Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio Podcast.
This week's Thursday Therapy, we have doctor Adit, She's a Harvard physician nationally recognized stress expert. We also have my amazing fiance joining this Thursday Therapy episode. How would you say you'd handle stress? You're thrown that question and welcome to wind Down Baby.
How do I handle stress? I handle it deffinitely now as I've got older. I think, first of all, you can you become better to choose and what you stress over and the volume of things that you can stress over and what you can control. But I think taking time to yourself and even like I know it's cliche and it's overused, but meditation and breathing techniques really help
me in stressful situations. Like even in the moment of stress, whether it's a trigger of something, just deep breaths within that moment just help to calm me and control my emotions, which then helps control the stress.
It's interesting that you mentioned the age thing, because that was going to be one of my questions to her, because I feel like a lot of people even they say when you're an older parent, they you like, let's say a parent has a child at a young age and having an older age, Oh well you had a like for example, I'll say, like my dad was way less chill with my sisters as opposed to me. So it's it's interesting when we can handle stress better with age.
And I'm curious actually why that is, because you would think with age comes more stress.
I think you'll learn to prioritize what affects you, and maturity tends to do that, Like there'll be far more things will affect you, and now at the age of forty excuse yourself. Excuse yourself, at the age of forty, and there would have been in your twenties.
Yes, And there's also things that stress me out more now in my forties and in my twenties, like I have the weight of the world in forties, just you know, support in children, and so that stress is so different than when I didn't have that, you know, obviously that responsibility.
But that you now have the tools to manage it sure, Whereas if you had this responsibility, this amount of responsibility in your early twenties, you probably wouldn't have had the tools to manage it properly.
How do you think I handle stress?
I think you manage stress really well because you're I mean, there's so many, so many variants of stress, but you're so busy all the time, and you're constantly juggling everything podcasting, acting, marketing, stuff, influencing and stuff, so your plate's always full. So therefore, but I think you're really good on managing Okay, I'll allow this to affect me or I won't allow it to affect me, And like everyone, you have your moments,
but I think you handle and whether it's stress. I think there's a difference between stress and pressure, A big difference. Your pressure to get things done, your pressure to perform, your pressure to look after the kids. I think that's really different from stress.
Oh interesting, what do you tell me? What? Why?
Well, a pressure is mostly something that you put on yourself, like your pressures in life will be mostly the ones that you put on yourself.
But isn't that stress?
No, I mean, just about to speak to an expert on it, but I think there's a really big difference between pressure and stress. Pressure. You you can a lot of people thrive on pressure, but a lot of people will deem stresses onhealthy.
I guess I don't know them. What the difference is because it feels like the same to me.
It's totally different. And the professional world like the difference between pressure and stresses, Like I.
Get the pressure, like, Okay, I have to study all these lines. That's pressure. But to me that's also stress, Like I'm stressed to have to learn all these lines. I'm pressured to learn all these lines. It feels like to me, the same effect or the same weight.
I would say, I think there's a big difference.
So well, luckily we've got a stress expert that just jumped down the zoom. Let's get her on, Doctor Adit. I'm Janna. This is my fiance Alan.
Nice to meet you.
Hi, guys. I know all about you because I've been binging it your podcast for the past few weeks, so I am like, I'm a true fan.
It's very sweet, thank you, and I'm I'm excited to talk to you because we were just having a little bit of a conversation before you came on about stress, and you know, he was saying how pressure is different than stress, and I you know, I'm very happy to have you on because when he was saying that, I'm like, man, I get pressure and stress maybe being different, but it's
the same effect for me. So like if I feel like I was an example I was using, was I felt pressure to learn all my lines for the last movie I was in, but it was also stressful the same thing. So I guess what is your take on that pressure versus stress? And then yeah, then let's just dive into all of it.
That's a great place to start. So when you say pressure versus stress, what you guys are really talking about is that there are two kinds of stress and not all stress is created equals. So when you say pressure, you're talking about healthy, good stress. And then when you say stress, like most of us when we throw that word around, like I've had a stressful week or I've had a stressful day, what we're talking about is unhealthy stress. So there's two distinct types of stress, and they both
impact your brain and body in different ways. You know, healthy positive stress. In scientific terms, it's known as adaptive stress. We won't use too many scientific words. And then the unhealthy stress is known as maladaptive stress. Everything that moves your life forward was created because of a little bit
of healthy stress. So, like you said you were learning lines for your movie, or you're rooty for your favorite sports team, you make a new friend, get a new job, or a promotion, or a new movie role, or I don't know, buy a new car or a home, or planning for your next vacation. All wonderful positive things in your life, but they are stressful. Though they are a healthy form of stress. They help move your life forward.
Unhealthy stress is things that we already know about when we say, oh I'm so stressed, or it's a stressful week, that's that unproductive, dysfunctional stress that really stops you in your tracks. The goal of life is not to live a life without stress. That is a myth and it's actually biologically impossible to do that. It's to live a life with healthy, manageable stress. And what often happens is when healthy stress gets out of hand, it can become unproductive.
So it's about raining it in back to healthy levels so that I can serve you rather than harm you.
Mm hm that makes sense, yeah, absolutely absolutely? And how what are the key aspects for someone to know when stress becomes unhealthy? If you talk about healthy stress and unhealthy stress, what are the key the key points that then recognizing that okay, this is now unhealthy and it's halting me.
Yeah. So you know when you think about how stress or healthy stress influences your brain. When you're feeling a sense of healthy stress, right, it is like a sense of excitement or those healthy positive nerves. Excitement and fear reside in the same part of our brain, which is a good kind of reframe. When you're feeling like, oh, there's this new thing coming up and I'm not really sure if I can do it, and you want to keep it in healthy bounds, you can think to yourself, oh,
it's excitement rather than a fear. That's one reframe. But stress, the unhealthy kind of stress. There's like a million flavors.
So you can have body manifestations of unhealthy stress like I don't know, headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, abdominal pain, feeling dizzy or nauseous, and then the mental health manifestations of too much stress, too much unhealthy stress, anxiety, depressions, sleep disturbances, dirtability, a quick sense of anger, emotional reactivity, and in some cases feeling a sense of fatigue or
low energy. So it really depends. Every person is different, and what seems like a stress event or a stress symptom to me is really different for a stress symptom for you for example, or even between you, there's probably something that you do is really different than you know, than your partner. So it really does depend. The key is to know what your baseline. So when you're feeling good and you know, if you're not feeling a lot of stress, then how do you feel? And then it's
kind of like your tell. So I talk about this idea of the canary in the coal mine, which is a historical reference. I am so not into history. I'm not a history buff, but I love this metaphor. Back when there were coal miners in like World War two, they would go into the mines and they would bring a canary, a caged bird with them. The air would turn bad, but the coal miners were just toiling away
and working for you know, sixteen twenty hour days. When the canary would stop singing, that's when they were like, oh wait a second, the air is bad. We need to leave the mines. And we as humans were like historically really bad at knowing what our canary song is like when is it too much? And only when our canary we all have one, when it starts belting a tune. That's when we pay attention, and that's like, really the sign of unhealthy stress that's gotten way out of hand.
Everyone has its own everyone has their and canary song.
Yeah, that's interesting, that's really cool. I love that. I have a friend who she went through years of infidelity. She ended up getting cancer. A lot of people said, well, it's because the stress. You know, your body keeps a score. Is there anything scientifically backing what stress like a stress can cause cancer or anything that to that effect.
So I'm really sorry for your friend for having gone through that. And you know, so many times with patients that I've seen, they get a chronic illness and then they're in my office and they're weeping saying it's because of this that happened, or you know, like you blame yourself. There's a lot of self blame and you often gaslight yourself, right like thinking, oh, it's my fault and it's never your fault. And if something happens, I would say, the
science shows that it's not necessarily a cause. Like she had a lot of stress in her life, that is not what caused her cancer, but stress contributes to chronic medical conditions. So One startling statistic is that sixty to eighty percent of all doctor's visits have a stress related component, even though only three percent of doctor's visits have stress management counseling. That's not to say that like sixty to
eighty percent of doctor's visits are caused by stress. But let's say you have a history of migraines, which is really common thing for people to have. Stress will make your migraines worse, will make your flares worse, You'll have more pain, more frequency of flares, or if you have rheumatoid arthritis, that can happen, you know, if it does have an impact on your chronic conditions. But it's not to say that for your friends, particularly that years of
stress caused her cancer. I think it's really unfair because it makes the person who is going through that difficult experience,
they're already struggling and they're already suffering. And so you know that lens of self compassion is so important when you are feeling a sense of stress, right because it's like when you're feeling that deep sense of stress and you can't get out of that, it's really you against you, and you're often in your own way, and so when you use that lens of self compassion, it can really help. And so I would say, you know, it's so easy
because of the stress response. Your inner critic is so loud, and she was probably thinking, it's probably my fault and everything that happened to me, and it's never your fault. It is so so not your fault. When something you know, when you get a funny condition, it's not because of stress, but stress once you have a particular condition, it's a good idea to manage your stress and keep it in check, even prior to a medical condition. It's a good idea only because it can worsen conditions.
Right, Okay, I have a question which links to which links to athletes and field and the link between so, as an athlete, every day, particularly on match days of the high performance days, on match days, you're constantly dealing with stress of hormones. Court is all adrenaline every single day because of the pressors and stress of being an athlete, both emotionally and physically. Do you think there's a huge
link between professional athletes. They learn how to try and manage the stress of hormones every single day of the life. So every day they're dealing with it, and there's a link between that becoming a habit of dealing with it. But then when they retire, they no longer have that adrenaline and court is all kicking in every day that there no longer having to manage it and there's a
big void in a life now. So do you think there's a link between the mental health of athletes upon retirement to stress during their careers.
I love that question because I think a lot about athletes because I practiced in Boston and it's a real sports town with lots of athletes that I've taken care of over the years. You know, what is fascinating about top tier athletes is that they live and breathe the mind body connection and mere mortals like we're living in our heads or neck up people and athletes really have tuned into their mind body connection and what the mind
body connection is. It's really important for stress management. It's that your brain and your body aren't constant communication and inextricably linked. What's good for your body is good for
your brain, and vice versa. When it comes to athletes and the stress response, there is an habituation process and what that means is when these athletes are put into situations that are high stress, because they are so tuned in and in sync with their brain and their body and that mind body connection, they are able their brain it responds accordingly. They are used to that high level. Of course is all an adrenaline and they're moving their
body and they're connecting their mind and their body. You know, our brain is a muscle. So your brain is just like a bicep that when you train it in certain ways, it responds. It's not like the brain you had at birth is the brain you're going to have for life. And so your brain can learn new things and can grow and adapt in the face of life's challenges. Being an athlete, you have a physical challenge and a mental challenge on the field, and so your brain adapts to that.
And so then when you retire as an athlete and you get off of the field, there is a habituation, like your brain is used to a certain level of stress, and it depends on the athlete. So I have known athletes who have retired and then they have something called the delayed stress reaction, which is what a lot of us have gone through over the past several years. We're not athletes. I mean I exercise, but I'm not an athlete.
Right.
It's basically that like you keep it together at all costs, and then the minute that acute stress is gone or that like stressful time is gone, you just fall apart. It's the dam breaks because your brain is built like a dam. You keep it together, and then immediately afterwards you feel psychologically safe and then you release, right, and it's like all of those pent up emotions come out. So that's one avenue, that's one path that could happen.
Or you know, often what happens with elite athletes is that they channel that energy because it's very positive energy. It's healthy stress, right, that's gotten them to that level the mind body connection. They channel that energy to another area. So then they become entrepreneurs or they do all of these wonderful things and you see them really thrive in another area because it's skill building. They've built a whole sense of skills on the field, and then they can
use them and transfer them off the field. But it takes time and practice. And you know, for those of us who are not elite athletes, we can do that too. You can tap into your mind body connection. You can learn to harness all the power of neuroplasticity to help decrease your stress. Because the mind body connection, you can pay attention to it and tap into it off the
field as a regular person me or mortal. And the other thing about the mind body connection is that you can influence it to serve you, which is what athletes do all day every day, rather than harm you.
Thank you.
So you have your new book, The Five Resets rewire your brain and body for less stress and more resilience. What is one of the biggest things that you want people to take away from your book? Like? What is and what's the biggest Like if you could tell someone just one big takeaway, like hey, I this is going to help you with your daily stress, you know, to feel better, what would that be?
I think the biggest takeaway is to use a lens of self compassion when you are thinking about your own stress and burnout, understanding that if you are feeling a sense of stress or burnout, you are not the exception, You're the rule. Data shows that seventy percent of people have at least one feature of stress and burnout. That's like in a room of thirty people. Twenty one people are struggling right now. So if you're struggling with your mental health right now, you are not alone, and it
is not your fault. There are so many things. We've had an onslaught of things, one after the other over the past several years, and your brain and your body you're expertly designed to handle short bursts of stress. But what we've experienced has been chronic and ongoing. So your
brain isn't broken. There's nothing wrong with you. All of these messages that you may have been told through you know, society, or yourself or your friends, if you are struggling with stress and burnout, you are having a normal, healthy reaction, in fact, to an abnormal situation that we are living in. So that's kind of the first thing to normalize and validate the difficult experience you're going through. And then the other big myth I want to debunk is this idea
of resilience. Right like you hear that word resilience, and I don't know about you guys, but I bristle, like I cringe. It's such a cringe you word to me, because resilience back in twenty eighteen was a positive thing. It's like your innate biological ability to adapt, recover, and grow in the face of life's challenges, but now it's morphed into toxic resilience, which is why we hear that word and we're like, oh, don't tell me to be resilient.
It's the last thing I want to do, because true resilience honors your boundaries, honors your human limitations, and really respects your need for rest and recovery, your brain and bodies need for rest and recovery. Toxic resilience, which is a manifestation of hustle culture, is productivity at all costs, a mind over matter mindset, and it's like the energizer bunny in the US, like just keep going, or in the UK, keep calm and carry on. It's this idea
of a toxic, sinister version of resilience. And I think the biggest takeaway is that if you are feeling burned out or stressed, it is a myth to say that, oh, resilient people don't feel burnout and stress. That has been scientifically debunked. In fact, you can still be resilient and still experience stress and burnout. They are not mutually exclusive.
When it comes to. So I'm always like, oh, I'm such a great multitasker and I thrive in, you know, having a million things at one time. But I'm reading how You're like, that's actually not a good thing to be like bragging about. So what do I do?
So multitasking is a myth. I hate to break into you. I am a recovered multitasker, and there's no such thing. Scientifically, multitasking doesn't exist. When you are multitasking, what you are doing is task switching, meaning you are doing two separate tasks in rapid secession, and your brain is wired to
do one thing at a time. Multitasking what it does is it weakens a certain part of your brain right here behind your forehead called the prefrontal cortex, and that area is really important for solving complex problems, memory, cognition, attention, and ironically, productivity. Multitasking or task switching, weakens all of these elements, particularly your productivity, and so instead of multitasking, it is important the antidote to multitasking is monotasking, that
means doing one thing at a time. So when I suggest that, people laugh, like, come on, it's modern. You know, we got the slack channel and the emails and a million things competing for our attention. How can you monotask? You can practice something called time blocking. So let's say you guys have an hour to finish four tasks. Instead of doing all four tasks at the same time, do one task for ten or fifteen minutes and take a
five ten minute break. Then start tests two and take a five or ten minute break, and by the end of that hour, you will have completed all four tasks. You have made headway on them, maybe not completed, but you will have made progress on all four tasks, and
you have taken a break. And the reason those breaks are important for your brain is because the sigence shows that when we learn new information, and we're always learning right, when we learn new things, it's not actually the activity that is when the learning happens, it's during rest, and that period of rest is really important for another big concept called neural consolidation, another fancy word. It simply means that, like new information floating in your head, becomes cemented deep
into knowledge. So it's the move is the movement from information to knowledge. So multitasking is in fact bad for the brain. And even though one hundred percent of us think we are excellent musciligh taskers. The truth is only two percent of human brains can effectively multitask. So instead of multitasking, I love it, I love it, try to monotask. That's the antidote.
Okay, I've got one question, one last question. So for someone like yourself who's taken a deep dive into your field and are incredibly knowledgeable, I think it's a real art for someone like I specialize in a certain field, I think it's a real art for someone to simplify the knowledge. So what you've done is you've taken all these thousands and thousands of hours of speaking to people and tracing people, and you've put it into five steps. Did you find that difficult to take all best knowledge
and compact it into just five simple steps? Was that difficult for you or was it an easy process?
That is a beautiful question and probably the highest compliment I can receive. So thank you for saying that. That is always what I strive for. In fact, when I give my talks or even in this book, when people say like you've just made it so simple for me. You know, we all have lots of gifts, and we all have many flaws, right, Like we're human beings. We're flawed, imperfectly perfect. But one of the things that I have always enjoyed doing because I like communication, is taking complex
information and making it simple. We're easy to digest understand. It took me twenty five years to write this book, so of course it wasn't overnight. But I think when you talk to people when you're a doctor, and I always prided myself on not using doctor language as a doctor, because I used to hate that. It's called affected speech. You know, when people who are doctors speak and they like sound like aliens because they're not talking like regular
everyday people. I loved my doctors or my teachers when I was in medical school who just talked to me like a regular person, and they spoke like regular people. I think it's so much more effective in terms of communication when you lead with authenticity and vulnerability. And so it took me twenty five years to get to this place of wanting to write the book. For ten years people have been asking me to write like patients and other people and media people, and I was like, no,
it's not the right time. It was a process, so now it's a skill like anything else. I think simplifying complex information seems really hard in the beginning, but like if you just keep doing it over and over and over anything, right, like sports, there's things that you do that I could never do in sports, but it just is a skill and I just continued to build it.
But it is truly something I love doing. Like the more complicated the better because then I can distill it down into manageable, bite sized chunks for all of us to digest. Because ultimately, it's like if something feels really far away or aspirational, that's the thing with stress. It's like often you get these messages about stress and burnout and they're so like out there, like go to Bali
for six months and learn how to surf. Yes, I would love it, sign me up for that life plan, But that's not real life.
You know.
We have financial obligations and parenting obligations and responsibilities and all these roles that we fulfill. And so it's about finding ways to build in stress relief and burn out recovery and reset some of these things in our brains and our bodies in the here and now, in the messy middle. And so that is what I've aspired to do making it as simple as possible and of course science based.
Sure, yeah, I love that you with all of your studies and interviewing people. What does the biggest mistake people make when it comes to stress? Like, what is the one thing that's like, oh, that is that's the constant thing that you see with people doing you know, wrong with.
Doing too many things all at once. So everything but the kitchen sink, right, So, like it takes a while to get that awareness of wait a second, I think get stressed or do I have burnout? And then you have that like light bulb moment of yes I have burnout or yes I have stress, and then you do everything with the kitchen sake. And I've had so many patients come in with binders like okay, doc, here's what I did, and like, you know, and same thing with
NER's resolutions. People take on twenty things and then by like week two or three, you're down to one, probably zero, because the human brain cannot sustain huge lifestyle overhauls during periods of stress, and even positive change, like making a positive change in your life is a stress on your brain, so even positive things, So instead aim for two small changes at a time. If you want those changes to stick,
work with your biology rather than against it. It takes eight weeks to create a habit, and part of habit formation is actually falling off the wagon and getting back up. So like in week two and three, if you're like, oh, I'm not going to do that, like there's no way you follow that. You know, for three days, you don't do it. Four days and you're like, you know what, maybe I'll start again. You're not a failure. It's just part of the learning process and part of your brain
circuitry actually wiring in a new and different way. That's called neuroplasticity, right, And so that is probably the biggest mistake doing too much all at once. Nothing sticks. So follow the rule of two. It's called the resilience rule of two. It's how your brain responds to change. It's why during the pandemic, like you may have had huge, lofty goals to do all of these things, and now
it's a wonder if you shower once a day. It needs some vegetables because you can't sustain huge lifestyle aperhols during periods of stress. Two small changes at a time eight weeks let them fold into your life, and then you can add two more and so by the end
of the year you will have perfected. You know, there's fifteen strategies in the five resets, five main principles and fifteen strategies, and by the end of the year you will have brought in all of those strategies, but not all at once because your brain and body can't handle it.
In one of the resets, a second reset, it's find Quiet in a Noisy World? Are then, are you a fan of Does that mean meditation or what is your best tool for that?
I personally have meditated for a long, long time, several decades. It's not for everyone, and it's certainly not something I recommend in that particular reset Find your Quiet in a Noisy World. It is all about digital boundaries and sleep. Those are the two biggest buckets of finding your quiet.
And what are digital boundaries? We have boundaries in every other relationship in our life, right like our partners, colleagues, friends, children, and yet we have no boundaries or as boundaries when it comes to our relationships with our digital devices, and the science shows that creating a sense of a boundary. This is not about becoming a digital monk because the science also shows that our health and well being is actually improved by decreasing our reliance on devices rather than
giving them up entirely. That doesn't seem to have as much benefit. But it's about creating some boundaries. And why do you want to create boundaries? So there's some geographical boundaries you could create, and some logistical boundaries you could create. Think about what you do first thing in the morning, before your second eye is even open. Most of us, like me and all of us, over fifty percent of
people scroll subtle device. Right, you're checking your phone first thing in the morning and before your second eye is even open. Think about what that's doing to your brain. These are not benign entities. You are scrolling the headlines, social media, your work email, all of these things. You've just had a good night's sleep, or if you have a lot of stress, you've had a fragmented or disruptive
sense of sleep. Your brain and your body are fresh, you're awake, and you're scrolling, and that is activating the stress response in your brain. And instead, create a digital boundary. Keep your phone off your nightstand, invest in a low cost alarm clock instead. This is not about being a digital monkt abstinence. You can check your phone, but you know,
wake up. Take in the light of day, look at your bed partner, if you have one, brush your teeth, and then check your phone, so creating a little buffer. And then at night, same thing. When it's off your nightstand. You're not scrolling in the middle of the night. During the day, keep it off, out of arms reach and out of sight. And the reason you want to do that is because when you are feeling a sense of stress or burnout, you have a primal urge to scroll.
We've all been there when you're feeling a sense of stress, like you're like this, you're scrolling and scrolling. You don't know why. It doesn't feel good, but you can't stop. The reason you can't stop is because it's a biological wiring of our brain. You know. Evolutionarily, when we all lived as strive as people, when we were all cave people, there was a night watchman who kept watch on the tribe while everyone slept right and now we have all
become our own night watchmen. And when you are feeling a sense of stress, you're a migdala, which is a small almond shape structure deep in the brain is what's creating that fight or flight response and the stress response, that sense of hypervigilance. Your middala is focused on survival and self preservation, immediate needs, immediate sense of safety, and a sense of danger. And so you scroll because it's a way to keep yourself safe. You're scanning for danger.
You're scrolling, You're seeing what's in the news, what's in the headlines, what's on social media. And so how can when you're amygdalas on and you're feeling a sense of stress, how can you shut that off by creating digital boundaries, by letting the other part of your brain what we talked about earlier, that prefrontal cortex take over again. And so it's a scientific principle, but it doesn't have to feel scientific. You just take your phone and keep it
out of arms reach, keep it off your nightstand. So creating those boundaries can really do wonders for your sleep, your energy, your mental bandwidth. It also decreases something called popcorn brain, which is a phenomenon that many of us have. Most of us have. It's not internet addiction. Internet addiction is when you are consuming and you're online, and it's affecting your relationships, for your work and other things. That's
not most of us. Most of us have popcorn brain, which is a real biological phenomenon where you are spending so much time online that your brain circuitry starts. You have that sensation of popping. It's not truly popping, but it's that sensation. It's hard to live offline because you are just like always, you know, hyper stimulated, over stimulated. So it decreases that sense of popcorn brain, which in turn decreases your stress. So it's like this loop and
you have to break that cycle. And the circuit breaker is a digital boundary.
I love that boundary. Up. We have boundaries like no, no, the phone's the dinner table, the bits, right, that's a big one, the big boundary. And the kids. I love that because for some reason, no, you remember, they like hid your phone the other day.
Yeah, they love it.
Oh yeah, that's like they get to like have that, which is which is cute. But thank you so much for coming on. Everyone, go get the five resets, rewire your brain and body for less stress and more resilience. We appreciate you, thank you, thank you.
It was such a fuss, so sweet guys. Thank you so much. Guys.
Bye,