Slay Your Paper Tigers

paper cuts and just ripping you to shreds. That's about right, yea, yeah, And it's kind of a stand in for for many different things. Historically, a paper tiger was a stand in for a country that really had sort of no political might, but posed a threat or was trying to pose a threat. But then it's been sort of h used in the vernacular to mean like some sort of threat that that doesn't really um have any physical manifestation, and yet it

can't help but chew your brains out. Yeah, I mean, especially if you if you go ahead and apply the actual paper aspect of this to paperwork. Um. As this podcast is coming out, we're smack dab in the middle of tax season, so you know, everyone's you know, even though there's less I guess paper involved in it if you're doing it online, but still all the paperwork of getting your taxes in like that is a huge paper tiger because you have you know, we were talking about

this yesterday. It's it's not only the stress of the moment. It's like an entire year, maybe an entire life's stress uh about money and about finance and about your your very spending habits and uh and your life choices, you know, houses, uh, your marital status. All of these things just wound up into one confusing task and if you get it wrong, then if you mess it up, then you end up having to pay more money or you go to jail.

It's it can be a high stress situation. Well see, that's the thing about these paper tigers is that they do cause stress. And just even saying taxes, I noticed this, um, and maybe it's because I've had too much coffee this morning, but my palms are beginning to sweat because I'm starting to think about the anxiety that I've had before and trying to do my taxes. And as you mentioned, if you mess up WOA, that that can be like a

year long nightmare to try to repair. Yeah. Yeah, so that is what we are talking about today, because this is very interesting. This this lightning fast physiological response that comes from from the paper tigers you know, real or imagined and really having their um beginnings and real tigers

like saber tooth tigers. Right, yeah, because again we this is one of those examples where we we go back to a mythical prehistoric plane, you know, where primordial humans are hanging out and occasionally savory thooth tigers jump out and eat them. Um, you know, ignore the actual archaeology of of this example, but it's you know, the idea that there was a time when humans didn't have it knocked and that every day was a life and death battle with the environment and a predator could just decide

to eat. And this is something called the stress response. Right, It's really important to have the stress response, particularly in this example. So what is happening when you're having this kind of response, Well, your heart rate just goes bananas, right, goes up, your blood flow increases, your digestive system actually begins to shut down because uh, you know, you don't want to be digesting something you want to use that

energy to confront the problem in front of you. Same thing with your immune system that gets repressed because again, the bigger threat is in front of you, not some sort of germ that your immune system is trying to fight off. So temporarily your body says, hey, immune system, you can knock it off for a couple of minutes. Why we're trying to figure this out. And then I think this is so cool. Your eyes, the pupils in your eyes actually dilate, and they do this because they're

trying to take in more light. Because when they do that, you have this temporarily increased vision. So it's almost sort of like the super human moment that you have. And at last, just seconds all the settings changed. We go into this fear mode, this fight or flight mode. And we've discussed before we were talking about memory that even

even memory gets kind of twisted about. There's that the idea, you know that everyone thinks that they remember exactly what they were wearing and eating on Stay nine eleven, or they're you know, older when Kennedy was shot, but in reality, the brain kind of bypasses those memories and lets you not unless you makes you think that you remember those things, because ultimately the brain is saying, don't worry about your cereal, don't worry about what you're wearing. You're you're in a

stressed out mode. You need to worry about survival. Yeah, it's macro and up micro. We don't need to know details right now. We just need to know if this is a real threat in front of us, and that flight or fight is really defined by the adrenaline coursing through our bodies, the cortisol, which is the stress hormone that gets released. Um, you probably have heard these examples of a mother or father picking up a thousand or two thousand pound car to try to release their child

stuck underneath it. And that's that's a good example of this sort of superhuman strength or these abilities beyond ourselves that we can evoke when we are experiencing the stress response. So, yeah, your body charges up to to to fight something or to run away, to to take all of this this energy in these new settings and apply them to either beating the tar out of a saber tooth tiger or running as fast as you can so that does not

eat you. Yeah, and it's one of the reasons why humans have been so successful as a species because, um, you know, this allows us to have or to make rapid fire decisions and act on them, and a lot of times, particularly when we use that example from the past, saber tooth tiger, they can have life saving outcomes. All right. The problem with modern humans, I suppose you could say, is that stress can be bad when you have insidious

levels of it. And when I say insidious levels, I mean that our body doesn't distinguish between a real saber tooth tiger and well, to some degree, uh in a paper tiger, right, because the stress response is the same

no matter what. So if I have a deadline approaching, or this is a classic one, you think that you have sent an email to just one person and you have this paranoid feeling like, oh my god, I just sent it out to the entire company, and your your palms begin to sweat and your heart begins to beat fast. That's that is a reaction that that is over exaggerated, right for for the actual instance, but it still feels

like a threat. And this can be really dangerous to uh you know, long term to have this constant sort of low level stress about you. Um, as we had discussed in our episode about epigenome. These are the kind of thing stress that can flip the switches that um the switches that that control diseases or disorders, right, And I mean it has a big effect on your cardiac health, right because you've got inflammation in the arteries, You've got all sorts of things going on that stress can do

to your body. And I think this is kind of fascinating too, that increased cortisol levels which come from the stress response, can actually begin to affect insulin production, and that insulin can then make that decision about whether or not to burn off fat or to store it. So if you are at a constant low level of stress, it's a lot harder to lose weight because it's keeping

you know, all those fat stores in your body. Yeah, I mean it ultimately again comes down to this idea that all this stress builds up and then we're supposed to release that stress in the form of a fight or a flight, but we don't. But we don't. It's kind of like like if you imagine a situation where the tiger, the saber tooth tiger almost attacks a bunch of times, like you know, it's just kind of stalking toying with the prey down like when is it gonna attack?

When is it gonna actually when is the uh, when is this actually going to go down? And the stress keeps building and building. But then you know what if the tiger never attacks? Because yeah, I can't help but think back to our previous use of savor tooth tiger example, when we were talking about humor, the idea that that that laughter emerges when something that was perceived as a

threat is suddenly realized to not be a threat. And then what happens We laugh and it's and this is also this is interesting too because that when what is laughter? But this, this this full body experience. You could you could almost look at that as in a means of burning off some of the stress energy through the laughter, Like, oh, I can laugh about it now, But but where do you reach that point with some of these paper tigers. I mean, even after you send in your taxes, do

you ever really laughing and my taxes are off? That's great, They're done. I can laugh about it now. No, not necessarily, you're just trying to insert your laughter. Yoga agenda, I said, where we're going with us? No, after yoga agenda all right, let's take a quick break and we get back. We will talk about bosses who attack. All right, we're back, and we've been talking about you know, what happens when

there's a perceived threat. We build up all that stress in your body, and then, as an organ isn't we're supposed to then release that stress by either fleeing from the thing that is endangering us or fighting the thing is endangering us. But what happens when that the thing that is giving us all this stress cannot be fled from and cannot be directly opposed. What if it's something like your taxes or um or just like a like a massive amount of paperwork you have to get done.

Or what if it takes an actual, like human physical embodiment in the form of your boss, Right, yeah, I mean, because really, if you could fight your boss, you could you could run from your boss. You could quit your job and move to a different city never see that boss again. Both of these options are on the table. But generally speaking, within a society, within within a culture,

we have all these weird rules. You know, when you lay culture over any kind of biological reality, all these complications come up, So you end up in the station with situation where you're like, my boss is my enemy. I want to fight him or her, I want to flee from him or her, But neither of those are an option because I need a job and this is this is where I am, this is maybe this is who I who I am? You know it's so it's

you can't take you to those options. Yeah, And the funny thing is, it's like your boss has a boss too, and it's experiencing the same thing when his boss or her boss comes and stands over him or her and begins to take off a to do list right or to say, you know, when something got screwed up, you began to feel that stress response, because again, it doesn't matter if it's a real saber tooth tiger or your boss just looming over you. You know that that you

began to get anxious about the situation. UM. So, of course there are things you can do here other than actually going mono mono with your boss, which, as you

pointed out, is probably not a good idea. UM. You've got to have some sort of release, and we've talked about a release in the form of meditation before or yoga after yoga, but for my money, I have to say that I think that exercise, that burst of energy that you talked about when you think about our our ancestors running from a saber tooth tiger, that I think

is is the thing that is most helpful here. Yeah, I mean, because your body wants to run, So get on a treadmill, run a little bit, you know, well, and you've got a chemical cocktail and your body swirling around with no outlet. Right, So that's why we get this low. Look. You know, the threat may have disappeared, but later on you're still stuck with the effects of stress. So if you can burn off those chemicals in the form of exercise, well then you've just accomplished the same

thing as is running from sabertooth tiger. Yeah. So high intensity exercise it's a good way to handle it. Also, sleep, a good night's sleep a good way to do it. I mean we've all had that situation. I mean, hopefully we're all at a point where we realized that if you're stressed out about something that might be a little silly, uh, like Monday night, go to sleep and see if it's still bothering you Tuesday morning. This is I highly recommend you have a nasty email you're about to send out

to somebody. Let it, let it set, let's let it wait till the next day to actually send it and see if it's still as important, uh, twenty four hours later. It's true because the idea here is that you just want to lower your blood pressure and and return to normal and get out of that heightened state in whatever way that you can. So again, it makes sense to me to just do something for for thirty minutes to

burn off those chemicals. And by the way, studies have shown that when you do this um this regular exercise, that also helps to control stress in future episodes, so you don't have an over exaggeration or as much um response to whatever stimuli it is in front of you. Yeah.

I've also wondered what if, to what extent violent video games or even just mildly violent video games provide some sort of outlet like that as well, because if we're building up this feeling off we need to fight something, then maybe maybe it does bode well to then go home and shoot a bunch of robots. I don't know. Yeah, but then you don't have the physical express right, you're still if anything you maybe just massaging that that feeling a little bit when it really needs to be throw hold.

Do you think that we could institute HSW dance offs in the office to release our stress? I think it would. It might stress out some people, that's true. I don't know, you know, everyone has their their different release, but I mean I for my own part, I definitely see like a big difference. Uh. Ever, since I started doing yoga regularly, I have found that, like if there's a week that goes by where I don't actually make it to yoga, like my stress level all week is just a little

higher for not having that that release. Well, we had talked about the default mode network too, and that's really at play here because it's that chattering midline of the brain that you have to quiet. So if you can do that through yoga or meditation, then you can help to tamp down the respect response to stress as well. Um, but again, exercise too quick way just to blow it out of there. Yeah yeah, I mean you don't you know, it could be as simple as a quick dance off.

It could be as as simple as get up, go outside, walk around the building, come back in, you know, just do something to to burn off some of that that fight or flight chemical cock hailed that's brewing inside you. Those are just a couple of ways to shred those paper tigers. All right, let's call the robot over here and get some quick listener mail. Alright, the two that come to us today here These are actual, actually Facebook messages.

The first one comes from anonymous anonymous right sentences, Hello, Robert and Julie. I love your podcast. I like to share with you a response to your regurgitation celebration podcast. It really helped me accept that vomiting is a natural part of life and can actually be beneficial depending on the circumstances. Unfortunately, vomiting for me is maladaptive. I have panic disorder and o c D, and I inevitably vomit in response to a panic attack. My panic attacks are

only perpetuated by the fear of vomiting in public. As a result, I obsess about vomiting of the day. Cognitive behavioral therapy has helped me manage the disorders. I just wanted to drop you all align and let you know that your regurgitation episode has given me a new outlook on vomiting and makes me feel less alone when I

do vomit from a panic attack. Sincerely, Anonymous. Well, that's that's really good to hear, you know, to to whatever extent, you know, any of the information that that we share through the podcast, can you know, provide individuals with you know, slightly different you know, hopefully more positive outlook on the body, on their behavior, on the world around them, because regretation is really, at the end of the day, a defense system, right, So yeah, it's gone a little bit of a rye

in that case, but to know that it is a defense system is is I think comforting. Yeah. I feel like when I was younger, I definitely, you know, I was just scared of vomiting. I was just like it would just freak me out. But then the last the last time or two that I got really sick, I I realized this is going to happen and probably feel better for it. It's going to be disgusting, but I'm gonna feel better. And it's you know, my body wants to vomit, so I should want to vomit. So there

you go. It's kind of long, but I think it would work. We also heard from a listener by the name of Andrew. Andrew Wrightson and says love the show. Have you guys done a show on the pulsebo Effet, I'd like to hear your take on the topic. Keep up the great work. And yes, we did do an episode in the Placebo Effect titled The Placebo Effect colon Brain over Pain, and that was published in two thousand eleven. But but if you go to the RSS page for

our podcast, you can find it there in the list. Uh. And if you want to find that RSS link, it's always at the bottom of any blood post that we put up about the episode, so I just look for it there. But yeah, that was a cool episode, you know. Uh, speaking of paper tigers and stress. Sometimes I think about

that instance. Um, And I don't know if we covered it specifically in that episode the Placebo one, but I think about the person who was taking who was in a drug trial and they were taking the placebo, but they knew about the side effects, and they had taken those side effects us to hurt so much so that they ended up at the emergency room in horrible health because their body began to shut down. Yeah, and I think it's just so powerful that the you know that

the brain the mind over matter. Yeah, I mean with the paper tigers, you end up almost feeling the possible negative outcome to whatever you're doing. If you start thinking about how did I send that email out to the entire company or just to my friend? Do you really start experiencing the reality. But like physically of having sent that out to all these people, you start putting yourself

in a virtual fear environment in your own mind. Yeah, and just like this little death that you begin to experience, I think you're experiencing yah, and not the good kind. So yeah, that was another episode. So hey, if you guys would like to reach out to us and uh share some thoughts on this or other topics, we'd love to hear from you. What are your paper tigers, um, and then how to what extent have you been able

to defeat them? Let us know. You can find us on Facebook, you can find us on tumbled We're stuff to blow your mind on both of those. You can find us on Twitter where our handles blow the mind, and you can also drop us a line at below of the mind at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works dot com.