45: Reducing Anxiety Through Play

lot of things. He's an author, speaker, teacher, entrepreneur, marketer, advisor, and even a horror movie actor or all those things correct, Charlie the horror movie actor. I was in a horror improv play. Yes, that's why Mailcake and I will redo that. And even a horror movie improv actor okay. For three years, he was Tim Ferriss's protege and director of special Projects.

His seventeen minute talk at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University about the New Way to Work has been viewed more than eighty thousand times, which is eighty thousand times more than my TEDx talk was viewed two thousand and nine, he self published a thirty page guide called Recession Proof Graduate and his latest book is Played Away at Workaholics Cure for Anxiety. Great to have you on the show, Charlie. Yeah,

thanks for having me, Scott. It's an honor. Yeah. So you're doing some You're doing a lot of really exciting things. So we have a bunch of stuff to talk about today. I wanted to start with understanding a little bit about your the genesis of how you got to where you are today. You know, you've worked with a lot of best selling authors such as Tim Ferriss and Tucker Max, and I do wonder why them, you know, why were

you attracted to them in the first place. I mean, you could have probably sought out anyone to be a director of special projects. Why them? Well, I can give you kind of the surface level answer and then maybe the deeper answer, which like a therapist or a psychiatrist might give. So the surface level answer is I really enjoyed the writing, and they were entrepreneurs that they had an autonomous lifestyle, They did their own thing, and to me, I envisioned if I was going to be in their

shoes and live the life that they live. I would be pretty happy with that, you know, with some modifications. But it seemed like they had lifestyles and careers that I could be happy with myself. So I ended up working with remat Safety, then Tucker Max, then Tim Ferriss and Tim Ferriss for the longest and most intensive as this full time employee, and it was amazing because I got to sample basically what it's like to be those

guys and learned a ton from all of them. The deeper answer, I suspect would probably be because I had an aversion to the traditional nine to five, which I think a lot of people do, but I in particular dreaded the idea of just wearing a suit, going to an office from eight to five every day and doing

something that I didn't care about. I kind of got a glimpse of that a few times, and I just I knew I was a creative person, and I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a creator or an inventor, or someone who builds stuff for a living and gives it to other people. So, well, that's a good answer, I mean, then these are good role models for you. Then for those sorts of things for sure. And you are a very autonomy driven individual.

I mean that's obvious. I don't think that you're desiring to really perhaps ever have a boss, is that right? Or I've a job. I'm definitely much more open now because because I like the idea of working with the team, and I've tried myself to be the one who simultaneously builds the team while running the product vision and I'm

just not that great at doing both. And so I'm totally open to working with a team that already has their own product or their own business going, if it means surrounding myself with people who are really really sharp and great at what they do. So tell me your anxiety story. Well, I mean I could figure out it. Let me see that. You know, I personally have suffered from anxiety in my whole life as well, and you

know I could resonate very much. And I you know, I bought your ebook and have even found your e book very helpful. So tell our listeners a little bit about that story. Well, yeah, before I get into it, what has it been like for you? Like what spurred you to ultimating my nails? Right now? Have you ever picked your nails? Is that ever manifest in that way, not not in that way, manifests in other ways. Yeah,

I'm very like antsy, you know. But yeah, it's it's it's been hard for me to live in the moment, and I feel very if I like mindfulness meditation very I find it very uncomfortable. Yeah, that's really common. Actually, Yeah, and even though I teach it, like I start off my positive psychology class that pen with a mindfulness meditation for the students, and I find actually that relaxes me very much for teaching the rest of that class. But

what do you think makes you anxious? I've never had an interview before where the person started asking me questions. This is cool. Yeah, so a podcast interview where I'm interviewed someone else? Yeah, what makes me anxious? You know? I wish I knew that. I mean, I know that there's a temperamental sort of thing there. I mean, there's there's some genetics that certainly plays some sort of a role. You know. I remember as early as can be, you know,

from the age of two. You know, I used to like have some like OCD type things where I had to like before I went to bed, like tap things before I could go to bed and yeah, I've always had a lot of it. I had like existential when I was very very young and things like that. So I think there's a precombination there of environmental and genetic factors. Yeah. So with the genetics, I think people can tend to get hung up on oh, this is just the way I'm built, sure, and then hang their hat on that.

But over and over it's shown that that's usually a small percentage. It's for sure there, but it's always malleable what you become, right, So on some level, yeah, not infinitely valuable, no, no, yeah, but about fifty percent of the differences in neuroticism is explained by differences in genes, so that can't be ignored. But yeah, absolutely, you're right. Gene genetics doesn't mean emmaluate, It doesn't mean that it

can't be changed at all. Right, Yeah, I mean you see it in other species too, Right, It's a lot of the time it's the personality of the animal or the mammal or whatever that some are more neurotic than others, some are more anxious than others, and it's for genetic reasons and stuff. But a lot of what we deal with in terms of mental illness, which has been on

a steady incline since the nineteen fifties. I think, and this was what I touched on in the book, is I think in researchers that study this stuff also think that the strongest correlation tends to be the erosion the decline of free play in our culture. And since the fifties, they've asked kids basically the same question of do you

feel in control of your life? Stuff like that that kind of assesses the child's their perception of the world in their own feelings of control, and symptoms of major depression have risen eight x. The amount of kids or the rate of child suicide has gone up four times since the fifties, and it continues to climb, especially in

college campuses. Right. Yeah, So there are a number of factors, obviously that you can point to, But to me, the simplest solution seems to be to ad play, which is having fun with your friends, moving, doing things that make you laugh and strengthen your social bonds. Because we do right now, what can we do right now to play? Right now? What can we have best? I mean, we could play rock paper scissor you could tell me a story.

Of actually your favorite childhood games that you played when no adults were judging you or telling you to do. I used to daydream a lot, and I don't know if that's like I used to play in my head my own head. Does play have the Does it always have to require other people? No? It doesn't. But for getting over I think, uh specific mental illnesses. I think the most helpful types of play tend to be with other people in where you're either running around playing a

game outdoors or you're creating something with them. So whether that's I mean, for autistic kids, they use Lego sets to help them lower their autistic score on the spectrum, they have them build legos together. For even executives in business who are stressed out, they'll have them play legos together. They'll have them do improv games together, so loosen them up and to get them bonding and collaborating with people on an equal playing field, so to speak. So you

went right to the play thing. I was slowly going to build up to the Oh yeah, Sunseline. But that's great. Now, that's good. Let's just dive right into that, because you would say that you've showed quite a transformation from the most like, tell us, like the height of your anxiety, Like what was going on that time in your life, and tell us what you're like today these days. Yeah, the height of my anxiety was not a pleasant period of my life. I uh sorry to hear that. I

know how much how terrible it can be. Yeah, yeah, well yeah, So there were a number of things going on, so at that time, I severely burned myself out. I was pulling all these all nighters and stuff in secretly taking these really strong smart drugs that I'd ordered from out of the country, secretly to just be great at my job. And I went through a period where I was just working, working, working until late hours of the night, waking up early the next morning to do it all

over again, and it just didn't stop. I'm getting nervous just hearing this anxious. And when I was in San Francisco, that's kind of the culture there. You know, everybody's hustle, hustle. There's a lot of money on the line in circuit.

There wasn't a lot of money on the line in my case, but I felt like I was very important, and so I actually had to quit working with Tim because I was so burned out, and I also had, you know, a close friend of mine attempted suicide and a family member died, and this book deadline got pushed way back, all in the same weekend. And after that, I worked for a startup and we did really well. But I started having panic attacks during that time, where

you know, you're staying up. It was late at night, I was in my room, and you get these sensations that your mind starts telling you that you're dying, that you are going to die, and that you're going crazy. And because you're in an anxious state of mind, you take those thoughts totally serious and they're not funny. They're actually really terrifying. And you know, there were a lot of things that were creating this conditions for this behavior.

But I remember the peak for me was when my girlfriend at the time said to me, she said, Charlie, what happened to you? You know, you're not the guy that I met all those months ago. And I hadn't said anything because it was kind of a shame to feel the way I felt, right because I'm a guy raised in America, I was, I think a little embarrassed of not having my life together. And I told her I said, for the first time to anybody that I felt dead inside all the time and I didn't know

how to fix it. And she started crying, and I remember being very jealous that she was able to cry because I couldn't cry. Not that I was like holding back, but I was like, I physically can't cry, and it's like been conditioned out of me or something. So you've

experienced this, Oh yeah, I know. You mean. I think a lot of people far more that they want to admit out of shame, probably got their peers in their life where they feel like they're lacking meaning or they feel like they're particularly stressed where you feel that feeling it like dead inside. I think that that sort of that dead inside feeling is like, you know, this kind of temporary state of it's it's a signal, right, it's telling it yourself you need to find to fill up

the Yes. Yes, that's brilliantly put right. Anytime that your body starts sending these signals out to you, when your body flashes out these signals that may not be so pleasant, these are early signs that you're doing something wrong and you need to slow down and take care of it or allow those feelings to pass through. Sadness is not something to feel ashamed of or to reject. It's something that your body is experiencing for a reason. Absolutely, And I mean you can give a lot of hope here.

Tell us what's the changes you made in your life? And I mean right now, do you do you feel dead inside? Right now? I mean like like you've completely you transformed, right like you It was a process. It wasn't overnight. But what are you like right now? You know I'm much better? You know there have been things that you know, even recently that I'm like, wow, this is still unfolding as a process, not with anxiousness, but

stuff that maybe I repressed or whatever. But I went through a period where I felt like I was in my own living hell. And now I don't feel like that at all. And I haven't really experience that at all since writing the book and the things that really led up to it. I think we're ultimately a handful of things which were abuse of stimulants and like drugs like coffee. There are tons of coffee, those drugs that

keep you awake. It's so abusing sleep, falling way out of rhythms with how we naturally are supposed to sleep, falling way out of getting enough sunlight and getting enough movement, and getting enough social interaction, like real interaction, not just typing up people through a screen, absolutely, but good quality time with your friends. And the real thing that kind of set me free was when I read doctor Stuart

Brown's book called Play and realize. You know, that book kind of talks about how essential play is to humanity, to all humans, and how we use it from a very early age as a survival is something that allows us to bond with people, with other people easily, to learn skills, to explore our environment. Like it's a very essential thing for all humans. And if you deprive mammals of play, of the act of play, they will become

socially and emotionally crippled. And I realized I was constantly preventing myself from playing or even being in a playful mindset, because my mindset shifted to being very serious, being about status, being about making money, and very focused on outcomes rather than just doing stuff for the sake of doing it, which is, you know, you can't completely be that way, right, You can't just be an artist who lives off in the woods, and does stuff for the sake of things,

like you have to be a responsible human being, but at the same time, you can't scrub the joy out of everything in your existence and treat life like a road spot. And that's that's what I really realized, was my goodness, I'm just treating this. I'm treating life as a joyless grind. And you really hit the nail on the head with a defining play as this intrinsic aspect, because a lot of play researchers do say that's a defining characteristic of play is that things are not done

as a means to an end. And there's a lot of these related ideas in the positive psychology literature like flow as well. Do you find that when you're in the flow state your anxiety goes away as well? Yeah? And play to me is like the easiest way to create flow, right, is like you tend to get lost in the moment when you're having fun and there's this process of maybe I'm learning something or I'm challenge myself, or there's timelessness enters into the equation. So yeah, I yeah,

So it just dawted me. Is that how you got involved in the comedy improv because improv is such a great performer play. Yes, yeah, so what I did, and I think anybody can do this. This is why I asked you that question. Is what I did was I sat down and I did my play history. I really journaled and thought about what were the things that I did when I was a kid that I repeatedly turned to and voluntarily did without any adults telling me to

do that thing? Because most of us remember school right as our childhood, and adults telling us what to do or even organize sports and adults telling us how to play, those aren't really free forms of play. So what were the things that you and your friends did? And so I called up, you know, old friends of mine when I was a kid, and I asked, Hey, what were the main things? Like you remember all of you know us always getting into And the thing is that kept

popping up were I was always doing? A playing baseball. I loved playing catch. I loved playing with my dad, but also with my friends. You know, I would play home run derby in my backyard. I loved doing I loved filming sketches. I loved doing like sketch comedy with my friends. So basically, improv I loved building stuff. I love have a treehouse? Did he build a treehouse? I never had a tree Maybe it's not that that's a high compliment. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I had these hands, oh,

and pranks and practical jokes. These were just things that I just always did. And I was often getting in trouble sometimes for the franks and stuff. But you know, that's that's where I got my joy. That's where like a lot of those laugh until you cry and your stomach hurts moments came from was just hanging out with

my friends and getting into these nonsensical games. So when I started adding those back into my life into my schedule, I just thought, how can I add as much of this back in and keep it in my schedule so like I never mess it up or I never messed this up again. When I started adding it back into my schedule, I really immediately felt the effect for the first time, like, Oh, work doesn't feel like a chore anymore.

I don't dread life. I suddenly A'm flirting with cashiers and making jokes with people, And before that I was going through life just kind of and I'm writing nicer emails to people and just doing things more joyfully. And it truly was this crazy experience where I woke up one day. It was a few weeks after I'd started incorporating this in and I was like, I almost didn't notice that. I was like, wow, I feel great. I

don't feel a trace of anxiety anymore. And it was like this deep, deep knowing that it was gone and that I had my cure for it. Yeah, but you think it's a cure that would help a lot of people. Yes, yeah, yeah, I've seen it help a lot of people. So this is part of the story, right. I wrote a blog post about how this all happened and how it helped me. And I just wrote the post. I called it how I Cured my anxiety. I posted it, didn't think much of it. The post blew up. Still the most popular

thing I've ever written. Yeah, if you google cure anxiety, it's the first result that comes back for the past three years, even more like psychologists who study over doctor oz over health. Well that's not saying that much, but what I'm saying, even though the credible doctors, yeah, yeah, you know. And I didn't do anything to promote it.

It just struck a chord because I think so many people that especially anxiety sufferers, it's just are so frustrated with you know, conventional treatments that don't really help them be who they once were. You know, it might help them manage their symptoms of panic or a wrap the heart rate or whatever, but it doesn't address the underlying issues of feeling socially disconnected, of not feeling like yourself anymore, Like all the joy of your life has been sucked out.

And so this solution that I just have, it was very lucky to stumble upon. It works for the vast majority of people. I mean, I challenge my readers to do these, like, you know, go out and have fun with your friends, challenges, tell me how you feel before and after. Yeah, I mean, it gets read out of their symptoms and it doesn't cost them anything. It's immediate, absolutely, And it's a whole system, you know, a whole it's

a whole lifestyle change. It's not just adding play, but you know, changing your sleep, changing what you put into your body in terms of food. But you know, you even incorporate positive psychology interventions. I mean some things that I have my own students do, like write gratitude letters. And so that's great, That's really great, Charlie. So you think play can change the world. I think it can change how we respond to each other. It can change

the quality of our relationships. Right, it can change This is really where I see the power play. So my friend Gwen Gordon, she's a former Muppet designer for Sesame Street awesome, and she puts it so well. I love how she says it. She says, you know, we tend to raise our kids in such a way that they view the world as i've a proving ground or a

battle ground. And when you raise kids to think that the world is a proving ground where they constantly have to compete for their affection and prove that they're worthwhile, they react to the world very differently. Same thing with a competing ground. If they think everyone is competing against them, that they're in a battle, it changes how they work together,

it changes where they're going in life. Right. What she says is that when you raise kids to be secure in a culture of abundance, they tend to view the world as a playground. When you raise them in a way where they're constantly having to compete for affection, jumping through hoops. They tend to view the world as this is a proving ground. So right now, what we kind of see the world as is people view it as

a proving ground. You go through life, you have to earn a title, you have to get through this grade, you have to earn this your car, your house, whatever, and you're competing against everyone, the cultures and even other species of Sorry, I know I'm not explaining this well she she explained it distinction. I love that distinction. Yeah, she She talked about how you know with Bonovo's and chimps, for instance, I had an episode a couple episodes ago

about Panobo's. Was it with Isabelle Bennicky knows doctor Susan Block who she has to save the Panobo's campaign? Yes, yeah, Well they're very similar, but they evolved in different habitats basically, where with Bonovo's they're very playful. They evolved in abundance. They share everything, right, Chimps will kill each other and eat each other. They're very competitive because they evolved in scarcity, and when you look at certain cultures, they evolved in

scarcity as well. When you involve in scarcity, it forces you to adapt faster. You go out, you dominate, you collect, you don't share are you're much more competitive. But when you evolve in abundance, things are not as stressful. You tend to share. There's lots to go around, and those cultures tend to be very playful and very tightly bonded. Now the way the world is now generally right, there are a lot of exceptions to this, but there's a lot of abundance and a lot of in a lot

of in many parts of the world. Right. But to keep the old mentality of the battleground or the proving ground, it's kind of like you're operating on old, outdated programming that just doesn't help. So the shift that I hope we can make more and more is viewing the world as a playground and treating others from that place of play. Yeah, I like that. And you even host a recess for

adults along those lines, right, I do. I started that as an experiment a couple of years ago in Austin because I just wanted an excuse to go to the park basically, and it's just kind of it's slowly built, but now it's we tend to do once a week gatherings in fun places and do something playful, like in a couple hours, we're going to play at a Part three golf course, so a pitch and putt golf course.

What I'd like to do is evolve it a bit, to make it more into like creating recess for people who weren't expecting it, So going and playing like four square or something with in a business type setting or outdoors, you know where they might be walking through on a sidewalk and seeing if they'll they'll join it there or something. So we've been toying around with that idea, but we'll see. It's it's been fun. That's awesome. Yeah, you'd love. A friend of mine in New York City who started a

preschool for adults several lately. Well, you know, they sign up and they do what we do, all sorts of things that I haven't actually engaged in it yet, but I heard that they love it and they do all sorts of things like that you would do in preschool, like coloring books or like glue, lots of sparkles and things. Yeah, that reminds me of the poster that is like everything I needed to learn learn I learned in kindergarten. I mean I watched the top ten overall bestseller books or

the top one hundred on Amazon. Five out of ten of them over the last year were adult stress relief coloring books. You know, there's a real demand for that type of thing. Yeah, huge demand. People are super stressed and they want easy ways that are fun to alleviate that stress, for sure. And you also teach Montsori students,

you know, Montessori. From all my visits to Montessori schools, I've seen that they have an abundance of play in those schools, right, Yeah, definitely compared to traditional public schools. And I occasionally I was doing it much more regularly. I didn't as much as this last semester, but I was just going in and teaching entrepreneurship once a week to a local school, a local high school, and the

kids there definitely have a lot more autonomy. But I still think there's more room to loosen the grip and to let kids do their thing, for sure. But we could probably agree that Montessori is better than a lot of other alternatives, oh for sure. Yeah, So this has been a great interview. I want to end. I want to ask about why you like Crocodile Dundee so much, and he seems like a pretty chill guy. Man. I just love it, Like you just know Crocodile Dundee is

never going to a heart attack from stress. You know. He's just he's the most laid that guy. He's really friendly. I don't know, there's just something about He's one of those I watched There Will Be Blood recently, which is with Daniel Oh, it's so good. I love it. It's with Daniel day Lewis. And it was that movie and No Country for Old Men came out at the same time, and so they were competing for Best Picture, and No

Country for Old Men is a better story. But There Will Be Blood has amazing acting, and There Will Be Blood is like it's a beautiful film, but it's all about this one guy. He's just fascinating to watch in whatever he does. And that's how Crocodile Dundee is to me. It's like, you put this guy in any situation and he's just entertaining and and so so listeners aren't scratching their heads. I mentioned Crocodile Dundee in a newsletter. My girlfriend had never seen it, and I was like, what,

how have you never seen this great movie? It's so much fun. So we watched that the other day. Well, thanks a lot for chatting with me, Charlie. And you know, the more that you can interface with researchers on play and research and play can learn from you, I think this will will be a better place. Oh thanks, Scott, I appreciate it, man, And let me know if there's anything I can do to push this out or anything. And thanks for having me. Thanks Charlie. Thanks for listening

to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com