Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks to the future and says, I'm
Speaker 1: addicted to stress. That's the way that I get things
Speaker 1: done when I'm not under pressure. That I sleep too
Speaker 1: long and I hang around like a bum, and I
Speaker 1: think I go in nowhere and that makes me nervous.
Speaker 1: I'm John and Strickland, I'm Lauren vocal Ban, and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And they are staring at me and stunned silence.
Speaker 1: Mostly we are today talking about stress, its effects on us,
Speaker 1: and ways to manage stress, because that ties into this
Speaker 1: week's video all about stress and the future of stress management.
Speaker 1: Really and um, it's an important deal. So I guess
Speaker 1: first we need to kind of look at just what
Speaker 1: is stress? What do we how do we define that,
Speaker 1: and what does it do to us, especially in the
Speaker 1: short term. Yeah, that's funny. Everybody knows what stress is,
Speaker 1: but you kind of be hard pressed to define it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like consciousness, right, and one of those
Speaker 1: one of those concepts that as you start to define it,
Speaker 1: you realize, oh wait, it's this thing that everyone knows,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to put into words. Really, you can
Speaker 1: describe it physiologically. It's certain things are happening to your
Speaker 1: body when you have a stress response. Essentially, it's it's
Speaker 1: your body's reaction to any sort of perceived threat or
Speaker 1: perceived any moment where your body feels like it needs
Speaker 1: to prepare itself physically for something that's going to be demanding.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, our you know, our genetics don't really have
Speaker 1: a button that says like, you know, this, this test
Speaker 1: that I'm studying for isn't a tiger that is actually
Speaker 1: going to eat my face. And so we have a
Speaker 1: very similar response to physical stresses and mental stresses, and yeah,
Speaker 1: the body doesn't have a way of differentiating the different
Speaker 1: types of stressors that we could encounter. Now we should
Speaker 1: be fair, Actually you do, and it's your brain and
Speaker 1: you do have a way of telling a difference. But
Speaker 1: the point is that things that are not actually a
Speaker 1: big threat to you are still going to trigger some
Speaker 1: of that response. Yeah, may of it. I probably would
Speaker 1: have a much bigger stress response if Lauren suddenly pulled
Speaker 1: out a knife and thrust it at me, then, if
Speaker 1: you know, I would just to say suddenly forget all
Speaker 1: the research I didn't before this and be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know the question. The question is what if what
Speaker 1: if Lauren pulled a knife on you, and at the
Speaker 1: same time you received an email from the head of
Speaker 1: how Stuff works saying we need to talk and make
Speaker 1: sure you clear out your desk. Those those two things
Speaker 1: would give you quite a bit of stress early on,
Speaker 1: even though one is is actively and physically threatening you
Speaker 1: at this moment. By the way, Lauren with a knife
Speaker 1: not something you want to encounter. I mean, she's I
Speaker 1: don't really need knives. My elbows are sharp, like that's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. And plus she has a cutting wit anyway.
Speaker 1: So so let's get back to talking about what stress
Speaker 1: is in our way of reacting to it. It really
Speaker 1: is kind of a survival mechanism, you know, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, Lauren, this whole being attacked by a tiger thing.
Speaker 1: It's part of the fight or flight response. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a chemical we need to talk about, the big one.
Speaker 1: It's called cortisol. Yeah, there's another one called adrenaline, and
Speaker 1: that also plays a factor obviously in the stress response.
Speaker 1: And these are these are both hormones that are released
Speaker 1: by our body whenever our brain starts to think, this
Speaker 1: is a situation that needs to have uh, this particular reaction,
Speaker 1: and in general, what this reaction does is it prepares
Speaker 1: you for something that's about to happen right then and there.
Speaker 1: So in certain situations, like a tiger, you spot a
Speaker 1: tiger in the woods and you realize you need to
Speaker 1: get the heck out of Dodge. I don't know why
Speaker 1: there's a tiger and Dodge, but you've got to get
Speaker 1: out of there. The tigers wielding a knife at the
Speaker 1: tiger is wielding a knife and threatening your job. This
Speaker 1: is this is the worst dresser that we can imagine. Son,
Speaker 1: Get out of done. So yeah, you you Your body
Speaker 1: starts to to react and you get you begin to
Speaker 1: have responses like your your senses start to sharpen. You
Speaker 1: begin to really be able to focus on certain things
Speaker 1: while filtering out lots of other information. So when you're
Speaker 1: under stress, you might be keenly aware of the stressor
Speaker 1: I mean everything from your sense of sight and hearing,
Speaker 1: as well as your sense of smell. These things can
Speaker 1: all be really focused. But it also means that you
Speaker 1: are filtering out anything that would your brain would think is, well,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna threaten me, So we're just not going
Speaker 1: to even pay attention to that, which is interesting. That's
Speaker 1: why people can react to situations very quickly but not
Speaker 1: necessarily have a lot of recollection of everything that was
Speaker 1: going on at that moment um. It also means that
Speaker 1: your muscles get ready to react. Your heart rate starts
Speaker 1: to increase, your breathing rate starts to increase. They're trying
Speaker 1: to oxygenate your brain and your muscles right right right,
Speaker 1: Get you ready to move. Moving is what you need
Speaker 1: to do. Write either either to fight or to to
Speaker 1: run to the fight or flight. Our buddies over at stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know this is one of their favorite phrases.
Speaker 1: Anyone who had listened to that podcast, especially from the beginning,
Speaker 1: that was like their go to phrase for early episodes
Speaker 1: was fight or flight response. And so we're talking about
Speaker 1: here now there are different types of stressors. Uh that
Speaker 1: that this isn't necessarily something that's discussed at length in
Speaker 1: scientific literature, but there's the concept of distress versus you stress.
Speaker 1: So you stress is this this is considered to be
Speaker 1: uh useful and uh that it's something that you are
Speaker 1: capable of handling. It can get you excited about something,
Speaker 1: it can it can really get you focused on something.
Speaker 1: So let's say that our boss comes in and says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: we've got this opportunity for a brand new show and
Speaker 1: we want you to be a part of it. Assuming
Speaker 1: that that's something that we would like to do. Then
Speaker 1: we wind experience. You stress, We get excited about it.
Speaker 1: Our body starts to respond, but it's not a negative experience,
Speaker 1: and that's you stress with an EU, and then distress
Speaker 1: would be the more negative type, something like the boss
Speaker 1: coming and says, we gotta you know, we gotta talk numbers,
Speaker 1: and they're just not where we want them to be.
Speaker 1: Then we start, you know, your stomach sinks, you know
Speaker 1: exactly or distress. Um, yeah, so we start, you start
Speaker 1: to feel uh, negative impact there. So stressors do not
Speaker 1: automatically fall into you stress or distress. They are completely
Speaker 1: dependent upon not only the individual. So something that I
Speaker 1: find exciting, Joe might discover is not something he wants
Speaker 1: to do and it actually fills him with distress. For example. Uh,
Speaker 1: and maybe all three of us feel the same way
Speaker 1: about this. Who here, and do you guys enjoy roller coasters. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: not really. So you just don't care though, or do
Speaker 1: you actively not like being on a roller coaster? You know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't freak out like I'd get on one, but
Speaker 1: it's just not lot of fun, gotcha? Got you? All? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: well let's assume that we have a fourth person in
Speaker 1: here who just does not They are terrified of roller coasters.
Speaker 1: For them, the idea of getting in line to go
Speaker 1: on a roller coaster is just it's it's bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's bad. They're experiencing negative levels of stress. Lauren and
Speaker 1: I we might love roller coaster, so we're all excited
Speaker 1: and pumped up and ready to go, and and it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's again different for us, and it may
Speaker 1: be different for an individual depending upon the context. There
Speaker 1: might be a roller coaster that you lead me up
Speaker 1: to and I take one look at and I think
Speaker 1: this thing should have been condemned thirty years ago, and
Speaker 1: I might be filled with distress. Not you stress in
Speaker 1: that situation. So it's not something that we can easily
Speaker 1: say all of this example is you stress, and all
Speaker 1: of this is distress. So all the things we've been
Speaker 1: talking about so far have been examples of what we
Speaker 1: might say is acute stress, like a specific stressor causes
Speaker 1: you to have a reaction in that moment, and and
Speaker 1: it's related to a specific period of time. But what
Speaker 1: if you were somebody who really hated roller hosters and
Speaker 1: your whole life is kind of like you're near the
Speaker 1: back of a line waiting for roller coasts. So essentially
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is is chronic stress the idea
Speaker 1: of encountering stress on a regular basis, perhaps even a
Speaker 1: daily basis. So for example, people who absolutely despise their jobs.
Speaker 1: You know, I know that I've had jobs in the
Speaker 1: past where I just every day I would wake up,
Speaker 1: I would have to motivate myself to go to work
Speaker 1: because I did not like what I did. I might
Speaker 1: like the people I worked with, but I didn't like
Speaker 1: the work I was doing. Uh, that of course does
Speaker 1: not apply. Right now, I got a dream job that
Speaker 1: I'm very happy about, but back in the day, not
Speaker 1: so much. And um, and that can be something that
Speaker 1: is a real uh difficult time for for a person
Speaker 1: to to deal with. I mean, you're encountering this level
Speaker 1: of stress, this this feeling of anxiety that you experien
Speaker 1: arians whenever stress is hitting you, but it's a prolonged experience.
Speaker 1: It's a chronic experience. This is a problem, and it's
Speaker 1: a problem right now. It's been a problem forever. But
Speaker 1: it's one of those things we're really aware of. It's
Speaker 1: more than just the fact that it's unpleasant, though it's
Speaker 1: apparently really bad for your health. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's let's look at some of the common reactions people
Speaker 1: have when they are under stress. Here, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of different ways you can look at their three big
Speaker 1: categories that people tend to fall into when they're reacting
Speaker 1: to negative levels of stress, particularly over more than just
Speaker 1: you know, a momentary encounter. Uh. That is to get
Speaker 1: really keyed up and overly emotional and irritable and angry.
Speaker 1: I call that turning into hot spur from King Henry
Speaker 1: the fourth part one. These are all gonna have Shakespearean references.
Speaker 1: Then there's uh, you get withdrawn into yes, withdrawn depressed.
Speaker 1: You get have low energy or you have very little
Speaker 1: expression of emotion. I call that Antonio from Merchant of Venice. Okay,
Speaker 1: but then you have frozen where you are unable to
Speaker 1: act or respond. You are agitated, but you are essentially
Speaker 1: emotionally paralyzed. Obviously Hamlet, right, so I tell you, I
Speaker 1: mean Shakespeare he was really good at somewhere. No, no,
Speaker 1: the Shakespearean Well, I mean the reactions, the categories I
Speaker 1: took from from research, but the EXPERI characters, No, that
Speaker 1: was me. Well, I mean he was, he was very
Speaker 1: good at the human experience and expressing that. Right, So
Speaker 1: I mean kudos to him anyway. Other problems that are
Speaker 1: associated with stress include things like you can have problems
Speaker 1: with memory, so you can have problems forming and retaining
Speaker 1: memories while you're undergoing stress over a prolonged period. Concentration
Speaker 1: is another issue, so while you might have a really
Speaker 1: sharp focus in the short over a longer period chronic
Speaker 1: stress can hurt your concentration. You can have issues with
Speaker 1: judgment where you start making bad decisions because you're feeling
Speaker 1: so much pressure that you just want to relieve it,
Speaker 1: so you're not really considering what the consequences of your actions. Maybe. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can start suffering physical aches and pains from muscle
Speaker 1: tension and other issues of these hormones can really start
Speaker 1: to wreak havoc, especially like cortisol. If you have heightened
Speaker 1: cortisol production over a whild that can actually damage your muscles.
Speaker 1: It can cause to an even bone loss if you
Speaker 1: have heightened levels over a prolonged period of time. Uh. Nausea.
Speaker 1: I mean there's other gastro intestinal issues such as diarrhea.
Speaker 1: Pleasant experience. Anyone who's ever had like that stressful feeling
Speaker 1: where they're just like, I have got to find a
Speaker 1: rest room and just hide for the next two hours. Uh.
Speaker 1: Loss of sex drive often accompanied when you have diarrhea.
Speaker 1: I would assume, Uh, there changes in eating habits, so
Speaker 1: you might start to over eat or you might stop eating. Uh,
Speaker 1: changes in sleeping habits where you are having insomnia you
Speaker 1: have trouble getting sleep. Then it can lead to behavioral
Speaker 1: issues like procrastination where you just you know, even though
Speaker 1: you're feeling more and more stress about the fact that
Speaker 1: you need to do more stuff, it actually causes you
Speaker 1: to not act and you end up making it worse
Speaker 1: over time. Uh. You can develop a reliance on drugs
Speaker 1: to relieve the symptoms, whether that's a prescription, which you know,
Speaker 1: some people the stress they experience, medication maybe the best
Speaker 1: approach for them to manage their stress. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of self medicating that goes out out there, and
Speaker 1: not just with prescription drugs, but with things like recreational
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol or tobacco or even coffee. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff where you're you're relying heavily on some
Speaker 1: other substance to help relieve the tension and stress. That's
Speaker 1: your experience. And then they're just developing nervous habits, stuff
Speaker 1: that like biting your nails, things that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of these these compulsions that you can develop
Speaker 1: as a result of enduring stress over a long time.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these I'll tie back into. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're starting to talk about um sleep loss and
Speaker 1: uh and and fatigue and things like that, that's going
Speaker 1: to start affecting everything else in your life. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a it's going to affect your um, your immune system.
Speaker 1: And and when you're sick, that's another stressor. I mean,
Speaker 1: because you know you can't you can't function, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can have auto you can develop autoimmune diseases. You
Speaker 1: can develop you can well if you're if you have
Speaker 1: an overeating problem that can lead to obesity. You can
Speaker 1: suffer from depression, you can have uh, you can even
Speaker 1: develop heart disease because of this, um. And you know,
Speaker 1: things like skin conditions, you can you can either end
Speaker 1: up well really you can exacerbate existing skin conditions like exima.
Speaker 1: So the stresses, I mean, it's a really powerful thing.
Speaker 1: The really terrifying one for me, if I can share
Speaker 1: this one, is that um uh, they've they've found that
Speaker 1: stress is linked to psychoses and and triggering things like
Speaker 1: schizophrenia that that don't on set until your your early adulthood.
Speaker 1: That if if you know, given you know, if you
Speaker 1: take two identical twins and and one developed schizophrenia, the
Speaker 1: other one only has a chance of developing it even
Speaker 1: though they're genetically identical, because because the environment and the
Speaker 1: stressors in your life are so important to uh, to
Speaker 1: the development of the disease. Yeah. So, so, I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly stresses is pretty rough on on people. And and
Speaker 1: it may be rough not just on the person who's
Speaker 1: experiencing the stress, but perhaps even to their offspring. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this concept now known as epigenetic inheritance. Um and
Speaker 1: that's kind of a mouthful, but it means literally on
Speaker 1: top of the genes genetics. Yeah, um, And so to
Speaker 1: explain epigenetics. Basically, it's the concept that without changing your
Speaker 1: d N A, without changing the code that makes up
Speaker 1: your body, um, environmental factors can make changes in the
Speaker 1: way that code is expressed right right, because your your
Speaker 1: RNA is is continually um picking what genes are turned
Speaker 1: on and turned off based on a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 1: And this is a completely normal process, not just due
Speaker 1: to stress, but right. So, so you can have you've
Speaker 1: got DNA and all your cells and that's the building
Speaker 1: blocks for making you so but certain genes in there
Speaker 1: can be turned on, turned off, can be told to
Speaker 1: express themselves into different proteins at different points in your
Speaker 1: life and um, you know, due to uh, you know
Speaker 1: whatever whatever needs doing. Huh. And so one of these
Speaker 1: things that can cause epigenetic changes is stress, um and
Speaker 1: that that can change the way your DNA is manifest.
Speaker 1: But also what some people are saying now is that
Speaker 1: might not be just for you, that those epigenetic changes
Speaker 1: might be able to pass on through say a sperm cell,
Speaker 1: to your offspring or even your grandchildren. Uh. This isn't
Speaker 1: proven yet, by the way, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: research to indicate this might be the case. Right, And
Speaker 1: What's what's going on here is a process called methylation
Speaker 1: inside your genes and that is UM. These these methyl
Speaker 1: groups UM will mark a particular gene to to just
Speaker 1: turn it off to just be like you sit down
Speaker 1: and and uh and there's you get a time out
Speaker 1: and in some cases of permanent time out and UM
Speaker 1: and it was you know that There's been an argument
Speaker 1: for a really long time about whether or not UM
Speaker 1: those markers can be passed on to a sperm and
Speaker 1: egg cell at all UM and and furthermore, you know,
Speaker 1: whether they would be wiped out during the fertilization process
Speaker 1: and UM. And there is currently some evidence UM study
Speaker 1: out of yeah, the University of Cambridge that was published
Speaker 1: in late that showed that UM a tiny number of
Speaker 1: genes and UM mass germ cells the that's the sperm
Speaker 1: and the egg uh survived into the next generation like
Speaker 1: like two thirty three out of some thousand, which sounds
Speaker 1: really tiny, but it's still it's still there. I mean yeah, interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so this is interesting because it ties into older
Speaker 1: concepts like Lamarckian is um if you'll ever heard of this.
Speaker 1: Lamarckian is um was the idea that uh that that
Speaker 1: you could take a characteristic developed or learned by the adult,
Speaker 1: and that adult could pass it on to their children
Speaker 1: just by birth. Um, that was before we understood genetics,
Speaker 1: and now we know that that's essentially not true. Or
Speaker 1: you know the concept that if um, you know, if
Speaker 1: you work out and you have a really big bicep,
Speaker 1: that your child is not necessarily going to have a
Speaker 1: really big right, or that you are a capable king
Speaker 1: of England that your child. No, seriously, the entire monarchy
Speaker 1: system is based upon this concept. Well, that could be
Speaker 1: based on the idea well, I mean, excluding divine right
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. That was also you could argue
Speaker 1: that there was some kind of genetic idea there that
Speaker 1: they didn't know about genetics. No, but I think I
Speaker 1: think the same sort of armchair born although I guess
Speaker 1: it was an armchair approach. It was more of a
Speaker 1: throne approach a time. But yeah, the idea that learned
Speaker 1: or or adapted characteristics could be passed on, that's that's
Speaker 1: not so much true through the d n A. You're
Speaker 1: not altering your genome by doing that, but you can
Speaker 1: make these epigenetic changes and it's very possible, and lots
Speaker 1: of experts think that you can pass them on and
Speaker 1: maybe not, maybe not permanently. The studies that I've seen,
Speaker 1: um that have shown that traits are passed down to
Speaker 1: at least one or two generations, um in mice. These
Speaker 1: are not human studies, um are I have shown that
Speaker 1: that the results peter out after about two generations. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen anything that has gone on longer than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I explains the millennials. A lot of these are
Speaker 1: these tests they've done on mice are related to stress,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, Yeah, that's that that that's the the
Speaker 1: main thingy, the science thingy tie in. Yeah, the main variable, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah. So like that, they'll expose say, male
Speaker 1: mice to u nic chronic stress something you know, preventing
Speaker 1: them from from being in a in a social group
Speaker 1: or something like that, thrending the mouse jobs. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they have those mice mate with females, and sure
Speaker 1: enough the offspring they produce show increased levels of stress
Speaker 1: and difficulty difficulty dealing with stress responses. Yeah, so let's
Speaker 1: let's talk now. I'm starting to get stressed out by
Speaker 1: this whole conversation. Really, we might need to start talking
Speaker 1: about ways of managing stress in the way to relieve stress.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, there's been a lot of work
Speaker 1: that's been done in this some of it has been
Speaker 1: you know, um, not necessarily held up against scientific rigor,
Speaker 1: although several approaches have. But it's there are ways to
Speaker 1: manage stress without necessarily going down the route of medication,
Speaker 1: although again that might be appropriate depending upon the circumstances
Speaker 1: of the individual. Um, you know, there are some things
Speaker 1: that are you know, really body chemistry issues that no
Speaker 1: amount of deep breathing techniques are necessarily going to address. Well,
Speaker 1: we should certainly say that it's not all environmental. Some
Speaker 1: people are just prone distressed, right, genetically predisposed, pre predisposed
Speaker 1: predisposed distress. And uh, and those people are very likely
Speaker 1: the people who are need to seek a medical response,
Speaker 1: right right, So it's or at least a combination of therapies. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: we don't we just don't want to suggest that there's
Speaker 1: any one way that you know, all you have to
Speaker 1: do is just take a little moment for yourself and
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. It's more complicated in that, although for
Speaker 1: for many people doing just that can help a great deal. So, um,
Speaker 1: first I wanted to mention something along the lines of
Speaker 1: along the less scientific approach. Uh so, so clearly everything
Speaker 1: from stress management. I mean, this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: We all have stress in our lives, and we're perhaps
Speaker 1: more aware of that now than we've ever been before.
Speaker 1: And uh and you know, it's an unpleasant experience, and
Speaker 1: a lot of our time and effort tends to be
Speaker 1: dedicated towards creating as pleasant an experience as we can
Speaker 1: possibly manage at any given time. If you're not if
Speaker 1: you're not constantly worried about survival, if that rory has
Speaker 1: taken away from you, then comfort becomes one of your
Speaker 1: big drivers for a lot of us. Anyway, some people
Speaker 1: I guess like discomfort, but I'm not one of those.
Speaker 1: I'm one of the people who I want my life
Speaker 1: to be as comfortable as possible. So that means that
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of time, effort, and money spent
Speaker 1: and on finding ways to make stress kind of go away.
Speaker 1: In some cases, it's more like a marketing thing where
Speaker 1: someone's trying to sell some goofy device or treatment that magnets. Yeah, magnets,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. They won't don't listen to anybody
Speaker 1: who tells you that magnets are going to reduce your stress. Now,
Speaker 1: here's the here's the thing, is that that because stress
Speaker 1: because of stress in the way stress uh works on
Speaker 1: our bodies, in the way that our our counter stress
Speaker 1: reactions work. Relaxation essentially, the way relaxation works is if
Speaker 1: you find something that relaxes you technically, that's helpful. That's
Speaker 1: what's helping you manage stress. It doesn't you know whether
Speaker 1: or not you it's because you believe that it has
Speaker 1: some sort of mystical or spiritual property to it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily matter. The plassybo effect in um in mental health
Speaker 1: studies is I mean, you know, again, if if you're
Speaker 1: not working with an intrinsic chemical imbalance, which which is
Speaker 1: affecting you in a very specific way, it can absolutely
Speaker 1: work out for you. Yeah. Well, even if it is
Speaker 1: affecting you. Interesting, that's you know what that would be
Speaker 1: in a very interesting podcast. Because the placebo effect is
Speaker 1: so complex, it goes well beyond just the whole mind
Speaker 1: over matter thing. Placebo effect can actually affect people like
Speaker 1: placebo effet can affect animals because they their behavior can
Speaker 1: change based upon the behavior of the people who are
Speaker 1: administering the placebo to the animal. Right, It's it's pretty
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. Anyway, getting back to this, one of the
Speaker 1: things I was looking at was while the concept of
Speaker 1: electro diagnostic tools, these this is a whole range of
Speaker 1: wou that's what we usually call it. It's it's quack science.
Speaker 1: It's not even science really, it's just quackery. And it's
Speaker 1: the idea of a device detect some sort of vague
Speaker 1: energy and balance in a person. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I hope you're not talking about skin conductance tests, because
Speaker 1: those have been used in a lot of cases to
Speaker 1: determine physiological structure. It can determine a physiological response. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about more vague than that, Like your energy is
Speaker 1: out of alignment, your key points are are blocked, and
Speaker 1: you need to have some blockage removed from your ch
Speaker 1: otherwise you're just having chi backups up the yen yang.
Speaker 1: So we gotta undo the yen yang and get that chieflow.
Speaker 1: And that's all ridiculous and there's no scientific basis for
Speaker 1: it now, scientifically speaking, Lauren is Lauren's qualifying. It's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: is what Jonathan says. Um So, but no, this is
Speaker 1: this is there is no scientific basis, so they like,
Speaker 1: for instance, acupuncture. Some people find acupuncture to be very relaxing,
Speaker 1: which means that as a relaxation technique it's perfectly valid. Right.
Speaker 1: It means that they are relaxing, that is being uh,
Speaker 1: it's countering the stress response. They are there for relieving stress. Now,
Speaker 1: acupuncture as a method of practicing medicine has no real
Speaker 1: scientific backing to it at all. In fact, any reputable
Speaker 1: scientific study shows that if you were to follow the
Speaker 1: traditional process of acupuncture, where you are applying the pens
Speaker 1: to very specific points on the body, the meridians, where
Speaker 1: you're trying to align the energy flow, that that has
Speaker 1: no effect compared to someone who is trained well enough
Speaker 1: to know how to place the needles, but is not
Speaker 1: placing them in any particular place. And I think it's
Speaker 1: worth being fair to these traditions, we should say, yet,
Speaker 1: you know, it's possible that someday we could discover that,
Speaker 1: oh well, actually there is something to acupuncture. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. As of yet, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: do it. I've find it. I find it highly unlikely
Speaker 1: that there is this vaguely described energy that flows through
Speaker 1: us that someone has discovered and yet there is no
Speaker 1: evidence for it. Whatso, yeah, I do as well, because
Speaker 1: otherwise incredible luck philosophical prudence here. All right, that's fair.
Speaker 1: I will admit I am. I am a complete hardcore skeptic.
Speaker 1: Uh and that should should such evidence arrive as to
Speaker 1: suggest that there is more to it than just this
Speaker 1: relaxation response, then I would be I would be intellectually
Speaker 1: dishonest to deny that. Of course, I just really don't
Speaker 1: expect that to happen. Of course, it's interesting. For some
Speaker 1: people the relaxation response is enough. Like we were just saying, well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that actually do it for you? Really?
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the thing is that the relaxation response
Speaker 1: is really what I think is helping people. Now, how
Speaker 1: you get that relaxation response really depends upon your own
Speaker 1: personal approach and what you prefer, and that can be
Speaker 1: anything from just taking some very simple exercises like deep breathing,
Speaker 1: uh and in a in a quiet space, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of taking some time just for yourself. Mindfulness
Speaker 1: is definitely a good, um, a good proven exercise of
Speaker 1: of just you know, choosing what you are and are
Speaker 1: not being stressed about actively at that point, while we're
Speaker 1: getting into these uh, these sort of pseudo scientific, pseudo
Speaker 1: spiritual realms, I do think it's worth mentioning that there
Speaker 1: is some good data that says meditation actually can reduce
Speaker 1: stress relies, right. And I think though that meditation is
Speaker 1: almost more of the ritualistic approach to employing relaxation techniques,
Speaker 1: and it does have other elements to it, but they
Speaker 1: really just fall really in line with simple relaxation techniques. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that meditation is bad or that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't do it, or that it's not it's not effective.
Speaker 1: It is effective, but it's it's you know, I think
Speaker 1: it would be it could be, depending again on your
Speaker 1: personal preferences, just as effective for you to have an
Speaker 1: unstructured approach to relaxation as meditation. Meditation does, however, provide
Speaker 1: a particular approach to relaxation. Meditation, I mean, there's there are,
Speaker 1: there are some of some of some of them are
Speaker 1: very unstructured, right Yeah. But and again it's it's not
Speaker 1: like it's not like meditation. You know, everything from yoga
Speaker 1: to UH to even transcendental meditation can be very relaxing
Speaker 1: for you if that's something that you find really helps
Speaker 1: pull the stress away. So really, at this point, we're saying,
Speaker 1: you find the activity that helps you let go of stress,
Speaker 1: and that is your relief of stress. It's kind of
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's autology. I mean, you know, you're like,
Speaker 1: but but it really it really is. That's the case.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: say that that meditation has no merit. You might say
Speaker 1: that this particular form of meditation doesn't seem to really
Speaker 1: fit with the way you view the world. That's perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: It may work very well for someone who their views
Speaker 1: do align that way and that's why they find it relaxing.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, I think that any any approach
Speaker 1: where you are going into it thinking this is something
Speaker 1: I am doing in order to relax myself, and this
Speaker 1: is how it works for me. I think that's perfect
Speaker 1: for the way you want to relieve stress. If you
Speaker 1: go beyond that, too, this thing also allows me to
Speaker 1: conquer the world through my amazing mental powers. Then I
Speaker 1: get a little antsy, But as far as stress goes,
Speaker 1: I totally I totally go into that. Okay, So I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's no, it's it is what it is,
Speaker 1: but it's it. You know, I certainly have used meditation
Speaker 1: techniques to UH to relieve stress in the past, so
Speaker 1: it's not like I would look down upon anyone for
Speaker 1: using similar techniques for themselves. You know, there's UH. There
Speaker 1: was something I read that was in interesting and suggesting
Speaker 1: that it wasn't even just the in the moment effects,
Speaker 1: you know, the physiological effects of the meditation session, but
Speaker 1: that the cumulative effects of say mindfulness meditation on your
Speaker 1: psyche might actually have a long term UH correlation, at
Speaker 1: least in the decrease in the stress. So I think
Speaker 1: I read a UC Davis study saying essentially that that
Speaker 1: mindfulness by ranking mindfulness, which could be achieved through mindfulness meditation,
Speaker 1: is sort of a long term effect of what you
Speaker 1: do in these sessions was correlated with lower levels of
Speaker 1: cortisol and UH and lower stress in general. But they
Speaker 1: don't know there's it's necessarily a causation, right shut sure,
Speaker 1: it's related. UM. And you know, any time that you're
Speaker 1: that you're controlling your own breathing, you can strengthen your
Speaker 1: respiratory system, which is definitely part of that entire whole body,
Speaker 1: uh being less sick and sleeping good and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And these these changes like things like eating well and
Speaker 1: trying to make sure you get enough sleep and uh
Speaker 1: taking time to relax, these are things that can certainly
Speaker 1: impact your long term levels of stress. UH. Being able
Speaker 1: to recognize what what stressors are the ones that affect
Speaker 1: you also very helpful so that you can recognize when
Speaker 1: you are entering into a stressful situation and start to
Speaker 1: you know, prepare yourself for it and know that you
Speaker 1: say things to yourself like, yes, this is a stressful situation,
Speaker 1: but it's completely within my capability to handle, and it
Speaker 1: may mean that you need to do something like either
Speaker 1: change the stressful situation if that's within your power, or
Speaker 1: yourself from it, or if that's within your power. If
Speaker 1: that's not, then you start to say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I cannot avoid the stressful situation, but I can at
Speaker 1: least be aware of and perhaps even alter my react
Speaker 1: action to it so that it is a useful reaction,
Speaker 1: not something that's just going to make it even more
Speaker 1: difficult for me to get through this stressful situation. So
Speaker 1: there's one thing that I think we should touch on that,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, has a really good scientific
Speaker 1: pedigree in dealing with stress. And that's exercise certainly, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exercise both while you are in the process of exercising
Speaker 1: and uh and and for a little while afterwards. UM
Speaker 1: reduces the production of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Um,
Speaker 1: and can increase the production of endorphins, which are you know,
Speaker 1: kind of natural painkillers and um, feel good, feel good
Speaker 1: body drugs. Um. Well that makes sense to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm no doctor, so tell me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: because you're a doctor. But if you're you're the doctor
Speaker 1: between the three of us, I think. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: if if cortisol and adrenaline are supposed to prepare you
Speaker 1: for an athletic response to the tiger drawing a knife
Speaker 1: on you, then obviously it would seem that what your
Speaker 1: body is needs to do to get rid of those
Speaker 1: extra hormones is to enact that athletic response. Well. Um,
Speaker 1: and I mean you know anyone who um you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're a runner and you hit that runners high, Um,
Speaker 1: that is that is those endorphins that I was talking about,
Speaker 1: That that your system is just being gleefully flooded with UM.
Speaker 1: And and there is a little bit of UM adrenaline
Speaker 1: involved in working out. But but by exercising frequently, your
Speaker 1: body learns how to regulate the production of those stress
Speaker 1: hormones more efficiently and so UM, so you know, it
Speaker 1: will be a little bit less of a burst. If
Speaker 1: something bad does happen, then you might otherwise have UM
Speaker 1: you know. For furthermore, UM exercising will make you sleep
Speaker 1: more deeply, which helps prevent some of those um uh
Speaker 1: you know, poor immune responses that you can get and
Speaker 1: uh uh And also I mean sleeping more deeply also
Speaker 1: means that you are you are actually being able to
Speaker 1: to deal with the stress over time, because as if
Speaker 1: you're not sleeping, if're not sleeping, well that just starts
Speaker 1: to add to the stress, which means that you have
Speaker 1: this growing avalanche of stress that is hitting you each day,
Speaker 1: and each day is a little worse than the day before.
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me of that scene in Office
Speaker 1: Space where he says, you know, every day is the
Speaker 1: worst day of your life, and then the next day
Speaker 1: is even worse, So therefore that becomes the worst day
Speaker 1: of your life. So every single day is the worst
Speaker 1: day of your life at that point. That's kind of
Speaker 1: how people feel when they're overwhelmed by stress and they
Speaker 1: have these factors coming in, especially if they have insomnia.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of those things that just it
Speaker 1: accumulates each day. So being a yeah, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's it's very much. When I saw that part
Speaker 1: of the movie, even though he was just talking about
Speaker 1: his experience of going to work and also his relationship
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend at the time, when he's talking about
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, I'm thinking, that is a great
Speaker 1: expression of what long term stress feels like. Every day
Speaker 1: is the worst day of your life or is flogging
Speaker 1: Molly would say, it's been the worst day since yesterday. Uh.
Speaker 1: Exercise also well um uh. If you do it regularly,
Speaker 1: lower your your your blood pressure and improve your cholesterol
Speaker 1: account um, you know, reduce your blood sugar. UM. Blood
Speaker 1: sugar for those of you who are not hypoglycemic and
Speaker 1: don't have to think about this all all the time,
Speaker 1: is when you when your blood sugar drops um, very
Speaker 1: very sharply and very suddenly. It is kind of physiologically
Speaker 1: identical to having an anxiety attack. UM. I both kind
Speaker 1: of experienced this, yeah, and and so so if you
Speaker 1: you know, diet um improving your diet eating you know,
Speaker 1: more vegetables, more fiber, more lean meats. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: getting getting the right balance of nutrients for your body.
Speaker 1: And that is not necessarily what the balance is for
Speaker 1: anybody else. So you know, pay attention and work it
Speaker 1: out for yourself. Um, which I know is not is
Speaker 1: not the friendliest in vice and being able to uh
Speaker 1: to to visit with a doctor or nutritionists can be
Speaker 1: of great help. It can, it can, but um, but
Speaker 1: but all of that can also absolutely decrease your stress
Speaker 1: levels excellent. Well you know, I mean, I'm sure all
Speaker 1: of us here have dealt with periods of our life
Speaker 1: where we went through a great deal of stress in
Speaker 1: one way or another. And uh, you know, I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I certainly think that anything that you find
Speaker 1: that relaxes you where you're not hurting yourself or someone
Speaker 1: else is a good thing. So I highly recommend, you know,
Speaker 1: trying out different approaches and finding what works for you
Speaker 1: to relieve stress levels so that you don't experience this
Speaker 1: kind of chronic stress, which is really a tough thing
Speaker 1: to be in. I mean, I can think of there
Speaker 1: was a six month period where I was out of work.
Speaker 1: Uh that by the end of it, I was really
Speaker 1: in bad shape. And uh, if I had not found
Speaker 1: ways to relieve that stress, I'm sure that I would
Speaker 1: have been an even worse shape. So certainly something to
Speaker 1: look into if you are dealing with these kind of issues.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the things we have just been
Speaker 1: talking about have been things that require your initiative. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm all for self reliance and and having
Speaker 1: a personal initiative, but sometimes that's hard, right. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of interested in what things we could think about, uh
Speaker 1: doing that could sort of ambiently reduce our stress in
Speaker 1: a way that we don't have to think about or
Speaker 1: work hard on personally, or there ways of just creating
Speaker 1: environments that help reduce stress automatically. I think any environment
Speaker 1: that has a distinct lack of knife wielding tigers would help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I would imagine that you know that that
Speaker 1: that relatively um peaceful environments, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: ones that are more or less quiet, perhaps have growing things.
Speaker 1: Um well, I mean it does know sudden noises. It
Speaker 1: doesn't help that our office has a guy with a
Speaker 1: burlap sack and a chainsaw, you know, running around constantly.
Speaker 1: I find that very relaxing personally. Yeah. Uh, Well, here's
Speaker 1: one thing I found out about and I thought this
Speaker 1: was really interesting. You could look to geometric patterns, geometric patterns,
Speaker 1: geometric patterns to reduce stress. Now, this is from based
Speaker 1: on a paper published in the journal Leonardo. It was
Speaker 1: by the physicist Richard Taylor, and it was published in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. It was called Reduction of Physiological
Speaker 1: Stress using Fractal Art and Architecture. And I thought this
Speaker 1: paper was really interesting because it talked about how apparently
Speaker 1: our brains respond to certain geometric patterns in a way
Speaker 1: that reduces stress. Um. So he cites a NASIS study
Speaker 1: that had been done years before, I think in nineteen
Speaker 1: six that had people performing different mental tasks, so they'd
Speaker 1: have to do creative thinking or mental arithmetic, or solve
Speaker 1: a logic problem. And the variable they altered was what
Speaker 1: these people were looking at when they had to do
Speaker 1: these tasks. Now, one of the things was a certain
Speaker 1: nature scene, and then there was a different nature scene
Speaker 1: that showed like a tree on a savannah, and then
Speaker 1: there was this artificial, synthetic kind of pattern of lines
Speaker 1: and what they found was that one of these one
Speaker 1: of the nature scenes, the savannah tree, significantly lowered the
Speaker 1: stress these people were feeling. They tested stress in between
Speaker 1: these uh these exercises by galvanic skin conductance so UM
Speaker 1: and that's been used in other studies to test physiological
Speaker 1: stress before UM and what they discovered was that this
Speaker 1: savannah try really lowered people stress levels compared to the
Speaker 1: other sites, and that seemed interesting. UM. And one thing
Speaker 1: he looked at was the fractal patterns that were manifest
Speaker 1: in these different images. So what are fractal patterns. Well,
Speaker 1: so you imagine Euclidean geometry and that's the normal geometry
Speaker 1: we think of like triangles and circles, then love crafty
Speaker 1: and geometry. Yeah, it's not not very cathulu shaped. Um.
Speaker 1: But then when we start thinking about things that are
Speaker 1: cathulu shaped, like Caula exactly, he's so fractal. Well, you
Speaker 1: start talking about fractal geometry, and this is a concept
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. Essentially, fractal geometry is something that it
Speaker 1: shows patterns that reproduce at any level of resolution, So
Speaker 1: you can keep zooming in and you'll see the same
Speaker 1: patterns emerged no matter how far you zoom in or
Speaker 1: zoom out, and you could think about how fractal patterns
Speaker 1: actually manifest a lot in nature like we noticed them.
Speaker 1: If you look at patterns of branches on trees in
Speaker 1: the forest, um, you get really close and you see
Speaker 1: the same kind of patterns in the veins of the
Speaker 1: leaves and the small eiggs. And then you zoom back
Speaker 1: out and you see the branches, and you zoom further
Speaker 1: out and you see the forest itself, the same patterns emerged.
Speaker 1: You can see the same thing in like mountain crags.
Speaker 1: So you zoom in on one specific little crag and
Speaker 1: it's the same kind of shape as a mountain as
Speaker 1: a whole. Yeah, the pebble is overall um. And it
Speaker 1: turns out, according to this research, we really like looking
Speaker 1: at this stuff. We find fractal plat patterns inherently pleasing.
Speaker 1: If you've ever watched any video of a Mandel broad set,
Speaker 1: as it just continuously zooms further and further into the
Speaker 1: fractal pattern, you might have experienced this. And one thing
Speaker 1: Taylor finds in his paper is that in this NASA
Speaker 1: study with the with the physiological response to looking at
Speaker 1: these different images, the image that people had the greatest
Speaker 1: stress reduction from was showing the most fractal geometry, and
Speaker 1: showed he essentially, so there's a way of thinking about
Speaker 1: fractal things called D values. And so you can imagine
Speaker 1: a picture that's just got a line across the middle,
Speaker 1: and he says, that would have a D value of one.
Speaker 1: And then you can imagine a picture that's completely black, uh,
Speaker 1: instead of just the one black line, and that's a two.
Speaker 1: And so fractal D values are expressed between one and two.
Speaker 1: And he found that mid range D values between like
Speaker 1: one point three and one point five were the ones
Speaker 1: that people liked the best. And so there's actually a
Speaker 1: way of determining geometric patterns that can help people reduce
Speaker 1: the stress they feel when they've got, you know, just
Speaker 1: going on. So uh, he he suggests, well, what if
Speaker 1: we think about incorporating this into architecture, because the fact
Speaker 1: of these geometric patterns showed up whether we're looking at
Speaker 1: nature or whether we're looking at paintings or just any
Speaker 1: shapes whatsoever. So what if you could build buildings that
Speaker 1: had these pleasing fractal patterns that made people feel less
Speaker 1: stress or just paint jobs, right, yeah, whatever wallpaper or
Speaker 1: the big one I thought about is in our digital displays.
Speaker 1: I mean you look at your Microsoft word layout. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of Euclidean geometry. It's boxes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And if that blue background was instead of pleasing fractal
Speaker 1: pattern like yeah Jackson Pollock kind of thing, or a
Speaker 1: bunch of forest branches, that could actually have a potentially
Speaker 1: really important and positive effect on our stress lest calming effect. Yeah. Interesting,
Speaker 1: So I you know, one way you could think about
Speaker 1: it is will we live in these sort of fractal
Speaker 1: metropolis is well along those same lines, there's something that
Speaker 1: this this almost falls more in the WOU category in
Speaker 1: a way, just simply because it's unsupported by by any
Speaker 1: real scientific study that I've seen. But the idea of
Speaker 1: binaral beats. Have you has heard about these? Oh? I've heard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to deal with that is so binarial.
Speaker 1: It means that you're getting frequencies in in both ears. Now,
Speaker 1: the actual um effect of binarial beats was discovered by
Speaker 1: a guy named Heinrich ville Helm Dove back in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century. So now the effect is that he
Speaker 1: discovered that if you played a certain if you played
Speaker 1: frequencies in one ear in a different set of frequencies
Speaker 1: and another ear, you would actually perceive interference beats the
Speaker 1: same way you would if those beats were actually physically
Speaker 1: being made at that time. Like the combination of these
Speaker 1: two frequencies that you are perceiving would create the perception
Speaker 1: of beats that aren't physically really there, but they would
Speaker 1: if you know, if you were to create them physically,
Speaker 1: they would be it would sound the same to you.
Speaker 1: So that was pretty much the extent of his discovery.
Speaker 1: He did not suggest that these would be somehow capable
Speaker 1: of creating specific reactions in your brain. However, today you've
Speaker 1: got a growing population of people who have made claims
Speaker 1: that these sort of beats could create different experiences, everything
Speaker 1: akin to a deep relaxation to euphoria, as if you
Speaker 1: were experiencing some form of high from a recreational drug.
Speaker 1: And uh, there doesn't seem to be really any verifiable
Speaker 1: scientific evidence for that those claims. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they that it won't one day exist, but right now
Speaker 1: there doesn't seem to be anything that along the lines.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of the studies I've seen, or
Speaker 1: at least a lot of the initial response I've seen,
Speaker 1: seems to suggest that there's more about the power of
Speaker 1: suggestion being going on here than any kind of actual
Speaker 1: physiological response. That being said, it may be that listening
Speaker 1: to some of these tones, which are really they tend
Speaker 1: to be in the very low frequency range, so very
Speaker 1: deep tones, that listening to them can some for some
Speaker 1: people at least help them, uh when they are trying
Speaker 1: to meditate, so it can be an aid. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting concept. It's similar to what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: using the your sense of sight to look at something
Speaker 1: very specific that will have a calming effect. In this case,
Speaker 1: it's listening to something that would have been engineered to
Speaker 1: have a calming effect on you. The question, though, is
Speaker 1: does it really have a demonstrable physiological effect beyond some
Speaker 1: people just find it relaxing to listen to, as opposed
Speaker 1: to there being the relaxation is being induced in some way. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't have all the information there, so we can't
Speaker 1: really draw a conclusion. And uh, you know, again, it
Speaker 1: may turn out that this is something that under scientific
Speaker 1: study proves that hey, there's something to this beyond Uh,
Speaker 1: some claims that people have made and it goes beyond
Speaker 1: the power of suggestion. Uh, I just haven't seen anything
Speaker 1: that supports that yet. But it's another interesting approach of
Speaker 1: the idea of catering to your senses in a way
Speaker 1: to induce calming and relax station because, like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you're in a situation where you can
Speaker 1: you could tell yourself, I need to relax a thousand
Speaker 1: times not necessarily helpful when that tiger with a knife
Speaker 1: is firing you. Yeah. Well, that's one of the big problems,
Speaker 1: isn't it that we just even though we know we
Speaker 1: should relax, we often don't have the presence of mind
Speaker 1: to do it. And uh there. So there's another thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was interesting, is I wonder to what
Speaker 1: extent technology could help you, Like, can you have a
Speaker 1: relaxation app? Now these things already exist, actually tons of apps.
Speaker 1: You can buy the calm down app, you know, but
Speaker 1: they all rely on you, right right, They tell you
Speaker 1: take a time out, and then well they rely on
Speaker 1: they rely on you to activate them. Right. You have
Speaker 1: like like I'm feeling stressed out, I need to hit
Speaker 1: the I'm feeling stressed out button, right but we often
Speaker 1: just don't have the presence of mind to do that, right,
Speaker 1: I went till we're at full panic mode. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if a there there could be a situation where,
Speaker 1: you know, you buy a special mouse that has galvanic
Speaker 1: skin conductance on the buttons and it tests your stress
Speaker 1: right there, and it can give your computer like, well,
Speaker 1: even though he doesn't know it, he's this stressed out
Speaker 1: right now, you need to kick in the calm down app.
Speaker 1: I'm just flashing back to a specific episode of The
Speaker 1: I T. Crowd where they had a stress test machine
Speaker 1: and and uh and and Moss and Roy just decided
Speaker 1: that that was their opportunity to test the machine as
Speaker 1: opposed to using the machine to test their stress. They
Speaker 1: would watch someone using it and then they would try
Speaker 1: to stress the person out just to watch the needle
Speaker 1: move back and forth. Good times. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: certainly hope if any of you out there listening have
Speaker 1: had issues with stress in the past, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: currently having problems with stress, you know, take some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that we've said into consideration, try some different
Speaker 1: relaxation techniques. You know, it may be that you need
Speaker 1: to look at things like your sleep schedule, you're the
Speaker 1: your diet, and and you know, consulting a physician is
Speaker 1: not a bad idea. Yeah, I was gonna say the
Speaker 1: best thing to do is not listen to us, probably
Speaker 1: but talk to your doctor. Well again again, if it's
Speaker 1: if it's one of those things where you're just like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm just I'm tense, that's one thing. If
Speaker 1: it's if it's medically you know, a medically uh something
Speaker 1: that needs to be addressed by medicine, obviously, go see
Speaker 1: a physician. I mean it's you know, if it's something
Speaker 1: where you're just kind of like, I'm tired of being
Speaker 1: tense all the time, then it may just mean that
Speaker 1: you need to get more sleep, eat better, and exercise
Speaker 1: a bit and take some time to relax. That definitely
Speaker 1: sounds easier than it is. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: their ties when I get home and I think where
Speaker 1: did all my time go? But but it is important
Speaker 1: and if you're able to do that, then it can
Speaker 1: really help out a lot. And again, you know, consult
Speaker 1: a physician if you are experiencing chronic stress and and
Speaker 1: and chronic health problems that might be related to stress.
Speaker 1: This is important stuff. So um, that wraps up this discussion. Guys,
Speaker 1: we we want you to be part of our conversation here.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you email us with any comments or
Speaker 1: suggestions you might have for future episodes. That is FW
Speaker 1: thinking at discovery dot com and go to www. Dot
Speaker 1: fw thinking dot com to check out all the videos,
Speaker 1: the blog posts, podcasts. We've got a lot of cool
Speaker 1: links up there. We think you'd be really interested in them,
Speaker 1: so go check those out and we will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this topic in
Speaker 1: the future of technology, visit forward thinking dot com brought
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