Living Well with Stress with Elissa Epel

World-renowned psychologist and best selling author Elissa Epel on embracing stress and transforming it.  Learn powerful tools; dealing with uncertainty, cold plunges, HIIT, the power of retreats and more.
Stress is a part of life.  
It’s ubiquitous. It is the ocean we swim in.
We can’t avoid it. But we can learn to live well with it. 
Humans have a stress response for a reason. It prepares our mind and body for what we need to do in the moment and in the moments ahead. Even our negative thoughts can trigger our bodies stress response, so we rarely experience periods of ease and deep restoration. 
Humans are exquisitely built to handle stress. In fact we need it. 
And in the right dosage and frequency, it helps keep our cells young and vital.

Transcript

I am Anna Seewald and this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,

Where I explore how you can find more calm connection and joint parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.

I'm a parent educator and my mission is to help children by helping parents.

The motto of this podcast is Raising Our Children,

Growing Ourselves.

Today,

Living Well with Stress.

Stress is a part of life.

It's ubiquitous.

It is the ocean we swim in.

We can't avoid it,

But we can embrace it and transform it.

Humans have a stress response for a reason.

It prepares our mind and body for what we need to do in the moment and in the moments ahead.

Even our negative thoughts can trigger our body's stress response.

So we rarely experience periods of ease and deep restoration.

Humans are exquisitely built to handle stress.

In fact,

We need it.

In the right dosage and frequency,

It helps keep ourselves young and vital.

My special guest today is someone whose work is revolutionary,

Whom I deeply admire,

And who is just a beautiful human.

It was an absolute honor to speak with her,

And I am positive you're going to love this conversation.

I am speaking with world-renowned psychologist and New York Times bestselling author,

Dr.

Elisa Eppel.

She's an international expert on stress,

Well-being,

And optimal aging.

She's a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California,

San Francisco,

Where she is vice chair of psychology and directs the Aging Metabolism Emotions Center.

Dr.

Eppel studies the environmental,

Psychological,

Behavioral,

And social factors that impact cellular aging and is also focusing on climate wellness.

She studies how self-care practices such as meditation and positive stress can promote psychological and physiological thriving and is interested in large-scale interventions for communal well-being and health equity.

She co-wrote the New York Times bestseller,

The Telomere Effect,

A revolutionary approach to living younger,

Longer,

With Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn,

Translated into 30 languages,

And the newly released Stress Prescription.

She enjoys leading science-based meditation retreats at venues such as WEF,

Davos,

Blue Spirit Costa Rica,

Spirit Rock Meditation Center,

And 1440 Multiversity.

Dr.

Eppel's research has been featured in venues such as TEDMED,

Wisdom 2.

0,

NBC's Today Show,

CBS's Morning Show,

60 Minutes,

National Public Radio,

New York Times,

Wall Street Journal,

And science documentaries.

Dr.

Eppel teaches us how we can,

Quote unquote,

Stress better by developing a flexible mind and body stress response that can actually enhance health and a more robust mindset,

Allowing you to fill your days with more joy,

Connection,

And ease.

We can't eliminate stress.

It will always be a part of life.

Anything worth doing will always have aspects of stress woven throughout.

Challenge,

Discomfort,

Risk,

We can't change that.

But what we can change is our response to stress.

I really hope this episode will change your ideas about stress,

Give you concrete tools to deal with it,

And help you develop a better relationship with it.

Take your own well-being into your own hands and learn to live well with stress.

Please enjoy.

Welcome to the show.

I think it would be great to start by just highlighting what stress is and when does quote unquote normal stress go into chronic stress.

And then we can talk about the impact chronic toxic stress has on our health,

Our brain,

Our telomeres,

Down to our cells,

Right?

And maybe even better,

I should say,

Let's start by identifying.

Stressed out is a term people say,

I'm stressed,

I'm overwhelmed,

I'm burnt out.

We throw out terms and as you highlight in your book,

Mindset plays a huge role.

So maybe let's start by saying what's that state when we're stressed?

What's that state when we're overwhelmed,

Biologically speaking,

And what's that state when we're burnt out?

Yeah,

Very good question.

The acute stress response is the experience we all know well of having some emergency,

Some crisis,

Something happened where we need to amp up immediately.

And it's just miraculous what our body can do within seconds,

The amount of energy we can mobilize and it changes everything biologically.

It shapes things psychologically so that we're really geared for coping,

Problem solving,

Learning,

Whatever is needed.

Now that is not the problem.

We're always going to have that stress response.

That's why we're here and we've survived and our ancestors have survived the threats to survival.

But the problem is simply that we don't turn that off well as quickly as we can because we keep stress alive in our mind.

So the acute stress response can leak toward being this,

Rather than an on-off response,

More of a chronically elevated stress baseline that then gets triggered so easily.

And that's what I think of as chronic stress.

The good news is that every day is this fresh slate and opportunity for us to think about breaking up chronic stress by really having a restorative day,

A day where we recharge our battery enough so that we're not depleted at the end of the day.

And so there's no such thing really in most lives as a chronic stress that's turned on and for years with no opportunity for modulating.

And so,

I think,

Really,

There's always room and spaciousness because we're not always dealing with a crisis and we can modulate our thoughts so that when we're safe,

We remind ourselves that we're safe and we can do things,

Both sensory in the world,

Changing the environment,

Changing our thoughts to bring us back to what is a true relaxation baseline.

Yeah.

I love how you say we keep stress alive in our mind.

Because while stress may be short-term and it may disappear,

The stressor may go away,

We keep it alive in our mind and we sort of self-induce this stress over and over and over and over.

Am I understanding this correctly?

I mean,

Is it a fair statement to use self-induced or.

.

.

?

Yes,

Absolutely.

The most common form of stress is our thoughts,

Our negative thoughts,

Our threatening thoughts.

And those we can keep alive even unconsciously all the time.

We can hold on to discomfort and uncertainty.

That's a very common form of stress we all deal with,

The uncertain future.

And so doing mindful check-ins,

Really realizing that stress lurks and lingers and lives in the body and can get embedded,

Allows us to then.

.

.

The permission to then ask our body,

Our body holds so much information.

Am I holding stress right now?

Can I release it?

Is this a moment?

Do I have a minute now that I can breathe slower?

And even just now,

People check in with their hands,

Are they tense?

Are they holding stress in their jaw,

Their face,

Their eyebrows?

It's just so easy to carry it around in our body,

In our shoulders.

And those mindful check-ins are hard to remember.

So they're something that we always suggest people tie to something in their day.

Waking up is a great moment,

Brushing your teeth,

Driving,

Or just setting the alarm on your phone to ping you in a gentle way to remember that we can release stress in the moment.

We can label what we're feeling to kind of learn from our thoughts,

Our feelings,

Our sensations in our body,

What it is that we might be holding.

We might not even get an answer,

But yet we can still bring ourselves back to our natural feeling of ease in the body.

Yeah.

The story is not that important.

You know,

Body level,

Sensory level,

Gaining that regulation in the nervous system is what's important.

Exactly.

And we might even think of it as the story is so important.

And so paying attention to what is the narrative that I'm telling myself,

Because when we can change that narrative to be more realistic and less threat-based,

That can change our bodily state.

And then changing our bodily state can also change our mind and our sense of threat.

Yeah,

It's sort of bi-directional.

Which one is more powerful,

Do you think?

Changing the body state to change the mind state or vice versa,

Or they're equally powerful?

I feel like I'm leaning towards body change.

For me personally,

I feel like I find a lot of relief when I'm changing my body as opposed to my mind.

I can change my mindset,

But it's not affecting me in my life as much as if I'm doing a bottom-up approach.

Ah,

That's so interesting.

That's one of my favorite questions for people is trying to understand if they use the,

You know,

If they're aware that they're using the body to change their mind or if they're like really devoted to,

You know,

Certain positive mindsets and that's their dominant strategy.

So tell me more about what,

You know,

What might be one thing you do to change your body state?

I can tell you,

I do a bunch of things.

So number one,

Since I've been doing the podcast,

Obviously,

I've,

You know,

Spoke to a lot of experts and learned.

I'm not just recording the interviews and just letting them be.

I'm applying it to my life.

So I go into breathing first and foremost,

And I love the work of James Nestor,

Patrick McEwen.

What I learned from Patrick McEwen was no slow,

Slow.

And so when you change and there's different breathing methods,

I so I try to immediately incorporate,

Change my breathing.

And that has a big impact.

Another thing that I do is when I'm feeling frazzled,

Hectic,

Rushed,

I know that when I elevate my eyes and look at the horizon,

Have this perspective,

I engage the vision a lot or I go to an open space,

You know,

Landscape,

Big space.

There's a space near my home or if I can't have access to an outdoors,

Which,

You know,

You can open your window and look at the horizon immediately shifts your state.

I go into this blue chair that I have in my living room,

Which is sort of in the far corner,

And you can see the entire space.

And by going from this narrow,

Myopic,

Narrow view of my world into just looking at the entire world and changing the perspective,

I feel like that has significant impact on my nervous system.

So these two things I immediately do.

And the third one is movement,

Movement,

Walking,

Movement,

Stretching,

Yoga,

Whatever form that is,

Exercise.

But walking for me is key.

I find that if I'm moving,

Immediately my mood shifts and my perspective shifts,

Especially if I'm in fresh air,

In nature.

That's what I do.

These are like my basic,

Basic,

Fundamental skills.

Beautiful.

I am just relaxed hearing about them and the science behind them is so strong.

And that was partly why I loved writing the later chapters about body up strategies,

Because,

You know,

The effects of nature,

The effects of breathing are so well documented throughout the the nervous system,

Different ways we can measure it.

And we just forget because we're so,

You know,

We live so much kind of neck up and think that,

You know,

The most noble strategies are about our thoughts and trying to control things with our thoughts.

We forget that we're animals,

That we have this phenomenally responsive nervous system in the body that changes the mind.

And those to me are also the more powerful strategies,

Especially when we're aware of them.

So like you're acutely aware of what you're doing when you're entering these regulatory phases.

Working on mental health has been through talk therapy,

Has been through meeting making,

Which is critical.

But there's such a strong set of regulatory strategies using the body.

And I'm not surprised that your set of your your top hits of what you use are body based because you're also so trauma informed,

So aware of the trauma is gives us the most dramatic example of how we can't heal unless we're really listening to the body and working through the body.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Completely.

What I would love for you to talk about just a little bit since you wrote the book with your co-author,

The telomere effect,

How stress impacts us to the level of cells in our body and what happens to our telomeres and what telomeres are and how they get changed.

Yes,

I love that story,

Studied this cell aging system for 15 years of my life,

Very,

Very focused way.

Now we measure biological aging with more of a panel.

We're able to look into the cell and measure so many ways that we age and they all tend to tell us the same story.

So,

For example,

We're able to measure epigenetic clocks.

So kind of the timing of our biological age based on what our epigenetics say,

Based on our level of inflammation,

Based on how strongly our mitochondria are functioning,

That that also declines with age.

And so telomeres plus these are all associated with trauma and certain states of chronic stress.

And so that's kind of the bad news,

But just natural.

Our body responds to years and years of wear and tear by slowing down the levels of cell replenishment and creating more senescent cells,

Old cells that aren't replicating,

That don't have a chance to turn toward cancer.

And all of these systems are interrelated.

So when we have lower mitochondrial function,

That sends signals to the telomeres as well,

And can lead to telomere shortening because there's more free radicals.

So mitochondria,

Which make energy release reactive oxygen species,

Or what we call free radicals,

And that affects the telomeres in a negative way.

So that system can kind of go bad together.

And in turn,

When telomeres shorten too much,

They send out signals to the mitochondria as well,

That then impair them.

So there's a real web or system in our cells that is sensitive to toxic or chronic stress.

But the good news is that these systems are responsive to the biochemical signals we send ourselves every day based on our lifestyle and based on our wellbeing.

So we can have in one day a resetting,

A restorative day that has changed the balance away from inflammation and toward more relaxation,

Restoration.

And then the cell responds to that by saying,

Ah,

It's safe in here.

Let's clean up some of the junk we've accumulated in the cell.

Then the other thing about stress is that we can use the body-based acute stress response to do that cleanup as well.

So when we have a big stress response,

Let's say to aerobic exercise or high intensity interval training,

Then when we're in recovery from that,

We're turning on restorative mechanisms.

We're turning on the cleanup crew in the cell,

The mechanisms that repair DNA damage and clean up junk and dampen up or sponge up extra free radicals.

So we have this malleable system.

And rather than thinking about,

Oh,

My telomeres are short because I've been through a lot of early childhood trauma,

Which may be the case,

It's much more constructive to think about,

Today I can do things that boost my cell health.

We have shown that different types of meditation retreats boost telomerase,

The enzyme that repairs telomeres.

So we know that we can actually protect our telomeres with restorative activities.

Exercise and an anti-inflammatory diet are also related to longer telomeres.

So most of these healthy behaviors that we can do in little bits each day add up over time and protect our telomeres,

Even if they're short,

So that they don't shorten more.

So that's the real beauty of these cell aging systems.

Unlike genes,

These are malleable and responsive.

And I personally have never measured my telomeres and never will.

I don't want to know.

I just know what I'm supposed to do.

I agree.

I would never want to know,

Even if I knew how to measure it,

But you do measure in other people,

Correct?

We do in these studies.

And because it's not a diagnostic measure,

We don't typically tell people what their telomeres are.

We just look in a more statistical way across a large sample.

We know that people on the short end are more likely to get earlier diseases of aging.

And it's a complex system where if they're super long based on your genetics,

Then there's a risk for certain cancers.

So there's always complexity to biology where kind of moderation and not having extreme levels of anything is usually the healthier pattern.

And that's the case with telomeres as well.

And so when we do restorative things,

Do they increase in size?

Do they change or their health changes,

So to speak,

The health of the cell?

Do they structurally change as well?

They can.

They absolutely can.

And some of the intervention studies suggest that they can lengthen in short periods.

My own seasoned view after many years of studying this is that our methods of measuring them in an absolute way are just not accurate enough for an individual to learn from it.

And when we see lengthening,

It's probably just relative to the other group,

The control group,

That it looks like lengthening.

But what we're probably seeing is just the,

Is a stabilization of the telomere attrition or shortening over time.

So we've found in different clinical trials,

We've seen the lengthening with omega-3s,

With exercise in caregivers,

And with certain meditation retreats.

And so is it time sensitive,

This lengthening?

In other words,

I don't know how to formulate my question.

So if let's say you do restorative retreat or a bunch of things within a month period,

Is it immediately responsive?

Do you see immediate change?

You can see immediate change in the enzyme,

In the telomerase enzyme,

And in things like inflammation and in mitochondrial activity.

But the telomere doesn't change for months or years.

It's very much a slower maintenance system.

So that's why we tended to just measure telomerase in most of our early studies.

But what's so important is to just understand that when we take breaks,

Our body is shifting modes from the kind of energizing,

I'm going to say high arousal mode,

Which can be wearing when it goes on for too long,

To a mode where the body is basically realizing the safety of the situation and turning its functions towards housekeeping,

Cleaning,

Repair.

And if we don't get that every day,

Even a little bit,

That is the formula for chronic stress-induced wear and tear on our aging,

On our body.

And there are periods when we just,

We won't,

We're not going to be doing the self-care that we need to.

But there's,

So that's just the slings and arrows of life.

Sometimes we have these stressful events,

Everything goes bad.

You don't exercise,

You don't sleep well.

And that's normal.

We all go through periods like that.

But when we can have come back to this daily lifestyle of having these little tweaks,

These habits built in,

That is incredibly important,

Especially for parenting,

Because when we're parenting,

I mean,

It is,

I never want to think of it as a form of chronic stress,

But I will say that after years and years of studying parents,

Parents who are special caregivers,

Caregivers of children with special needs,

With health conditions,

With autism,

And parents of neurotypical children,

None of these parents are ever low stress.

It's very,

Very hard on our measures to find parents of young children who score low.

So parenting is just a high demand period.

And because our children are so sensitive to our emotions and to our levels of stress,

Even when we're not aware of it,

We're probably sending off signals in so many ways,

Like not paying attention to them,

Being more distracted,

Even in our voice modulation.

So our stress as parents has systemic effects on the child and on the family.

And so it's incredibly helpful to remember that it's like we're doing stress reduction for two or more,

That our ability to prioritize wellness,

Managing stress in the moment,

In these short periods during the day is a wonderful boost to parenting.

Whatever parenting strategy you're trying to do,

You're going to do better when you come from a more centered place.

You can see the child's needs,

You can respond to them with much more of an ability.

It's more giving place than.

.

.

Oh,

Absolutely.

Yes.

And I would love to hear your thoughts on that,

Since that's so much a focus of your own therapy and in your podcast is thinking about how to be better parents.

How big of a role does stress play here?

How much do you talk about self-regulation of the parent?

Huge,

Huge.

I'm writing a book about this.

This is like my favorite topic.

Most parenting books are for parents to control children's behavior or get this,

Get that.

But I think to me,

The biggest one is the mental health of the parent,

The self-regulation of the parent.

Great parenting begins with that.

That is parenting.

And I love how you said,

Because the way you said you're taking care of not only when you do stress management,

You're not only doing it for yourself,

But this is for entire family or for your kid.

If you,

You know,

It's for everyone.

Obviously,

There's a lot of studies that I've come across during my research.

Number one,

Parents are less happier than non-parents in the United States.

We know this happiness gap and no wonder why,

Right?

It's demanding.

We have no help and it's constant and exhausting and draining.

Number two,

It's so important what you said about how children sense parental stress,

Even if we're not aware of it.

I think I talk about that a lot.

I read,

I think it's Dr.

Ed Tronick's research where they did this study where mom and baby are playing and before mom and baby play,

And maybe you're familiar with this.

So before mom interacts with her baby,

They give mom headphones to listen to crying baby's sounds,

Not her own,

But some other children's and it immediately creates distress,

But not like an extreme level of distress.

So visibly from outside,

You can't tell by looking at her face that mom is stressed out,

But clearly it's internally she's stressed out.

They videotaped the session and immediately the child becomes distressed.

So in the second situation,

They have mom listening to cooing,

Happy sounds of babies.

And obviously it's very nourishing and uplifting and very joyful.

And then they videotaped that interaction with baby and immediately there's attunement.

It's an amazing interaction.

So clearly,

Even little babies pick up the little nuances.

And in this case,

It wasn't even visible that mom was stressed out,

But most of us are,

Like in our modulation,

In our tone,

In our body language,

In our gestures,

When we're stressed out,

It clearly comes out in our ability to focus and be present.

And so I know of another study that surveyed children ages eight to 18,

And two thirds of them said that they were very aware of the parental stress.

They were stressed out often and more often because of their parent's stress.

So there's a lot of studies about this and I'm sure you're aware of a lot of them.

Well,

I'll add to that because it's so relevant.

My colleague at UCSF,

Wendy Mendez,

Published an experiment or a study called Stress is Caught,

Not Taught.

And of course it's also probably taught,

But the way it's caught is through non-verbally through the body.

So in this case,

Rather than having the mom hear headphones,

The mom was stressed out doing tasks and negatively evaluated in another room.

Baby didn't know that.

When she reunites with her baby and holds the baby,

Her stress physiology is transmitted to the baby.

The baby starts having more of a sympathetic response and lower heart rate variability.

So it completely attuned to the mom's stress level.

And then when the mom was relaxed in the other room and came out calm,

The baby's physiology mirrored the mom's.

But when the baby was put in a high chair,

They didn't catch the stress as much.

So there's something about the proximity,

Maybe the touch that was making it even more contagious,

The physiological synchrony between mom and baby.

Wow.

That's incredible.

That means we can use it positively in influencing our children,

Right?

When they are having a meltdown or they are dysregulated,

If we are in a calm state,

We can pass that calm onto them.

It's so incredible.

I just love that stuff.

And that applies to everyone in every situation.

I think children are the most sensitive and receptive to parents' affect and feelings of threat,

But we do that for each other too.

You can think of people that when you're around,

You don't feel at ease or they might be draining of your energy.

And so there's this energetic and physiological effect that we have on each other that we don't necessarily recognize or not aware of if we're not asking ourselves.

But it's good to ask yourself,

Who around you makes you feel supported,

Energized,

Calm,

And who has the opposite effect?

Yeah,

It's very informative for thinking about shaping our social environment to support us when we really need that.

Yeah,

I love that.

I would love for you to talk about the mind states,

The red,

Yellow,

Green,

And blue,

And we can talk about rest,

Restorative,

And what that means.

Yes,

I find the mind states helpful.

I think we certainly all have a felt sense of what stress is,

Particularly acute stress,

And what relaxation is.

There's all sorts of states within and between that we can be aware of and actually have more control of moving up and down that ladder of arousal as needed,

And not just being stuck on stress so much of the time.

And we most definitely are,

As parents,

As a society,

Feeling excessive levels of stress on many days.

And the surveys show this is increasing even pre-pandemic and especially now.

So it's just big red flags to me,

Given what we know about stress,

The vulnerability to disease and depression,

And especially in our youth,

This understanding that they're perceiving the global stress around them through the media and through their own personal life.

We've got to take it so seriously to try to create environments that help them protect them from those constant stress triggers and stimuli,

So that they're really living more in their body,

Doing things that are creative,

That are calming,

That are social.

So the mind states are,

In a simplistic way,

Trying to help us understand that red mind is a positive activated state that's great and healthy when we can turn it on and off and use it as needed.

And then this yellow mind state right below that is a little bit lower in physiological stress arousal.

And we might be stuck there for baseline.

We might be walking around with low levels of stress the majority of our time.

So that's the state that I work on a lot in the stress prescription book to help us hack at that,

To recognize unconscious stress when nothing's happening.

We don't need to be mounting a stress response.

Ways to bring that baseline down to a true relaxation baseline,

And that's green mind.

And green mind is a beautiful state that really changes everything,

Helps us,

Like you said,

Be generative and be available in our attention to other people,

To our children,

And to see the positive things around us.

Because when we're in this yellow mind state,

We're really vigilant and looking for the threats and the negative things.

Then there's blue mind states,

Which is yet even better than relaxation.

And those are deep rest states while we're awake.

We rarely get that.

Boy,

Does our body love that.

I've studied retreats and acute relaxation.

And as we were talking about before,

Within minutes of slow breathing,

For example,

We can shift the body into the restorative,

Reparative mode.

And the longer,

The longer,

The better.

So when we have periods of,

If we're so lucky to have a retreat where it's days on end of reducing the stress stimuli and work and focusing on really being in our body and learning more about our mind and regulating our thoughts,

Or at least being aware of them,

Developing our metacognition.

That to me is just magical.

I mean,

For me,

It's been a game changer.

I love retreats.

I try to go on them these days once or twice a year.

In the parenting years,

Of course,

It's harder to get away.

But the idea that we can build that in,

In even five minutes upon waking,

Be practicing these release practices,

Letting go practices,

So that we can get out of yellow mind and into green mind is very important.

And then mind-body activities,

Even if it's just once a week,

Can bring us to the more of the blue mind state,

Which is the deep rest.

And there are obviously individual differences,

Right?

What might be my green state may not be yours,

Correct?

That's right.

So there are different stimuli or different activities we can do that are going to work for some people and not for others.

So for many people,

Nature has a very powerful effect.

And for some people,

They don't notice the effect,

They don't seek nature,

But it might be a strategy they can develop.

And so that their green mind state is really induced easily once they're being immersed in even urban nature.

And that is largely about opening our sensory gates,

Really understanding that,

Like you described at the beginning,

Our mind-body system is so responsive to vast views,

Landscapes,

Changing our perspective,

This really,

This aperture of our focus is so often,

You know,

Right in front of us on screens or things that trigger the stress response.

But when we're in nature,

We're really changing up the stimuli.

And so by focusing on smells,

Touch,

The views,

And the ability to,

I guess,

Slow our breathing,

That just tends to happen naturally when we're in nature.

And so all of that together is the green mind effect.

And there's lots of data showing that reduces blood pressure and cortisol.

Yeah.

Then let's talk about some of the strategies that you cover in the book,

Which I really loved.

Maybe let's talk about from the beginning,

The beginning chapters,

Uncertainty,

Tolerance,

Developing that,

Which is pretty tricky,

I guess.

Especially during the pandemic,

It was very hard.

I did a lot of things,

Self-care things,

Nature,

All of those wonderful things that I'm aware of and that they are usually helpful.

But even then I was feeling long-term,

It was impossible to deal with the uncertainty for sure.

And how can we develop?

And how do you feel you've changed your,

Yeah,

With uncertainties,

Just inherently challenging.

It was very challenging.

And at some point I was getting even panic attacks,

Honestly,

No matter how much self-care and nurturing things I was doing,

Sensory breathing,

Walking,

Exercise,

Talking,

Eating well,

There comes a point where your old traumas,

Your old stuff also reactivates with this new and it becomes a little too much.

And you do talk about the baseline,

Right?

Some of us have maybe short tail of ears,

I don't know,

We come from a trauma background and don't have stress resilience built in,

And we can cope with day-to-day things just fine.

But when the big things happen like the pandemic,

It can be hard.

And especially for a sustained period,

You're constantly maintaining and coping and doing things that becomes exhaustive too.

I feel like it was just too long of a process.

Yes.

And of course we're still somewhat in it.

And so we're all more stress sensitive.

We're all feeling a little bit more vigilant,

Reactive,

And we can feel the uncertainty,

Right?

Used to be just theoretical.

We know that the future is uncertain at some level inherently,

And that's how it's always been.

But now we can't even write plans in pen because there's so much uncertainty with weather,

With climate events,

With COVID or other issues.

Things feel more uncertain.

And that's really hard,

Especially for some people.

So this feeling of being able to tolerate uncertainty or relax into it is a skill we can build.

It's a muscle.

And the more we have that,

The more we're going to be stress resilient when acute things or traumatic things happen.

So during the pandemic,

We measured this sense of tolerance to uncertainty.

And just as we would expect,

It predicted more,

Let's just say,

More equanimity during the pandemic and during the wildfires in California.

People who had a lot of intolerance of uncertainty.

So they get real tense when they don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow.

And other ways we measure this,

They had more of the traumatic thoughts or responses to the pandemic.

So we call that more PTSD symptoms,

More depression,

More climate distress.

So being able to tolerate uncertainty is such an important difference or sensitive temperament that we have just to be aware of that and to treat ourselves with humor and to reassure ourselves that this is our immediate reaction is to tense up when we feel that we don't have control,

When we have all that uncertainty.

And that is a,

You know,

Step one is awareness.

Okay,

This is,

I'm stress sensitive in this way,

Or other ways being stress sensitive,

Like having early trauma.

But just knowing that is such an empowering strength because then it means,

Okay,

My immediate reaction might be to panic.

It might be to have this excessive cortisol response,

But then I get to choose,

Then I can laugh at myself and comfort myself and apply self-compassion because that's what stress sensitive people need.

And if they're recognizing that and allowing themselves the extra self-care,

The time,

The skills,

The space,

Then really that is one of the most stress resilient ways we can be.

So rather than saying,

Well,

I'm not stress resilient because I've had trauma,

It's wonderful to say,

Well,

I have a need of X and Y,

This amount of time each day for self-care,

Or when things get tough,

Making sure that you're assertive in getting your needs met,

Which might be seeking support,

Letting others know that is just such a powerful way to deal with a stress sensitive temperament,

Especially as a parent,

Right?

Because you know that you're stressing for two in a way.

I was talking to a mom this morning and she said that,

From her description,

It sounds like she's in burnout.

She's a mom of four children and they all are neurotypical,

Not neurotypical,

Neurodiverse,

And they have different issues and they've been home and sick and lots of issues.

School is calling,

Pick up your kids,

Suspensions.

And it became just too much for this woman.

And she said that she started yelling and screaming and she created this chaotic scene and then she drove off for five hours and then came back later.

And when we were talking,

She's like,

Why didn't I just leave?

Why did I create that chaos if I knew that leaving would help me?

She's like,

I don't want to do that,

Create that scene,

That emotional dumping and screaming before I take care of myself.

And I thought that was so acute of her,

This awareness that we don't have to wait until things are that dire.

If you know that driving off for five hours,

Maybe communicate that and just do that,

Right?

But it's so hard in the moment.

Oh,

Yes.

I mean,

That's just a great example of that emotional reactivity or being high on emotional impulsivity.

That's the tendency to act in extreme distress states.

And it is possible that the positive stress to the body can be so helpful in those states.

So as someone who has taken the dialectical behavioral therapy class many times for not because I'm a clinician,

But for family reasons,

I have always been fascinated with how that set of strategies,

Body-based strategies,

Are one of distress tolerance strategies are the first things they teach even for children,

For adolescents.

And the first go-to strategies as if it's psychological first aid,

It's really stressing out the body quickly.

Maybe it's cold ice,

Ice on the face,

Or push-ups,

That kind of ability to use your aerobic capacity to burn off extra stress hormones.

It can be very powerful in the moment if people will try it and choose it.

It's sometimes,

Especially with kids,

They're not willing to,

But it's another tool in the toolbox for those intense emotional states that can help us burn it off instead of act it out.

Excellent.

Yeah,

You do talk about cold exposure in your book,

Which I found interesting.

You talk about Wim Hof method,

And it reminded me of my dad when he was young.

I lived in the Soviet Union at that time.

He would go outside in the snow and just bathe in the snow,

Just tumble in the snow,

Or there was cold water,

Like a fountain,

Natural.

He would go under this and everybody was always surprised.

I'm like,

Wow,

This was interesting.

But it's becoming very popularized now,

The cold exposure.

But can you say a few words about that,

How effective it is and what it does?

Fascinating.

Some people are drawn to that and it works for them.

That's just beautiful.

For example,

Cold showers,

Particularly in the morning because it's so alerting and arousing,

That is creating an immediate stress response,

But then an immediate recovery too.

We call that hormetic stress.

It's those short,

Repeated stressors that we think are particularly good for stress resilience,

Getting us out of that yellow mind state where we're carrying around stress.

So having a habit of that.

Now,

I personally hate cold and many people do.

Heating up is a similar hormetic stressor.

And there's an emerging science on sauna or hyperthermia using infrared sauna as a lifestyle,

At least several times a week.

That also looks like it's both good for the body and aging,

But also for depression and mental health.

So either there's lots of ways to create this short-term stress states in our body,

Intense yoga.

There's also the Wim Hof breathing,

Which is also an intense way to shake things up,

Create a sharp,

Short-term stress response,

And then that recovery.

And lots of people love that.

I've noticed,

Especially men,

They kind of turn toward the hormetic stressors.

And I think that's wonderful for us to kind of celebrate and document the mental health benefits of that.

So in a study that we're still writing up,

We found that relaxation and slow breathing were very effective for reducing stress,

Anxiety,

Just doing it daily in the morning,

10 or 15 minutes for a few weeks.

But doing a seven minute workout,

So a high intensity interval training just on an app,

Those are easy to find,

Or doing the Wim Hof method,

The cold showers and the extreme breathing were equally effective.

And in some instances,

More effective depending on what we're looking at.

So again,

Back to your first question of like,

Which is more powerful?

They're both powerful,

Depends on the person,

What they're going to do regularly,

But trying both the low arousal and the high arousal,

Even if it's for five minutes at a time,

I think are a wonderful way to build in these little blips of stress resilience within the day.

Stress resilience is built on lifestyle.

It's built on habits.

So if the person's baseline or the person is in a yellow state,

Creating this,

Stressing the body with a high interval training or cold shower,

Which is creating a new stress,

How is the previous state level with this new one?

I mean,

I'm a little confused.

Do we go to our baseline again,

Or this is effective,

The short term burst of stress?

Right,

Right.

It's a good question.

We think that we are able to change our baseline,

The level of stress we carry around in our nervous system,

If we're doing these strategies on a somewhat regular basis,

So that we're reducing the level of subtle chronic stress that might be even unconscious.

And so the idea of the hermetic or positive stress is that we create a stress response,

It's short term,

And then the magic happens during recovery.

And then the baseline should be lower,

Especially if we're doing these things repeatedly.

So during recovery from acute stress,

We're turning on all these counter-regulatory stress responses.

And in the case of exercise,

We're turning on a lot of growth factors,

Restorative factors,

Brain derived neurotrophic factor,

Or insulin-like growth factor.

These are factors that create,

I guess,

Neurogenesis,

We could say,

In the brain.

These are factors that are improving brain health as well as cellular health.

So we're changing brain health and mood,

As well as physical health.

When we do these types of short-term stressors,

Of course,

Exercise is easiest,

Everyone knows it,

Everyone knows what it is,

And knows it's good for them.

But we tend to think,

Oh,

We need to do endurance exercise,

We need to exercise for 45 minutes,

Three times a week,

Or we're just going to be unfit.

But the truth is that the short-term stressors,

Even if you have five minutes or even lifting weights,

Especially as we age,

These have dramatic benefits.

And we should take those opportunities and not think that even if it's just five minutes,

It's not enough.

It's pretty fascinating.

So it's not avoiding stressors,

That shouldn't be our strategy for dealing with stress.

We can never get rid of stress.

We have to develop better coping mechanisms and also resting.

I would love to.

.

.

You already spoke about,

But I want you to highlight that taking breaks is not the same as restorative rest.

There's relaxation and there's deep restoration.

Taking breaks is what most of us need more of during the day,

Especially parents.

And those short breaks,

I mean,

I loved how you described breathing.

I also think breathing is miraculous,

Like direct path to slowing the body stress response.

And that changes the mind,

That creates the ease and the feelings of peace and the ability to connect with others better.

So breathing could be a number one go-to with the short breaks.

The deep restoration would be something more like meditation,

Yoga nidra,

A long yoga class with Shavasana,

Massage,

Something that allows us to really feel safe and not worry about doing things.

So we kind of enter this receptive passive mode,

Unless it's physical.

Like often these are turning on the intensity with yoga,

For example,

It's on off in terms of the effort we're using.

But that's the beauty that I've been trying to talk about is that it's the short-term stress,

The recovery,

Short-term stress recovery.

We have to have the recovery if we're going to be building stress resilience and building health.

And it's very easy to over-train because people don't take enough recovery.

They think that's kind of an example of using too much of the aerobic fitness that actually can shorten telomeres,

At least in the muscle when we over-train,

Where we don't have the periods of recovery and repair.

Wow.

It's funny you say that.

I know someone who is really doing this high intensity,

Not high intensity,

Endurance trainings and things like that.

And she looks so much older than her biological age.

And I always thought,

Wow,

Isn't exercise supposed to make you feel and look younger?

I was always thinking about that,

But that makes sense.

We do need to recover for sure.

You can't have that stress response on for a long time.

But doing it,

Like you said,

The mindset is important.

So we're going to have stressors every day.

We're going to have big things happen.

And you might think of it as waves in the ocean.

We're always going to be,

If we focus on it,

Anticipating a wave or recovering from a wave,

But it's the ability to relax between the waves and recover that is often what we're missing so that we can break up chronic stress and make it much more a fun game of,

Okay,

This is what I need to do right now.

And stress is good for me in the thick of stressful things.

I'm mounting this response and my body loves it and it's helping me.

So those thoughts about the positive benefits of the acute stress response turn out to be very important and in a way,

Self-fulfilling prophecy so that we actually do recover more quickly when we have those thoughts.

Yeah,

I found that very intriguing and interesting.

And I had interviewed someone during the pandemic about anxiety and she was saying the same about anxiety,

That when you reframe and approach anxiety as,

You know,

This is going to be beneficial.

I thought that was silly,

But when I read your research,

It totally made sense.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

You're such a wealth of information and I love how you deliver this information with such clarity and so practical and doable for many people.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your work.

I really hope this helps parents.

It's,

You know,

The most noble and important job that we have as parents.

I mean,

It's such an important job to be parents and it's so hard and we need all the help we can get.

So thank you for your work reaching so many people.

Thank you.