TED Talks Daily - Stress resets, the ultimate mental health hack | Jenny Taitz

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Why does one stressful event always seem to lead to another? It's because stress is contagious, says psychologist Jenny Taitz. But while stress might be inevitable, your reaction doesn't have to be. Instead of thinking your way out of the spiral, Taitz shares small, immediate resets you can practice in ordinary moments. Turns out, calm is contagious too.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hew. Everyone and I know fellow parents out there will relate, picture this. It's a totally normal morning, but total chaos around you. The house is a mess and you're thinking, how did we get here before 9 a.m.? That stress. It's a little hilarious, but mostly heartbreaking. When what we're facing feels like too much, spilled milk becomes a flood.

That's clinical psychologist Jenny Tites. In her talk, she offers a slightly different take, that stress isn't only something that happens to us. It's also something we co-create and can accidentally spread. But here's the good news. If you can create stress, you can also learn to reset it in minutes. No long meditations, medications, medications. or martinis required.

Just shifts in your mind, body, and behavior. Jenny guides us through how to implement simple actions and mindset shifts to change negative thought patterns, shift our moods, and do the exact opposite of what stress is telling us to do. Because for Jenny, it's not about eliminating it, but rather knowing we can handle it. And stick around after her talk for a brief Q&A with Ted's Joey Cotona. But first, a quick break to hear from our sponsors.

And now our TED Talk of the Day. Let me invite you into my house. It probably looks a little like yours. So one morning, rushing to feed our crying toddler, my husband Adam drops a gallon of milk. He is so mad. He starts aggressively cleaning and cuts his hand under the fridge. He's bleeding, hates blood,

blood and we're out of bandages. So he drives to the pharmacy. On his way home, he rear ends an Uber, all before breakfast. That's stress. It's a little hilarious, but mostly heartbreaking. When what we're facing feels like too much, spilled milk becomes a flood. A headache at work spills into heartache at home. Stress doesn't just happen. It's something we easily co-create. than spread like the flu. But here's the good news. If you can create stress, you can also learn to reset it in minutes.

No long meditations, medications, or martinis required. Just shifts in your mind, body, and behavior. I call these pivots, stress resets, and I love them so much. I wrote a book highlighting 70, of my favorites. We will cover them all, I wish. As a clinical psychologist,

I've taught thousands of people how to ease intense emotions and crises, helping clients transform from wanting to die to building lives they cherish. And I rely on these tools myself, whether I'm trying to get my three young kids to bed, a live-action version of Wackamol, or when I'm struggling to find the words,

to write a eulogy hours after losing one of my closest friends. Of course, stressing over spilled milk isn't worrying that AI will hijack your career or facing a cancer diagnosis. A reset won't turn awful into awesome, but it will let you ditch hopelessness and bring the best of you forward, sparking that priceless feeling of knowing you can count on yourself.

The secret? Practicing stress resets in all, ordinary moments allows you to reach for them when life feels unbearable. You might be wondering, can you even feel better if your challenges aren't disappearing? Absolutely. Stress is less about what you're facing and more about believing you can cope. This isn't positivity. This is regulating your nervous system.

Framing stress as an opportunity for growth and accepting sensations, even knots in your stomach, lowers cortisol and allows you to persevere. What moves me most is, research finds even refugees and asylum seekers grappling with being forcibly displaced can improve their mental health by learning strategies similar to ones we'll cover.

If peace of mind is possible in political limbo, it's definitely possible in your daily hustle. Yet, we create fender-benders. Short on money, we shop online. Big deadline, we bounce between procrastination and perfectionism. Tired and lonely, we scroll at midnight. Why? Because when emotions spike, clarity vanishes.

We want relief now, so we turn to habits that hurt, or reach for substances like alcohol, cannabis or Xanax, that shrink our ability to think when we deserve to be our sharpest. To bypass suffering, normalize your feelings, No matter how hard things seem, emotions and urges are waves. They'll pass without you escaping in ways that undermine you. You know, if you scroll TikTok, you can tear up, then smile within seconds. The problem isn't feeling, it's ruminating,

taking a two-minute interaction and replaying it for days, turning stress into a chronic problem. Ruminating was my specialty before I learned to reset. And you can too, with three stress, to reclaim your resilience. One, learn to play with your thoughts. Let's say you just experienced rejection. That's disappointing enough.

Then your mind has the nerve to send the emotional equivalent of spam. Almost everyone has repetitive negative thoughts, and life is too precious to take all the 6,000 thoughts we have a day, literally. So rather than letting your spam sap your brain power, try seeing it like you'd see blimps in the sky, or singing it to your favorite upbeat tune. It sounds silly, but when you play with your unhelpful thoughts, you loosen their grip.

If you want to be more all-encompassing, do you remember that song, What is Love? Baby, don't hurt me. Can we all please join together at the count of three singing, What Are Thoughts? Thoughts can't hurt me? Okay. What?

What are? Thoughts. Thoughts can't hurt me. Thank you. That was amazing. Even if you don't actually sing, changing your relationship with your insulting inner soundtrack and replacing dead ends with next steps will let you live more harmoniously. Good luck ruminating while you're singing, right?

Two, try a half-smile. Dialectical behavior therapists prescribe subtly smiling, even when you don't actually feel happy. See, your face doesn't just reflect how you feel. It shapes your emotional experience. Research shows that Botox that prevents scowling improves mood. No need to freeze your forehead. Half-smiling is your free and natural version.

Try being miserable or battling road rage with a resting Buddha face. Seriously, it primes you to accept whatever. is preventing you from adding attention headache to everything else you're carrying. To be clear, this is not about faking happiness when you're legitimately upset. It's about letting your physiology boost your bandwidth. Plus, it can help foster connections with others,

especially if your face otherwise looks like a big do-not-disturb sign. Let's give half-smiling a try. Anybody feeling more serene? Now turn to the person next to you, and give them a little smile. You guys have such nice half-smiles. How does that feel? Your body is a walking pharmacy if you know how to use it.

Three, act opposite to how you feel. Notice how when you're anxious, you avoid, when you're depressed, you lay low. When you're angry, you yell. Acting exactly the way you feel when you're totally overwhelmed, amplifies negativity and piles on guilt and shame. If you want to upgrade your mood and how you live your life,

the third tool is to notice your emotion-driven urge. Ask yourself if acting on it is ultimately helpful. If not, do the opposite. So if you're grumpy and want to send a hostile text, how about either sending a nice one to someone who needs it or stowing your phone? Anybody procrastinate. You've got pressing to-dos, yet suddenly it's time,

to empty your inbox. That's pseudo-productivity or procrastivity. The opposite action? Lovingly bringing your full attention to the tasks that matters most again and again. Opposite action isn't superficial. It changes the way you see yourself. What's the ultimate mental health hack?

Regularly practicing opposite action. It improves depression and anxiety in weeks. If stress tries to convince you, opposite action is impossible action, or insist that you're just not the karaoke type, keep a hope kit, a collection of items that elevates your mood within reach. It can have anything in it that propels you forward. These are shown to generate real hope. This is my.

It has pictures of my grandparents holding me as little girl, cards from clients, a playlist with some danceworthy, Drake music and a note to myself to always be a light. What belongs in yours? After savoring these reminders, consider, hope isn't just a feeling, it's a behavior you spread,

touching the lives of the people you love and anyone you encounter. Stress doesn't have to scar you, and you don't have to spill it on to others. Spilled milk or something stickier, stress isn't what happens. It's what you do next. Creating perspective, finding calm within you, and doing what matters will reset your stress, your life, and maybe the world. Thank you.

How's my half smile? So beautiful. Jenny, if stress is something that we co-create, as you say, what's just one behavior that you would urge us all to stop doing tomorrow so that we stop passing it on? I love this, and I love acronyms. So one of my favorite acronyms is stop, STOP, slow down, take a step back, observe, and proceed mindfully. We can create so much damage if we're going 100 miles an hour, but so much less if we're going five miles an hour.

When our emotional mind is on fire, it's so hard to think clearly. But we're so good at getting better with the right tools and stop is like a quick one. like nothing happens if you slow things down. Less happens. Thank you. Another round of applause for Dr. Jenny Takes. Thank you so much. That was Jenny Tites at TED Next 2025.

If you're curious about Ted's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonicaa, Sungmar Nivong.

This episode was mixed by Christopher Faisi Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balezzo. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.