 1: accept that stress is the price of a fulfilling life.
Speaker 1: Challenging things give us purpose and fun and all the
Speaker 1: social connection we need. The next tip is to stop
Speaker 1: all that rumination. Letting your mind think about a stressful
Speaker 1: situation over and over doesn't do you any good. Nip
Speaker 1: these looping thoughts in the butt by asking yourself how
Speaker 1: you're going to move forward. Tip three is all about
Speaker 1: building up distress tolerance. Practice accepting tough feelings when they
Speaker 1: arise so you don't drown in them. Tip number four
Speaker 1: is not to let stressors dictate your behavior. If you're
Speaker 1: feeling down, do the opposite and try something fun and energetic.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling in aged with someone, do something nice
Speaker 1: for them, even if you actually want to be a
Speaker 1: bit mean. Tip number five zoom out from your stress
Speaker 1: and remember why you're doing what you're doing. Are you
Speaker 1: enduring a difficult situation to improve your life or the
Speaker 1: life of someone you love. A bit of stress might
Speaker 1: start to seem worth it for that long term gain.
Speaker 1: Tip number six, Hack your body. Don't reach for a
Speaker 1: drink or a pint of ice cream to change your mood.
Speaker 1: Shock yourself with a blast of water, a deep breath,
Speaker 1: or even a burst of exercise to halt that stress
Speaker 1: response in its tracks. Tip number seven follows along from
Speaker 1: that