Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbinspodcast.
Holycow, are you in for a treattoday?
Because oh mygosh, I just had one of the most incredible conversations of a lifetime with a medicaldoctor.
Harvard'sDr. AditiNarukar, you are about to hearit.
My jaw is still on the floor about howDr.
Aditi explainsstress, how it relates to your body and yourbrain.
I will never think about the topic of stress the same wayagain, neither willyou.
By the time you're donelistening, you're going to feel so empowered and you're going to know exactly what to do to take control of your life and manage your stress and everything thatDr.
Aditi is going to share with youtoday.
Here's the coolpart. It isfree.
It's backed by science and you can apply itinstantly.
Infact, she will tell you that just listening to this podcast today and taking it allin, you will bementally, emotionally and physically healthier by the time you're donelistening.
Alrighty, I'm so glad you arehere.
Are you ready to feel better by the time you're done listening tothis?
Because you'regonna.Today, you and I are talking about stress in a way that you have never heard it describedbefore.
Andlook, even if you don't feel particularly stressed rightnow, I promiseyou, this is information that you need because the same small research-backed approaches that help you keep your stress at bay are the exact same things that will help you keep itaway, which is why this is an episode that I hope you will share with everyone that youlove.
It has life-changing information that youneed.
Dr. Aditi Narukar is in thehouse.
She's a Harvard medicaldoctor, aresearcher, and a world-renowned expert in stress and publichealth.
She's a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and was the medical director of Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Hospitals Integrative MedicineProgram, where she developed an enormous clinical practice in stress management using evidence-based integrative approaches to help her patients feelbetter.
The title of her new best-selling book is The FiveResets, which she is here to teach youtoday.
And by the time you are donelistening,Dr.
Aditi says you will bementally,physically, and emotionallybetter.
And I am so happy to be able to share this with youtoday.
So let's take a listen to that remarkableconversation.
Dr. AditiNarukar, it is such a pleasure to meetyou.
Welcome to the Mel Robbinspodcast.
I cannot wipe this big smile off myface.
Well, hopefully we can talk through it because we have so much tolove.
My cheeks arehurting.Already.
It's such a pleasure to behere,Mel,honestly.
Before we dive into all of your research and your life-changingwork, I would love to just have you speak directly to the person listening and tell them what they canexpect.
If they listen to all of the wisdom and the researcher about toshare, and they apply it to theirlife.
The last few years have been so difficult for all of us that goes beyond what job wehave, where welive, how old weare, what gender weare, what race and nationality weare.
We have lived through a tsunami of difficult experiences since 2020 tonow.
And most of us have very little left togive.
We are spent and running onfumes.
I want this conversation to be something that upliftsyou, empowersyou, and inspires you to know that change ispossible.
It is withinreach, and you can reset your stress and rewire your brain and yourbody.
So you are out of survival mode and finallythriving, because you deserve this moment in time to celebrate yourwins, both big andsmall, and to move forward into the future with a greater sense ofresilience.
If this can help oneperson, oneperson, get out of their stress andburnout, feelseen,heard,understood, and in some capacity feelloved, then I've done myjob.
Wow. I wantthat. There is something called the therapeuticencounter.
And it's that feeling that you get when you are engaging withsomeone, so whether it be yourdoctor, it can beyour, youknow, also yourtherapist, it can be afriend, it can be the Mel Robbinspodcast.
It's that feeling of feeling somewhat healed at the end of theencounter.
And there's been a lot of science onthis.
I wrote about it in thebook.
It's that whole exchange of how are you speaking tosomeone, theenergy, and that therapeutic connection has been shown to have real healthoutcomes, like decreasing asthmaflares, better glucosecontrol, all of these fascinatingoutcomes, because it's that alchemyof, youknow, theconnection.
I think the Mel Robbins podcast is something that doesthat.
It creates that sense of therapeuticconnection.
And I hope that our conversation can do that as welltoday.
Not only will the conversation doit, but I think the five resets are a way for you to use your groundbreaking research and create that connection withyourself.
That'sright. I think where we shouldstart,Dr.
Aditi, is can you just describe and define what stress is that we're all thinking about and talking about the samething?
Yes. You and I will oftensay, sostressed, I've had a really difficultweek.
Oh mygod, this day was sostressful.
That word stress is thrown around all thetime.
And what you're describing isscientifically, it's called maladaptivestress.
There are in fact two kinds ofstress.
Not all stress is createdequal.
There is healthy stress and unhealthystress.
Healthy stress moves your lifeforward.
And it is all of these wonderfulthings, like getting a newjob, falling inlove, getting apromotion, having achild, doing things that help move your lifeforward.
Unhealthy stress is what we talk about when wesay, I'm sostressed, it's been a stressfulday, it's been a stressfulweek.
Unhealthy stress ismaladaptive, healthy stress isadaptive.
I won't use too many scientificwords.
I was just going tosay, canyou, what ismaladaptive?
Does that mean that we shouldn't be doingit?
Like what is maladaptivemean?
So healthy stress moves your lifeforward.
It isproductive, it gets you up out of bed in themorning, it drives your lifeforward.
Now let me just make sure that I understandthis, because I think I already learned something fromyou, which is in those moments inlife, where your heart isracing, and you'refeeling, we might call itnervous, we might call itexcited.
So right before you're about to give a little presentation in front of yourclass, or atwork, or you're about to ask somebody out on adate, or you're standing at the starting line of your first5k, all of that sort of energy that you feel in yourbody, you're saying it's a really important part oflife, because that energy issignaling,like,okay, we got to get up andgo, time to do thething, time to ask theperson, time togrow, time tolearn, and so that kind of stress is reallyimportant, because it fuels yourgrowth, it fuels you trying newthings, it's a little source ofmotivation, is that what you'resaying?
Yes. So when you are excited about amarathon, an upcomingmeeting, or afraid of an upcomingmeeting, that part of your brain is litup, and it ison.
And so thisway, when you are thinking about healthystress, it's about reconciling thisidea, that fear and excitement live in the same part of yourbrain.
And it's about understandingthat, and so you can use that to youradvantage.
When you are feeling fearful about something new orexciting, tellyourself,okay,no, this is notfear, this isexcitement, I can dothis.
And then once you move past that hurdle and actually doit, you feel a sense ofaccomplishment, we call itagency,self-efficacy,like,oh, I didthis, I can do itagain, or I can do somethingelse.
So when you are thinking about healthystress, those invigorating moments is really what it'sabout.
And so healthy stress ispositive.
It moves your lifeforward.
It gets you things that otherwise you wouldn'tdo, otherwise you'd be in your safety zone and comfortzone.
Unhealthy stress isdifferent.
There are million flavors of unhealthystress.
You couldhave, youknow, mentalmanifestations,anxiety,depression,insomnia, type ofvigilance, mooddisorders, then physicalmanifestations,headaches, neckpain, shoulderpain, backpain, GIsymptoms, the list goes on andon.
The goal of life is not to live a life with zerostress.
Itis, infact, biologicallyimpossible.
It is to live a life withhealthy, manageablestress.
When we havehealthy, positive stress that drives our lifeforward, if it gets out of hand and becomes a runawaytrain, that's when it can becomeunproductive.
And that's when it becomesunhealthy.
But the goal is to move away from unhealthy stress back tohealthy, manageablestress.
So it can drive you forward rather than get in the way of your forward goals and dreams andhopes.
I am so excited you'rehere, because the idea of being able to manage it in a differentway, so that your own life or work or the things that you're facing in your life challenges opportunities are not running youover.
That'sright. And I can't wait to dive into theresearch, but I want to ask a question that might seem a littledumb.
I can't ask itanyway. How do you actually know if you'restressed?
And the reason why I say that is because I had this experience with our sonOakley, where I had no idea how sad and lonely he was in middleschool.
Like I kind ofknew, but I didn't know the extent of it until we moved to SouthernVermont.
And he started high schoolthere.
And I saw himhappy. And I asked thatquestion, how do you know if you're truly stressed or whether you just throw the wordaround?
Because I think sometimes you get so used to the feeling of being on edge or running on empty or being overwhelmed or constantly overthinking that you don't realize the biggerissue.
Do does that makesense?
It makes perfectsense.
So the first response to that question is that if you arewondering, am Istressed?
Am I burnedout? Based on thedata, the data shows that70% ofpeople, seven out of 10 people are feeling a sense of stress in burnout at this verymoment.
In a room of 30people, that's like saying 21 people have stress andburnout.
Now, that is a vastnumber.
So if you are feelinglike, could I bestressed?
Could this beme? The answer is likely to beyes.
Stress in burnout currently are not theexception.
They are therule. Think back to how you were back in maybe2016.
So 2020onwards, it's awash.
Most likely you have had some form of stress and you've been dealing with it in your ownway.
But thinkback. And are you different now than you were backthen?
Now ofcourse, most of you willsay, ofcourse, I'm different because I've lived through things that I have never lived throughbefore.
Right?2020-2021. It was a very difficult time for manypeople.
But if you are different from yourbaseline, that means if your sleep isaffected, if you are having some difficulty withsocialization, if you are having challenges withproductivity, with yourmood, withenergy, if you are having bodily changes that aredifferent.
So think about how you were at your baseline in2016.
Think about how different you arenow.
Chances are you willsay,yes, I'm vastlydifferent.
And it's most likely because of stress inburnout.
Wow. I think I just had thesupefany.
So I've always thought about stress as a byproduct of a super busylife,right?
Or ofchallenges, orof, youknow, thinking toomuch, or whatever it maybe,okay?
But as I listen toyou, and I think back to2016, and as you're listening to us and taking us on awalk, or you're listening in thecar, I want you to thinkback, because I'mgoing,okay, our daughter's like just graduating from highschool.
I'm definitely notfeeling, I'm feeling I was more in my body back then in terms of feeling morepresent.
I didn't feel this constant sense that something waslooming.
And so as you thinkback, and you notice thisdifference, I'm having the supefany where I'mthinking, I'mrealizing,oh, I think we're about to learn fromyou.
That we think about stress as a byproduct of a ton of things that we can'tcontrol.
And you're about to flip the paradigm on us and say that actually the singular most important thing that you could do for yourhealth, for yourhappiness, for everything is to manage how you arefeeling, and to try these fiveresets, and truly get your stress level undercontrol, because that is impactingeverything.
It impactseverything.
Infact, stress andburnout, I want to use both of those interchangeably for this particular under normal conditions back in2016,17,18,19, youknow, if you don't want to go back into2016, think about how you were in2019.
Most likely your brain was being led by the prefrontalcortex, which is this area right behind yourforehead, and itgoverns, it's likeadulting.
It governs things likeplanning,organization,memory.
Many of you living your lives in2016,17,18,19, were using the prefrontal cortex to guide your decision-making and your day-to-daylife.
Stress is governed by another part of yourbrain.
Theamygdala, it is a small almond-shapedstructure, deep in yourbrain, deep inside between yourears, kind of lowerdown, where you're head and your neck kind ofmeat.
This almond-shapedstructure, theamygdala, is what houses your stressresponse.
In scientificterms, we call the stress response the fight or flightresponse.
Under periods of normalfunctioning, when you are thriving and moving through theworld, your brain is governed by the prefrontalcortex.
Then, during periods ofstress, your brain is governed by theamygdala.
The amygdala is focused purely on survival andself-preservation.
It is cave-personmode.
You can function for short periods of time in cave-personmode, but when it becomeschronic, that is when burnout setsin.
If you are feeling a sense of stress andburnout, that is what has likely precipitatedit.
However, it's not just precipitatedit.
What has happenedis, your brain and your body need a reset and some sort of respite and recoverytime.
Yeah. Does the amygdala not resetitself?
You know what I'msaying?
Because I'm sitting herethinking, every single human being on the planet has been under chronic stress for the last fouryears.
That'sright. You need to help your brain get back to thebaseline.
That'sright. If youdon't, it's almost as if you might have these periods where you go on vacation or you have a little bit of time off of work or it's really sunny for a couple days and you'relike,oh, this isamazing, but you areeasily, I'm sure triggered if you have not reset yourself to go back into being chronically stressed or burntout.
So is that also why this is reallyimportant?
Evolutionarily, your amygdala has focused on the fight or flightresponse.
You saw a tiger in theforest, your heart startsracing, your lungs start breathingquicker, blood is shunted away from the vital organs to your muscles so you can fight or you canflee.
That physiological response takes seconds and once that acute threat isover, that tiger in theforest, then it comes back tobaseline.
The problem is that in moderntimes, that metaphorical tiger isongoing.
We have so many tigers aroundus.
We have financialstress, maritalstress.
We have stress with engaging in the world with news headlines and all of these otherthings.
Traffic, workedheadlines, kids that areupset, people that you're worriedabout,endless,endless,endless.
It's neverends. And so that amygdala is on in the background at a low humconstantly.
Overtime, we're not resetting our stress if you just are on autopilot because of that low hum in the constantbackground, which then over time leads toburnout.
When you think about someone who has chronic stress inburnout, they'reapathetic, they'redisengaged, they're not verymotivated.
In onestudy,60% of people with burnout had as their distinguishing feature an inability to disconnect fromwork.
So they showed these manifestations of a typicalburnout.
And that is the realchallenge.
When we're walking around the worldtoday, you mightthink,hey, I'm notstressed.
I'm not burntout. I'm engaging in theworld.
I'm going towork. I'm spending time withfriends.
I'm spending time withfamily.
But how do youfeel? Do you feel that sense of thriving andflourishing?
Or are you running on fumes and just trying to make it through theday?
Hands up for thatone. I feel like I'm very much in that secondcamp.
Even though I know all of this science about stress inburnout, it'sinescapable.
Well, what you're making merealize, and I want to just highlightthis, is I've never thought aboutstress.
And the fact that you are going to have good and badstress, you are going to have stressfuldays, you're going to have periods where you feel a lot ofpressure.
What you're offering is a solution that we can use on a daily basis to recognize when your amygdala isactivated.
Right? So now I'mthinking,oh, I'm not going to stopsaying, I'mstressed.
And I'm going to start saying tomyself,oh, my amygdala is onfire.
I'm infight,flight, or freeze rightnow.
I need to do a quick reset and bring my body and my prefrontal cortex backonline.
Because if I don't do areset, that amygdala is going to keep onfiring, because it's been firing nonstop for at least fouryears.
And so I got to help itout.
What are some of the surprising signs or symptoms ofstress?
Like, because you just started talking about irritability and this and this andthis.
Like, what are things that might surprise someone that are signs ofstress?
If you have that inner critic of that voice in your head that is beratingyou, that happens to metoo.
When I'm feeling a sense ofstress, it'slike, you should have knownbetter.
How come you didn't dothis?
Or what if I can't dothis?
And what if Ican't? So that inner critic in your ear that is constantly going and telling you all the ways that you are wrong or that you are dumb or you don't have what it takes or you're notenough.
It's almost like you other yourself with that innercritic.
And that inner critic gets amegaphone.
When you feel a sense ofstress, we can talk aboutthat.
It'sthis, it's because your inner critic is governed and powered by this by youramygdala, which is your fight or flight orso.
It's like so muchsense.
It's a way to keep yousafe.
It's to keep you in comfortzone, out ofdanger.
You talk about this a lot in yourwork.
You have to do things that are uncomfortableinitially.
If you want to get out of that constant state of feeling low or down orstressed.
Samething. Understanding that if you are having that voice in yourhead, you are most likelystressed.
If you are doomscrolling, knowing that it doesn't make you feelgood, and yet you are unable to stop whether or not you're doing doom scroll and we'restressed.
The reason we doom scroll and we are stressed is because it is a primal urge to do scroll toscroll.
Evolutionarily, when you and I and all of the other humans were living intribes, there was a night watchman who would keep tabs and look out throughout the night while the tribesleapt.
And now we are all our own nightwatchman.
We scroll and scan fordanger.
It is a way for us to feelsafe.
The reason we do this is because when you are feeling a sense ofstress, you are governed by youramygdala.
It is what's moving your brainforward.
And so when your brain is driven by theamygdala, you are thinking only about survival andself-preservation.
And scanning for danger is a way you feelsafe.
So what do we do in our moderntimes?
We don't have a nightwatchman.
Wescroll. It's a way for us to scan for danger to make sure that we aresafe, that nothing ishappening.
And thenunfortunately, what happens is as we arescrolling, we see the headlines and the news and socialmedia.
And these are not benignentities.
They have a direct impact on our brainchemistry.
Clickbait works on the biology ofstress.
And news consumption and media consumption has a direct impact on our braincircuitry.
And so doomscrolling, I have had countless peoplesay, I can't helpmyself,Doc.
I just don'tknow. I remember several years ago during an electionyear.
I had a patient who toldme, I watch TV day andnight.
I watch the news day andnight.
And Ithought, Ilaughed.
That'shyperbole. That can't bepossible.
And infact, when I dug into his dailyhabits, hisroutine, he truly had his TV on day andnight.
So if you maybe you hear this and youthink, I don't watch thenews.
Ofcourse,right? Like a lot of young people don't actually watchTV.
They watch on theirphones.
But why is it that you were scrolling and consuming news untiltwo, three in themorning?
I don'tknow. We all doit.
And it's because it is your stressresponse.
Your amygdala is driving thatbehavior, notyou.
It's youramygdala. And so when you reset yourstress, get your prefrontal cortex back incontrol, decrease the volume of youramygdala.
Then you don't doom scroll asmuch.
Another way that stress can come up on you is that you may have emotionaleating.
We all have that food that come forfood.
Forme, it's chocolatecake.
It's usually highfat, high sugarfoods.
It's that 11p.m.Oh, I'm just going to grab a quicksnack, a bedtimesnack.
We know what that does to yourglucose.
But the reason you feel that sense ofcompulsion, youknow, you've had dinner and then at like 930 or10, you want to reach for thatsnack.
There's a reason it's called emotional eating or stress reading because the amygdala is drivingit.
That'sright. Why does your fighter flight or freeze response drive you toeat?
How is thattight? Because it makes perfect sense to me that doom scrolling is the same thing as being on the nightwatch.
Because if you think about yourjob, if you're the one that's protecting the tribe or yourfamily, is your standing there and yourscanning, you're looking for anything that seems out ofplace.
You're looking for anything that'ssurprising, which is the exact same thing that you do when you doomscroll.
That'sright. And here's the other thing that happens is because you are constantly met with a new post or somethingsurprising.
Here youare, it's like it's like hearing the branch snap outside thetent.
What wasthat? And then there's anotherone.
And then there's anotherone.
And then there's anotherone.
And so you're not going to go back to sleep because you keep hearing things that are keeping you in a state of needing to watch out for thetribe.
Now you're sitting in modern life and you are doing that same evolutionarybehavior.
Only you're now staring at the phone and all the branches cracking are every single little thing that's goingby, which keeps youawake.
Because I've oftenwondered, why the hell did I look at my phone at 830 lastnight?
And next thing youknow, I lookup, it's1045.
I've bought in three things off of Instagram that I did notneed.
And now I'm pissed off at myself because I should have gone to bed and wanted to have been inbed.
And it is this constantloop.
But the way you're explaining it as your amygdala isactivated.
That's what's goingon.
And that's what's having you fall prey to thisbehavior.
And so the solution is toreset.
The solution is to deactivate the amygdala because it is chronically screwing youup.
Wow. Turn down thatvolume.
The reason you from 845 till1045, you were experiencing something called revenge bedtime procrastination is something that all of usdo.
What isit? Particularlywomen.
When your day is not your own and you are moving in a million differentdirections, competingpriorities, parenting and work and all of the things that we have to do and manage ourhomes.
It happens to allpeople, not justwomen, just parents andstudents.
I talked to my sleep medicine colleague and Isaid, what is the number one tip you can give people for bettersleep?
And he's toldme, ask every single person you see who's struggling withsleep, what are you doing two hours beforebedtime?
So let's say you want to go to bed at 9p.m.
You're up till midnight orone.
What are you doing two hoursbefore?
And case inpoint, you just describe what peopledo.
You are on yourscreen. And revenge bedtime procrastination is amanifestation, a toxic manifestation of hustleculture.
When your days are not yourown, the children finally fallasleep.
Everything iscalm. Your work emails have calmeddown.
It is 830 at night and you finally have some metime.
So you procrastinatebedtime.
It's like a rebelliousteenager.
You have that sense oflike, I'm not going to bed at9.
I haven't even had any time formyself.
I'm going to stayup. And then you stay up and you make bad choices and you buy differentthings.
Are you binge watch TVagain?
It's called hedonichappiness.
A little bit of this ishealthy.
But when it becomes chronic andongoing, and then you notice that you're going to bed everynight.
I'd want a clock or two o'clock in the morning and you're unable to get good rest and you wake uptired.
And the next day yousay, you knowwhat?
I am going to go to bedearly.
And then the same thing happens night after frustratingnight.
There was a study that found that it's not about knowledge andaction.
Every single person who was engaging in this revenge bedtime procrastination knew that they should go to bedearly.
That wasn't theissue. It was it's not that behavior's changed because you knowbetter.
It's behaviors only change when you dobetter.
You talk about this all thetime.
But the actual science showed that this is not a gap inknowledge.
Everyone knows that early bedtime is important because even in spite of knowingthat,hey, an early night would do mewell.
You stillsay,no, I'm not going to because I have had a crappy day and I'm not going to have a crappynight.
I'm going to have a little bit of metime.
So that'sthat.Right. And so I want you to imagine that you and your friend Mel Robbins are going to walk into a doctor a D.D.'soffice.
What are the things that you would askus?
Like, can you just kind of for the person listening inme?
If we were coming to talk to you aboutstress, how do you assess how stressed out weare?
What a beautifulquestion.
The first premise I use when I see a patient is to recognize that stress isn't this vague mythical creature that's just all around us andungraspable.
That stress is something that can bemeasured,quantified,monitored, and ultimatelyovercome.
So just putting borders around your stress andburnout.
What isit? Why are you feeling it and giving it anumber?
So the first thing I offer every patient is a stressquiz.
And I have that in the five resets and then you get your stressscore.
And then you start your various interventions and then you check your score again in a month andsay,hey, did my score go up or down or is it thesame?
And that is a way that you can actually measure yourstress.
The second important piece in that interview process of figuring out what are the big areas of life that people are strugglingwith.
What I have found in my research withpatients, with the science is that there's kind of five mainareas.
Okay. Sleep is a bigone.
And this is in no particularorder.
Sleep,movement,diet, mediause, and your connection withothers, your sense ofcommunity.
And so those are the five areas that I really dig into when I'm speaking tosomeone.
And it's about makingsmall,very, verysmall, smaller than you think changes in your everyday life so that you can get to a betterplace.
But unless that actionhappens, it's hard to getthere.
And so that inventory helps you figure out and assess where you are in thatmoment, thatsnapshot.
Dr.Aditi, I already know the first person I'm sending this to is my friendLisa.
This could change herlife.
And as we take a quickpause, we can hear a word from oursponsors, which allow me to bring this information to you at zerocost.
Please take a moment and share this episode with somebody who you would love to see feeling less stress because the information that we've already covered and all that is to come will help them feelbetter.
And it's something simple that you coulddo.
Okay, allrighty. We'll be waiting for you after a shortbreak.
Stay withus. Welcomeback.
It's your friendMel. And I'm here with the amazingDr.
Aditi. And let's just jump right back intoit.
You're going to teach us the five resets and how to manage stress and how to make it ourfriend.
So let's talk about the firstreset.
What isit? The first reset is get clear on what mattersmost.
When you are living in a chronic state ofstress, you are being led and driven by theamygdala.
It is fight or flightmode, selfpreservation, and it is all aboutsurvival.
When you are living in that immediate sense ofstress, it is hard to get out of your own way and think about thefuture, which is why when you are feelingstressed, don't be afraid yourself when someonesays, how come you don't have aplan?
Because often when you're thinking about what is aplan, a plan is forward thinkingmotion.
It is strategicthinking.
It is beingorganized. It is having some sort ofstructure.
All of these qualities and all of these roles are your prefrontalcortex.
And because you'restressed, the amygdala and thefight,flight, or freeze is what is running theshow.
That makes so much sense because you'reright.
When you are in a state ofstress, you spin incircles, you feel totallyoverwhelmed, you completely overthinkeverything.
Forme, I get veryscatterbrained.
Ialso, I literally feel kind of hopeless too when I'm stressedout, like the sense that there's nothing I can do aboutthis, but try to get through thisthing.
And when you said earlier that the tendency when you're chronically stressed or burnt out is to keepworking.
That'sright. And so that makes a lot of sense tome.
And sowhy,though, do you need to figure out what actually matters to you when you're running around incircles, when you feel like you can't escape the problems that youhave?
Why does this important as the firstreset?
The reason it's important is because it helps create a roadmap for thefuture.
Okay. When you are in that present moment of stress and burnout andoverwhelm, you are at a point where you cannot even see the nextstep, let alone thedestination.
The distance between where you are and where you'd like to be seems sovast, like achasm, so you don't even take that firststep.
Whybother? It's not going tohelp.
Correct. I'm not going to feelbetter.
Forgetit. It's the all or nothingfallacy.
And this firstreset, get clear on what matters most helps you create thatdestination, aroadmap, a NorthStar, call it what youwant.
Could you do me a favor and talk to the person listening to you and walk them through how you find a reason for why you want to get lessstress?
Like how do you dothis? Can you just walk us through it as if we're sitting there in front ofyou?
When you're feeling a sense ofstress, you may say to yourself because you're in your critic as amegaphone, you may say toyourself, what is the matter withme?
Instead, ask yourself what means most tome.
This is not abig, existential ask about what is the meaning of life and where do Ibelong?
This is verypractical.
And so when you're thinking about yourdestination, why are you doing this work for less stress and lessburnout?
It's because you want to create a goal that means most to you and most stands forsomething.
So M ismotivating, O isobjective, S issmall, and T istimely.
It takes eight weeks to build ahabit.
Understand that part of that eight weeks is falling off the wagon and getting back on the wagon tocontinue.
So give yourself a solid three months to reach your mostgoal.
Understanding that you're going to fall off and get back on and fall off and get backon.
It's all part of the process and trust theprocess.
And then once you have your most goal of why do you want to do this work for less stress andburnout, it's not that muchwork, by theway.
I'm thinking about a moment recently where I absolutely hit like a medical state of burnout and it was several monthsago.
And my why if I were thinking about why were things like I want to sleep through thenight.
I don't want to dread the work that I have coming up thisweek.
I don't want to feel like I am constantly behind theball.
I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and be thinking aboutwork.
I want like I need a freaking break like it was all so much in thenegative.
So when you're doing this firstreset, is it important that when you think about thatsmall, timely little goal of yours that it be framed as somethingpositive?
Notnecessarily. It doesn't have to be somethingexternal.
It can be somethinginternal.
But I would say that framing it as a positive and say toyourself, I want my future self to bex,y, and z fill in theblank.
I want my future self to have bettersleep.
Or you can be fed up and say I'm sick of not being able to sleep through thenight.
I want to sleep through thenight.
Motivation comes in many differentforms.
It can be positive andenergetic.
But it can also be that you're just fed up of your ownshit.
What's reset numbertwo?
Once you have this y inmind, like I am thinking about why it matters to me to turn off theamygdala, hit thereset, get control ofit.
You say it's find quiet in a noisyworld.
What does thatmean? This is perhaps one of the most importantresets.
You may think that when you have stress andburnout, you need to check out and spend six months inBali.
At least forme, anytime I feel overwhelmed withstress, when I have a lot of stress in mylife, I amirritable.
I am so short and I am just constantlyfrowning.
Yes. Or quick toanger.Yes.
And I even knowing all of thescience, it takes me a littlebit.
I cannot tell you how much over the past sixmonths, I've had my husband say tome, I think you need to start the resetsagain.
Wow. And I'llsay,oh,yeah,oh,my, because I have doubled down on every singlereset, particularly over the past fewmonths.
Well, just to put it incontext, doing a book tour for a book this important is probably like being a resident and medicalschool.
Absolutely. And so part of the reason why is becauseagain, you're a amygdala is like in charge and you got to resetit.
What is popcornbrain? Popcorn brain is a biological phenomenon coined by a man named AdamLevy.
And it is when any time that you'rewaiting, you're in a grocery store in line waiting to buyfood, you're on yourphone, you are at the bank at the waiting to see theteller, you're on yourphone.
There have been more near mispedestrian accidents because of popcornbrain.
You are just always on yourscreen, always engaging allday, every day during all wakinghours.
And it creates a sense of hyper stimulation in yourbrain, which makes it difficult to live offline because offline life moves at a decidedly slowpace.
The pace of life is very differentoffline.
Think about when you'vesaid,Hey, you knowwhat?
I'm not going to check my phone for a few hours and you're just hangingout.
It's veryeerie. It'sslow.
You can see if you have popcorn brain by doing a quicktest.
Keep your phone in anotherroom.
And if you can for a couple ofhours, even drive for 30minutes.
Sit down with a piece of paper in apen.
And every time you feel that compulsion to check yourphone, just put a littlemark.
And you will be shocked andappalled.
Even me knowing all of thescience, I had to keep my phone far away so I could write the five resets because it has such apull.
Popcorn brain also is triggered by the amygdala because you are having that sense of hypervigilancelike,Oh, let me check myphone.
Let me check myphone. That sense of wanting tocheck.
There's another phenomenon that's very tied to popcornbrain, which is even moreconcerning, which is called braindrain.
So it's not just when you use yourphone, which is what popcorn brainis, but there's a phenomenon where just that sheer potential fordistraction, having a phone close by can be incredibly distracting for your brain and increase your sense of stress inburnout.
So the antidote to popcorn brain or brain drain is to create digital boundaries in every relationship in our life with our with ourpartners, ourcolleagues, ourfriends.
We haveboundaries, but we have porous boundaries or often no boundaries when it comes to your relationship with your digitaldevices.
This is not about becoming a digital monk andabstinence.
We need to engage innews.
It's important to be an informedcitizen.
What are your favoriteboundaries?
One of the most important things is to keep your phone off your nightstand and invest in a low-cost alarm clockinstead.
When you get up out ofbed, over50% of people check the news or check their phones and check theiremails.
Think about what that's doing to yourbrain, what that's doing to youramygdala.
If you are stressed and burnedout, chances are you didn't sleep very well thatnight, or if you had a good night's sleepgreat, but then immediately it's triggering all of these chemicals in the cascade in yourbrain.
Instead, keep your phone away from yournightstand.
When you open youreyes, take in the morning light and then do the five-second rule and get up out ofbed.
Then, youknow, maybe go to the bathroom brush yourteeth, do some stretches and then check yourphone.
Okay. So that is a key geographicalboundary.
What's anotherboundary?
During the day atwork, keep your phone out of sight so you decrease that primal urchusgrowl, keep it out of arms reach 10 feet away from you in a cubicle cord drawer just so it is not in yourreach.
The reason is because when you have that primal urchusgrowl, what you want to do is you want to overwrite it and you want to create more intentionality around your mediaconsumption.
Youknow, I'll share personally that our executive producer Tracy will not allow me to have my phone when we are in ameeting.
She will reach over if I grab it and literally like a mom guide it out of myhand, put it away and I'll tell you she'sright.
I got you're justdistracted.
So even if it's near me and I have made it ahabit, there's a kind of a task table here at work where I set up whenI'm, youknow, in Boston and my phone is always right overthere.
I don't have it on myperson.
I try not to carry itaround.
I try to put it back over there because I know how I just grab it and just grabit.
What's one hack you can do for betterfocus?
One thing you cando,Mel, is to put your phone ingrayscale.
When I really felt like myphone, youknow, who's in control me or my phone and there were many moments in my life where I wouldsay,uh, it was myphone.
Now it's very muchme, but I would switch my phone to grayscale and just doing that with my screen made all the difference because all of the colors and the brightness and everything is just veryenticing.
So when it'sgrayscale, it makes it lessenticing.
It actively changes yourbrain.
And how does it change yourbrain?
Well, becauseit's, youknow,uh, big techis, they know exactly what they'redoing.
So when you have colors and patterns and beautiful images and this userinterface, it makes it more enticing to continueusing.
If you switched your phone to grayscaletoday, try ittoday, switch your phone to grayscale and it just becomes less enticing because it'sless, youknow, the chemicals aren't going off in yourbrain, the neurotransmitters and because it'sjust, it's kind ofboring.
Well, what I love about the way you're teaching this is that I've certainly heard a ton of people talk about the connection between stress and social media and stress and your phone and they need to get off your phone and thesetopics.
But when you explain it in terms of your amygdala turning on and that you're amygdala putting you infight,flight, orfreeze, somehow knowing that makes this way moretangible.
It also makes it way more important to me that I follow this advice and I pay attention to when the amygdala is running the show versus when I'm running theshow.
And these boundaries and the second reset is a way for you to run your life rather than letting the amygdala just kick into high gear and keep you hostage to all of thisstuff.
That'sright. And I think my approach comes from decades of being a medical doctor and seeingpatients.
So every single thing that I offer to my patients during my talks in thisbook, the fiveresets, every single thing isfree.
That was really important to me because I have had patients from all walks of life with different resources and that was critical tome.
The second thing that I really aim to do with every single strategy Ioffer, ofcourse, it'sscience-based, but that it istime-efficient.
If we all could spend an hour getting a massage and then getting an acupuncture treatment and then going for a walk and all of the wonderful things that we are that are available to anyone who has the means to do the time aswell, thengreat.
But for most people in everydaylife, you have in over-scultured life a million competing priorities and often you put yourself last on thatlist.
And so stress andburnout, your own stress and burnout and your own mental health islike,oh, I'll get to itwhen.
But if notnow, thenwhen.
And so really making sure that these strategies are easy and practical and can be something that you dotoday, many of these things you can starttoday.
And it is all when it comes to your brain and rewiring your brain and body for less stress and more resilience or less stress and lessburnout.
These incremental changes a little bit every day can actually rewire yourbrain.
It is not some big grand gesture that does it like a massage once amonth.
Great. A nicebandied. It'll helpyou.
It feels great for aday.
And then the nextmorning, wake up and it's the same oldstuff.
Now I know why because the amygdala is theissue.
It's that is a thousand percent what you're teachingus.
It's literally theamygdala.
So if the person listening wants to get a better night's sleep as a Harvard educated medical doctor andprofessor, what would you tell the person listening to do tonight in order to get a better night'ssleep?
I always lead with selfcompassion.
So first is if you are not sleepingwell, you are notalone.
It is not yourfault. When you have betterdays, you will have betternights.
Take sleep and your difficulty with sleep as a simple sign or a symptom of something that you want to workon.
You can target it head on with a lot of thesestrategies.
Keep your phone off yournightstand, invest in a low-cost alarmclock.
First thing when you wakeup, don'tscroll.
Try to do somethingelse.
And the other thing that I would say is two hours before bedtime limit yourscreens.
Again, nothing isovernight.
It doesn't work likemagic.
But if you start thesetoday, give yourself eightweeks.
But you will see a difference within aweek.
By theweekend, you should start feelingbetter.
These things take shape quickly because your brain and your body are rewiring all thetime.
Your brain is a muscleneuroplasticity, a very fancy scienceword.
But it means your brain is amuscle.
It's not a grab bag like what you got for birth is what you got forlife.
That's not what itis. Your brain is like amuscle, just like abicep.
The thing with sleep that's fascinating is that like withexercise, if youdid, youknow, two pounddumbbells, like a hundred curls with yourbiceps, you'd know that it's doingsomething.
Imean, it's not going to do as much as like a 10pound.
But you try itanyway. You'relike, you knowwhat?
I'm going to tryit. So think of your brain as amuscle.
Try thingsout.Experiment, understand that doing a littlebit, a simplechange, like keeping your phone off your nightstand could make all the difference and could be a gamechanger.
It doesn't have to be this big giant lifestyleoverhaul.
Also, your brain cannot handle big lifestyle overhalls when you are feeling a sense of stress because even positivechange, like all of these things that we're talkingabout, change is considered a stressor to yourbrain.
Well, that's why you always recommend in your booktoo, that rule oftwo.
The rule oftwo. What is the rule oftwo?
The rule of two is how our brain responds tochange.
When we are feeling a sense ofstress, so think about in2020, you may have had big loftygoals.
My was to build a farmhouse table from scratch to learn it's howlian and to learn to play theguitar.
And now it's a wonder if you wear clean clothes and eat a few vegetables at2024,right?
Like we're herenow. It's because you cannot sustain huge lifestyle overhalls during periods of stress because even positive changes are considered a stressor to yourbrain.
And this is this is a landmark study done in the 1960s by twopsychiatrists,Dr.
Holmes andRahe, they studied 5,000 people and 43 of the most common lifeconditions.
Positive happy things like we were talkingabout,right?
Like getting a newjob, falling inlove, having achild, gettingmarried, buying a newcar, and that's sad things inlife.
Death,unemployment,divorce, lots of these horriblethings.
And what they found in this research was that at the end when they added up the tallyed up every singleperson, all of these life events and found that the more life events that you haveaccrued, your greater chance of having stress and burnout and greater illness down theroad, which showed it's the basis of the rule of two to focus on two things at atime.
Even positive change can be a stressor for your brain because your brain needs time to adapt and recover from this positivechange.
Again, the wordstress, healthy stress beingadaptive.
It's your brain adapting to thesechanges.
So just aim to do two things at atime.
You might listen to our conversation and we're offering so many strategies in thisconversation.
You maysay, I'm going to do everything all atonce, everything with the kitchen sinkapproach.
You'll do it for fourweeks.
And then you'llsay, there's no way I'm doingthis.
So pick the most important thing toimprove.
And then just for yoursleep, you were to literally just stop the doom scrolling and put your phone somewhere other than your bedroom at seven o'clock atnight.
And you create that boundary and then you don't sleep next to it and you don't look at it first thing in themorning.
If you were to simply dothat, your sleep would improve almostimmediately.
Your sleep would improveimmediately.
The entire tenor of your day wouldchange.
And you would feel so much moregrounded.
You wouldfeel, youknow, whatever symptom that you're having ofstress, there aremany.
It would have an immediate impact on your stress and yourburnout.
And overtime, if you continue to do that day after day afterday, you will be a changedperson.
Dr.Aditi, I know I said itbefore, but I just love all of the wisdom and the science and the tips that we can put to useimmediately.
There are so many people that I'm going to share thiswith.
And as you'relistening, please share this episode because it will really make a difference in someone else'slife.
And it's a simple way tosay, I really care aboutyou.
And you can send themDr.
Aditi tohelp. Allright, we're going to take a quick pausehere.
We're from oursponsors.
We will be waiting for you with moretips, morewisdom, more science after a short break to stay withus.
Welcomeback. It's your friendMel.
And we are here with Harvard'sDr.
Aditi talking about the fiveresets.
SoDr.Aditi, I'm so excited for the third reset because we're talking about the brain bodyconnection.
So what is reset numberthree?
The third reset is sink your brain to yourbody.
It is all about the mind bodyconnection.
What does that mean sink your brain to yourbody?
When you hear the term mind bodyconnection, you may think that's totalboo-boo.
But infact, there is a lot of robust scientific literature to support the mind bodyconnection, which is a fancy term for simply saying that your brain and your body are in constant communication and inextricablylinked.
What's good for your brain is good for your body and viceversa.
We will dobetter. You feel better in it's all in thedoing.
You may be hearing about the mind body connection for the first timetoday.
But you have been experiencing the mind body connectionforever.
Butterflies that falling inlove, your face flushing at an embarrassingmoment.
You are about to give a presentation for work and your heart startsracing.
This is the mind bodyconnection.
It's likegravity. It's happening in the background all thetime.
The beauty of the mind body connection is that while it is happening around us in you at alltimes, you can learn to tap into the mind bodyconnection, understandit, and mostimportantly, influence it to better serve you with your stress and yourburnout.
The quickest way to tap into your mind body connection is with yourbreath.
Your breath is the only physiological mechanism that is under voluntary control and involuntarycontrol.
So you and I could do a breathing exercise today right now and you would feel a sense ofcalm.
And then we're just talking and your breath isgoing.
Your brain can't dothat.
Your brainwaves, your digestion can't dothat.
Nothing else in your body has that same under voluntary control and involuntarycontrol.
So that is the first kind of way that you can tap intoit.
So there are very quick and the other thing to mention is that when you are in a migdala mode or fight or flightmode, your sympathetic nervoussystem,again, a fancy scientific word that we have two nervous systems in thebody.
One is the sympathetic nervous system that governs fight orflight.
The other one governs something called rest anddigest.
It's the parasympathetic nervoussystem.
The two can't be on at the sametime.
They're mutually exclusive and your breath can help modulate the light switch between the sympathetic and the parasympatheticsystem.
So when you are in sympathetic mode driven by youramygdala, your heart isbeating.
You have quick shallowbreathing.
Think about when you'reanxious.
You'rebreathing, youknow, you'reanxious.
You're breathingquickly, very shallow andrapid.
That is because it's a physiologicalmechanism.
You're trying to get the oxygen in to go to your muscles so you can fight or you canflee.
Parasympatheticmode, you are breathing deeply andslowly.
It is rest anddigest. Knowing this very scientificexplanation, it's simply to say that when you modulate your breathing and influence yourbreathing, you can switch one system on and off and you can tap into your mind body connection because of what you know now about thebreath.
Gotcha. So as you're thinking about managing your stress andburnout, it's also important to think about your gut brainconnection.
Can you explain to the person listening how physically the gut and the brain are connected and how they speak to each other and how I found it fascinating when I first learned that they were part of the same tissue when you are being formed as an embryo and that during your development that they literally are one clump that then separates and I always imagine that there's like thisgooey, ooey sticky stuff between your brain and yourgut.
But could you explain it as a medical doctor what the brain gut connectionis?
The brain gut connection is that your brain and your gut are literally speaking through to each other and there is crosstalk at alltimes.
It happens through an ecosystem of trillions ofbacteria, healthy bacteria in your gut called themicrobion.
I want to say that the gut is considered the second brain because there are three to five times more serotonin receptors in your gut than yourbrain.
When you hear the wordserotonin, you know the popular class ofdrugs,SSRIs.
These are medications that we use for depression and anxiety and a whole host of other things and these are brainchemicals.
Serotonin, when you hear theword, youthink,oh,brain, brainchemical.
But infact, there are three to five times more serotonin receptors in your gut than yourbrain.
And every weekmal, there is newcompelling, fascinating research about the gut brainconnection.
And so thismicrobion, this ecosystem of trillions and trillions of healthy bacteria in your gut govern so many things besidesdigestion.
It is a bi-directional highway ofinformation.
Your brain is sending signals to your gut and your gut is sending signals right back to yourbrain.
There is a new entity that is being studied called thepsychobion.
Psychobion is a part of yourmicrobiome, but thispsychobion, our dedicated bacteria in your gut who so focus is moodregulation.
It's like mind-blowingstuff.
Wow. That is supercool.
So as a Harvard trained medicaldoctor, what do you do for exercise andmovement?
25 yearsago, I was a stressed patient looking foranswers.
And that is why thatwas, that's my origin story of how I became a doctor with an expertise in stress is because I was a stress patient looking foranswers.
I found my way out of the stressstruggle.
Put on my scientist'shead, I had gone to see a doctor and my doctor hadsaid, youknow, go get a massage and justrelax.
Just try to relaxmore. So I waslike,okay, I'll get amassage.
I'll have dinner withfriends.
I'll go retailtherapy, all the things that didn'twork.
And so when I put on my scientist's hat and I started looking and doing the research is when I really foundout,okay, this is how stress impacts the brain and thebody.
And this is how I'm going to find my way out ofstress.
Movement wasone. And then when I came out ofthat, I said I wanted to be the doctor that I needed during that difficulttime.
So that's my originstory.
I mentioned that because movement was not something I did every singleday.
I was working 80 hours a week and I don'tknow, I was running from one patient room to theother.
I thought that was movementenough.
And so what I did during thattime, I was acutelystressed.
I was so depleted and running onfumes.
Mel, I was erratic in my foodintake, mysleep, seeing death and dying on a dailybasis,self-care, and burnout or even stress was not in mylexicon.
It was not in myvocabulary.
When I was training in my medicaltraining, mymotto, how I was trained was pressure makesdiamonds.
Someone sat a whole group of medical students down in our first year of medical training andsaid, I just want you guys to know where you're about to go through pressure makesdiamonds.
So I waslike,hey, diamond in themaking, bring iton.
And then my diamondcracked.
So when I discovered all of the science around why movement is important and exercise is likee, the dreadede-word, no one likes to talk aboutit.
So we can talk aboutmovement.
We can talk aboutexercise.
That to answer yourquestion, it has changed when I was a stressed patient or a medical resident working 80 hours a week and I was running on fumes and sodepleted.
I focused on gentle therapeuticmovement.
So I went to yoga class several times aweek.
That was my gateway to I went to a couple of yogaclasses.
So just to say that doctors are socialized to playsmall.
We don't share our own personal stories because we focus on thepatient.
So writing the five resets and sharing my personalstory, I have to tellyou,Mel, I might startcrying, but you were an inspiration for sharing that story because you share so much of your own personal stuff to helppeople.
And I knew that the only way that people would relate to me is if I told them the truth and not I'm just doing this for mypatients.
It's becauseno, I was apatient.
I struggled with my stress andburnout.
And that's when I became the doctor I needed during that difficulttime.
And so your story and your example was like a lighthouse that guidedme.
Well, I'm thrilled that you shared your story because you clearly are the doctor we allneed.
Thankyou. And so during that really difficulttime, I focused on a couple of days a week ofyoga, gentlestretching, nothingmuch, and a fewwalks.
So I used to walk every singleday, which is why in the fiveresets, when I talk aboutmovement, walking even if it's five or 10minutes,again, you mightsay, what's a walk going todo?
It's going to do nothing because it's not about the promise of physicalfitness.
This is the promise of mentalfitness.
And so a little bit of a daily walk and the reason I walked every single day when I was a stress patient and why I suggest when people are feeling that acute sense of stress to walk is every single day is because it avoids decisionfatigue.
If you say toyourself, when you're deeplystressed, I'm going to go to the gym three times a week for an hour longclass.
Okay. Then Monday rollsaround, a deadline comes up atwork, you don't goTuesday.
There's a family obligation or aconflict, you don't goWednesday, samething.
And byFriday, you might have gone zero or onetime.
Your sense of self efficacy goesdown, you'relike, I can't get anythingright.
Why bother atall? And then your amygdala startsfiring,right?
Because you're the forward future planning prefrontal cortex isn't working asgreat.
Instead, aim to do something a little bit everyday.
It avoids decisionfatigue.
Now to answer yourquestion, it'schanged.
So initially I startedmy, I was a sedentaryperson.
I didn't really exercisemuch.
I was into dancing as achild, but notsports.
Now I understand the value of sports for so manyreasons.
Gentle yoga and walks everyday, 10 minutewalk.
That waslike,yes, Iwalk,check.
This is not about like walking five miles aday.
I love that because the person listening'slike,okay, howlong?
What do Ido? It's just 10minutes, just 10minutes.
Five minutes is finetoo.
If you can do 20 minutes of a walk every singleday,great.
It's the equivalent of a Facebookscroll.
Seriously, we allscroll.
That'strue. Or Instagram or chooseyour, choose yourpoison.
It'sthe, it's the equivalent of a scroll opt out of a scroll and go for a walkinstead.
Do it in between your meetings if youcan.
Five, 10 minutes every singleday.
It's that inertia thatyou're, youknow, sometimes it feels like you're waiting through molasses when you're feeling stressed of like lacing up your sneakers and goingoutside.
But if yousay,oh, I'm going to do this for 45minutes, forgetit.
You're never doingit. But if yousay,oh, fiveminutes, I can dothat.
It's about closing that gap between where you are and where you like tobe.
And so fiveminutes. So then now what I do because I am of a certainage, I focus on resistancetraining.
Iprobably, I aim to exercise 30 minutes every singleday.
Does that happen every singleday?
No, but I probably get in four to five days ofexercise.
And that includes walking or if I do a 40 minute walk oneday, I won't do resistancetraining.
But I do some form of movement everyday.
It is about making things small and tangible and decreasing the barriers to making the taking thatstep.
Sofine, you don't want to put on yoursneakers.
Take a walk up and down your hallway in yourhouse, walk up and down a set ofstairs.
There was a study that was done that ultra short bursts ofactivity.
One to twominutes. So walking up a set of stairs or goingto, youknow, parking far away when you're going to the grocerystore.
We all look for parking really close to theentrance, park faraway.
Take a walk up to the grocerystore, run for the bus or walk quickly to go get the bus or thesubway.
Theseshort, they're called ultra short bursts of activity can decrease your risk of dying from cancer by40%.
Wow. You heard the doctor get your walk on everyday.
10minutes. It's all she's saying and it's going to lower yourstress.
Dr.Aditi, what's the surprising connection between sitting andstress?
As you may have heard in popculture, sitting is the newsmoking.
I hadn't heardthat. The science shows thatsitting, it's not just that exercise is good for you and moving is good foryou.
For yourstress,anxiety,burnout, it's that sitting is actually bad for you and it can increase your sense ofanxiety, stress andburnout.
Wow. Maybe we should have ordered standing desks aroundhere.
Of course you want to sit and forme, when I never use a standingdesk, I can't thinkright.
I need to sit down and do my work and have my deepthinking.
I wanted to share a couple of pretty alarming statistics aboutsitting.
There was a study of 800 people and the ones who sat themost, this is like knock your socks offdata.
The people who sat the most had a112% higher risk ofdiabetes, a147% higher risk of heartdisease, a90% higher risk of death from heartdisease, any50% higher risk from deathoverall.
All to say that sitting is actually bad for ourhealth, our well-being and as it turnsout, your stress andburnout.
How does sitting triggerstress?
The mechanisms of action aren't entirelyclear, but the data suggests that when you are sitting forprolonged, prolonged length oftime, youknow, you're stewing in your ownemotions, sort ofspeak.
And so it's that getting up and moving creates a whole cascade of positive biological changes to your brain and yourbody.
And when you're sitting for long periods oftime, if that doesn'thappen, it also has a cardiovascular benefit orrather, it's detrimental to your cardiovascular health to just sit because a body is meant tomove.
Your body is the greatestmachine.
And so use that machine to do what it's meant todo.
It doesn't have tobe, youknow, you don't have to become anOlympian, but certainly getting up and moving a little bit everyday, even if it means five minutes between your Zoommeetings.
Getup, take awalk,stretch, sitting for prolonged periods of time because think aboutit.
We sit all day atwork, that you sit all day atwork, and then you sit in a car going back home and then you sit on your sofa allday.
So our human body hasn't been designed to just sit allday.
We are meant to move and move ourbodies.
As adoctor, what do yourecommend?
My watch has that stand upthing.
I loveit. And I don't realize how much time will go by and it'slike,oh, I haven't stood in twohours.
Holycow. I lovethat. I would say there isn't necessarily aprescription, like a dose relationship for sitting and when to standup.
And what's the dose of standing andsitting?
Just do it when youcan. You have a two hourmeeting, kinks stand up right after that two hour meeting instead of sitting on your slack channel and responding to emails or doing all thosethings, get up and walkaround.
There is something to besaid,right?
LikePlato,Aristotle, all of these grates talked about the benefit of awalk, that mental health benefit of taking awalk.
And so it doesn't have to be thislong, profoundwalk.
Just get up and stretch yourbody, do some gentlestretching, someexercising, connect your breath to your movement to yourposture.
This is really important because that's like a way to tap into your mind body connection aswell.
So your next reset address is one of the biggest lies aroundproductivity.
Let's talk aboutit. So reset number four is come up forair.
One of the biggest myths is that you are meant to be functioning at a high capacity without any need for rest orrecovery.
That productivity islinear.
The more youdo, the more you canaccomplish, and the more youdo, the more you canaccomplish, it just supposed to be this likething, this feedback loop that's supposed to continue on and on andon.
That's amyth. A break is not just a nice to haveluxury.
Your brain and your body need abreak.
It is a biological necessity for your brain and body to rest andrecover.
Human productivity is notlinear.
It functions on acurve.
Think of a bell shapedcurve.
The left of thecurve, when you don't have a lot ofstress, you're not verymotivated, you're not veryproductive.
Think about the right side of thecurve.
So muchstress. You are keyedup.
Many of us are living on this right side of thecurve,right?
There is a sweet spot of human productivity right in themiddle.
It's just rightstress.
I call it the Goldilocksprinciple.
And it's this idea of we all are to that right of that bell shapedcurve.
We areanxious. We have so muchstress.
We're notproductive. We can'tfocus.
It's hard to get thingsdone.
So the science suggests that movingback, how do you get to that centerspot?
The sweet spot of human productivity is to scaleback.
But you can't scaleback.
That's not realistic because we have realconstraints.
We have constraints on ourtime.
We have obligations with work andparenting.
Can't just jet off for six months to Bali on a serveholiday.
I've mentioned thattwice.
Can you tell that'slike?
Yeah, she kind of wantsto.
Yeah. Mydream. Or eat my way through Paris for amonth.
Again, adream. Can't doit.
Instead, you have to honor yourbreaks.
How do you scaleback? How do you apply this science to your everyday life when you can't go to Bali orParis?
You honor yourbreaks. How do you dothat?
When you are taking a break during theday, what do most of usdo?
We mindlesslyscroll. We've already talked about what happens withscrolling.
This isn't a benign thing that you aredoing.
You are actively influencing your brain and your body for morestress,right?
Morestress, moreburnout, all of the things that we talkedabout.
Let me just highlight that because you'reright.
When I step out of ameeting, the first thing I do is check myphone.
I'm not actually taking abreak.
I'm re-engaging my mind and activating the amygdala and juicing up mystress.
Never even thought aboutit.
I always view itlike,oh,okay, I've got a couple minutes for my nextthing.
I'll just look at myphone.
Instead, if I were to leave my phone where it is and walk into the kitchen here at work or athome, make myself a cup of coffee or step outside for aminute, I'd feeldifferent.
Try some heart-centeredbreathing.
Take a little walkoutside.
Do somestretches. Touch yourtoes.
Standup.Twist. Do something where you're connecting your breath to yourmovement.
Tap into your mind-bodyconnection.
Practice.Stop.Breathe.
Be. It's a three-second exercise and it canhelp.
What isthat? Thestop.Breathe.
Be.Method. The instructions are in thename.
It's a three-secondexercise.
So youstop. You breathe and yoube.
So you ground your feet on thefloor.
I learned thestop.Breathe.
Be.Method. It was the first technique I learned to reset my mind-body connection when I was the throes of stress as a stressed medicalresident.
I was working 80 hours aweek.
I was seeing 30 to 40 patients aday.
I brought thestop.Breathe.
Be.Method. Into my life when I would knock on the door of the patient room before I wouldenter.
It was my door knobmoment.
So as I turned the doorknob, I would say tomyself, often under mybreath, in a crowdedplace,stop.
Breathe.Be. And then I wouldenter.
And I would do that incrementally over and over and overagain,30, 40 times aday.
Overtime, I could just do itanywhere.
Infact, before we startedspeaking, I was so excited because I was having a total fan girl move in stillam.
It's been a long time of my amygdala goingoff, butno, justkidding.
I was having a fan girlmoment.
I'm not kidding aboutthat.
And I didstop.Breathe.
Be. Infact, the entire time that we've beenspeaking, I've been very aware of my feet on thefloor, my posture in thechair, and how I ambreathing.
Because that is important to manage and modulate your stressresponse.
You can practicestop.Breathe.
Be. During mundane everyday moments of yourlife.
So I did it with the doorknob.
You can doit, youknow, between Zoommeetings.
Stop.Breathe.Be. It's a little minireset.
Small microreset. Threeseconds.
You can practice it when you're brushing yourteeth.
I have practiced it in the morning when you're getting lunches ready forschool, getting everythingready.
I do it always at the door knob before I'm about to go into the garage to do school busstop.
Stop.Breathe.Be. And Ithink, Oh myGod, we forgot theproject.
Did you bring yourhat?Well, we need to getthis.
We need to getthat. It's just the reset that youneed.
And the reason thestop.
Breathe. Be method works so well is because anxiety and anxious thoughts are a future focusedemotion.
It is about whatif? What if thishappens?
What if thathappens? What if Ifail?
What if I can't dowell? Whatif?
Whatif? Whatif? Andstop.
Breathe.Be. It gets you out of what if thinking and gets you back into what is in the here andnow.
Beautiful. What is the fifthreset?
The fifth reset is to bring your best selfforward.
And this is all about the innercritic.
We talked about it a little bit at the start of ourconversation.
That inner critic is that voice in your head that beratesyou.
You may not even know that it isthere.
You mightthink,Hey, that's my naturalvoice.
That's who Iam. Infact, I would argue that that is not who youare.
Capital.Why?Oh,you. It is your amygdalaspeaking.
The reason is when you are feeling a sense ofstress, that innercritic, that voice gets a megaphone because your amygdala is doing the driving of yourbrain.
And your amygdala wants to keep you safe andsmall.
That is why getting out of your comfort zone when you're feeling a sense of stress doesn't feelgood.
Youwant, youknow, you have that what ifthinking, all of these sorts ofthings.
It's a self sabotage sort ofsituation.
And so you staysmall, you stay in your comfortzone.
You don't try newthings.
You don't try to get out of your stress because that innervoice.
So how do you silence the innervoice?
How do you take that megaphone out of your inner voices hand andsay,No, you're not going to bespeaking.
I'm the one who's going to bespeaking.
There's a couple of ways to dothat.
The first isgratitude.
Now you may hear the word gratitude and roll your eyeslike, Oh mygod,gratitude.
Like, I'm not going to do this like teenage journalbullshit.
Right? Infact, there is a lot of science forgratitude.
A written gratitude practice is vital to help silence your inner critic and to reset your stress andburnout.
Again, very simplepractice.
Keep a piece of paper and a pen next to yourbedside.
You know how you got your phone on your nights and keep a little gratitude journal thereinstead.
Now every night or in themorning, whenever youwant, doesn'tmatter.
Five things are grateful for and why put thedate.
One,two,three,four,five, write down five things are grateful for and why some days you'll have like 15 things that you want to writedown.
You can only write down five otherdays.
You'llsay, I have nothing that I'm gratefulfor.
You have two arms and twolegs.
You can breathe theair.
You have a roof over yourhead.
You have food in yourpantry.
That these are all wins because manypeople, particularlynow, cannot saythat.
So write thosedown. The reason gratitude is so important from a scientific perspective is because when you are doing agratitude, daily gratitudepractice, it takes 60seconds.
You are rewiring your brain because what you aredoing, it's ascientific,again, a fancy scientific name called cognitivereframing, what you focus ongross.
So Rick Hansen talks about this idea of when you're going throughstress.
He's a psychologist inCalifornia.
Negative experiences become sticking in the brain likeVelcro.
You hold on to them because it's this feeling of survival and selfpreservation.
And so when you start practicing gratitude on a everydaybasis, it's cognitivereframing.
What you focus ongross, so you shift yourperspective.
Gratitude helps you move away from Velcro toTeflon.
So even if negative and positive are happening at the samerate, good and bad things are happening in your life at the samerate, when you are feeling a sense ofstress, you are focused primarily on the negative because you are thinkingdanger,danger,danger,right?
Redalert. And so how do you decrease that stickiness of negative experiences in your brain when you're feeling a sense of stress by practicinggratitude?
So the negative experiences mayhappen, but it slidesoff.
How does it happen throughgratitude?
So you write down those things every singleday.
And studies have demonstrated that at30, 60 and 90days, there's improvedmood, decreased stress andburnout, bettersleep.
There are so many benefits to what everyday gratitudepractice.
It also silences your inner critic because it dials down the volume of the amygdala in thebackground.
Dr.Dede, I'd love for you to speak directly to the personlistening.
And if they take just one of theserecommendations, because you have just poured intous, but if they just focus on oneaction, what do you think is the most important thing todo?
Of all of the things that you have heardtoday, perhaps the most important is to cultivate a sense of self-compassion and give yourself lots of grace on this journey for less stress and burnout and moreresilience.
Self-compassion has been found to decrease your amygdala and decrease yourcortisol.
So it has an active effect on yourbrain.
Over the past severalyears, we have had one onslaught after theother.
We have lived through the perfect storm or the perfecttsunami, so tospeak.
You can't change theweather.
What you can do is wear our raincoat to keep youwarm, safe anddry.
And I hope some of these strategies can serve as thatraincoat.
I want to leave you with one of my favoritequotes.
You are thesky. Everything else is just theweather.
Oh, that'sbeautiful. What are your partingwords?
There is one quote that I always keep going backto, which is be kinder thannecessary, because everyone is facing and fighting a harderbattle.
And I would say that is sotrue, but don't forget aboutyourself, about being kinder to yourself thannecessary, because stress and burnout are a battle that we are allfighting.
And when you are kind toothers,yes, it helps to decrease stress andburnout.
It helps to validate that difficult emotion in otherpeople, but turn that in words and be a mirror foryourself.
So you are giving yourself the same compassion that you give toothers.
Well,Dr.Aditi, thank you somuch.
You are such a gift and you have a gift for being able to take verycomplicated,scientific,medical,neuroscience, all of this stuff and simplifyit.
I learned so much from youtoday.
I will never think about stress again the same way that I usedto.
I feel veryempowered. And I hope that as you listened toDr.
Aditi that you didtoo, I know youdid, because she gave us so much todo.
And I'm grateful that it costs zerodollars.
So thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.
And I also want to take a moment and just thank you for spending time with ustoday.
And I want to besure, in case nobody else tellsyou, you could feel the love being poured intoyou, but I wanted to tell you that I love you and I believe inyou.
And I believe in your ability to create a betterlife.
And what's veryclear, afterhearing, so much wisdom and so many research back techniques and the impact that it has on your life immediately and longterm, that perhaps one of the single most important things that you could do is to figure out why lowering your stress matters toyou.
And then start to practice these small resets so that you quiet the amygdala and you pull your prefrontal cortex backonline, because that's going to help you not only create a betterlife, but to feel really good as you're livingit.
Alrighty, I'll talk to you in a fewdays.
Dr. AditiNaruka, oh god I said itwrong.
Nurekar, did I getNurekar?
Nurekar.Okay, so I'm likeNure,Nure, I've been practicing rightNurekar.
Wow, I kind of did thatwell.
Yes,okay. I nevercurse.
Ijust, that was like my favorite line of the entire conversation sofar, could keepgoing.
I nevercurse. The only reason I'm cursing is because youcurse.
You're giving me permission tocurse.
The second kind ofhappiness.
Oh,sorry. Blessyou. The allergies are comingeverybody.
Sorry. Goahead. Blessyou.
And I just would be curious toknow, do we havea, is that likea, are theygone?
What'sthat?Construction.
Thankyou. You're going to make mecry.
I also feel a little choked up rightnow.
I'm not going tolie. I'm sure we won't get through it without laughing and cryingso.
Oh, and one morething. Andno, this is not ablooper.
This is the legallanguage.
Youknow, what the lawyers write and what I need to read toyou.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainmentpurposes.
I'm just yourfriend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of aphysician, professionalcoach,psychotherapist, or other qualifiedprofessional.
Gotit?Good. I'll see you in the nextepisode.
