The Liz Moody Podcast - Anyone Can Become More Optimistic—Here’s How with Dr. Sue Varma

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Psychiatrist Dr. Sue Varma discusses what practical optimism is (and how it differs from toxic positivity), why anybody can become one, and the tools you can use today to start being more optimistic. How to know if you’re an optimist or a pessimist The positive health effects of optimism  The secret to forming good habits that no one talks about  The major difference between practical optimism and toxic positivity The neurological changes that occur as you practice optimism A genius trick to stop worrying  2 secrets for finding purpose (and why it’s so important to optimism)  Science-backed tools you can use to immediately become more optimistic  And so much more! For more from Dr. Varma you can find her on Instagram @doctorsuevarma and on her website www.doctorsuevarma.com. Her book Practical Optimism: The Art, Science, and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being is available for pre-order in advance of its February 20th release. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: Natural Cycles: use code Liz or go to naturalcycles.app/Liz to get 15% off an annual subscription + a free thermometer. Caraway: visit Carawayhome.com/LIZM or use code LIZM for 10% off. AG1: visit drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Open: get 30 days free of Open by visiting withopen.com/LIZMOODY. Puori: go to puori.com/LIZMOODY and use promo code LIZMOODY for 20% sitewide. Previous episodes referred to in this episode: What We Get Wrong About Anger + How To Harness Its Full Potential with Dr. Ryan Martin How To Drink Less Without Feeling Boring, Judged, Or Stressed with Therapist Amanda E. White How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome And Start Living Your Best Life with Dr. Valerie Young The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning how to harness the positives of anger, discussing how to drink less without feeling bored or stressed or judged, or figuring out how to overcome imposter syndrome. And yes, those are all real episodes, and they are linked in the show notes if you want to listen. Today, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Sue Varma to the podcast.

Dr. Varma is a board-certified psychiatrist. She's a professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, and she was honored as a distinguished fellow by the American Psychiatric Association. She has been featured on the Today Show on CBS Mornings and Good Morning America, as well as primetime specials and news documentaries. And this is fascinating. She was the first medical director of the World Trade Center Mental Health Program. She helped first responders and people after the 9-11 attacks. And that was a time that really laid the foundation for her work on resilience and optimism. Her new book, Practical Optimism, The Art Science and Practice of Exceptional Well-Being,

comes out next week on February 20th, and it is such an incredible read. I was so intrigued by Dr. Varma's idea that there are pragmatic, concrete steps we can all take to become more optimistic. I say this in the episode, but I love the idea of optimism because I feel like I can find happiness, but I really have to work for it. If I can rewire my brain to have that happiness, to have that positive outlook, come a little bit more easily, more often. That is the absolute dream for me. And she delivered in this episode sharing so many tools and solving so many of the obstacles that get in the way of feeling optimistic. We get into how to know if you are

an optimist or a pessimist. The positive health effects of optimism. The secret to forming good habits that no one is talking about. Even I had never heard this one before. So she got me, which really means something because I read up on this stuff and I interview people on this stuff. The major difference between practical optimism and toxic positivity. The neurological changes that occur when you practice optimism. A genius trick to stop worrying. Two secrets for finding purpose and why it is so important to optimism. And so many science-backed tools that you can use immediately to become more optimistic. As always, we would both love to hear your thoughts as you're listening.

So definitely screenshot and tag us on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and Dr. Varma is at Dr. Sue Varma. This is the type of episode that's just at the core of what the Liz Moody podcast is all about. It's really interesting science made accessible and doable and fun, translated into action tips that you can apply today to truly change your life. If you love it, please share it. We could all use a little bit more optimism in our lives. Okay, let's get right into it. Let's become more optimistic with Dr. Sue Varma.

Sue, welcome to the show today. I'm so excited to get into the subject of optimism because I don't consider myself optimistic person. I find that hard to believe. And maybe you're not optimistic. Maybe you're practically optimistic. That's so interesting. Okay, so how do you differentiate the two? Optimism, people think of it as something you're either born with or not. And maybe that's why you're saying, I don't see myself as like naturally that way, because maybe the initial first thought in any situation may not be positively skewed because the definition of an optimist is someone who sees the best possible scenario in almost everything. Now, don't get me wrong, optimists also have a

under a lot of stress to feel stressed out and maybe not believe in the most hopeful outcome. But the difference is that practical optimism is about employing key strategies and skills and resources that can be learned. So I'm going to get into it with you, but optimism is genetic, and that's something that I learned and that there are genes associated with it. But the most interesting thing to me and why I then went on this quest for my patients is because I realized so much of what I was doing in therapy was helping them to not only, envision the best possible outcome, but then giving them tools to actually create it. And it's only 25% genetic, right?

Yes, oh my God. You read the book. I love that. Yes. So only 25% of his genetic. And what's genetic about it? So the genes, you know, in 2011, UCLA researchers discovered that optimism was associated with the oxytocin receptor gene.

But what they realize is that it actually codes for skin. skills and resources, like cognitive behavioral therapy, the things that you learn and mindset shifts, like people have cognitive distortions, like tendency to see glass half empty, that type of thing. What's so interesting is that optimism is related to longevity, exceptional longevity. It's not just health outcomes, but optimism can be correlated with success in relationships at work, productivity, work engagement. So there's every reason to invest in this. And now in all departments of medicine, surgery, immunology, people want to know about how can we make our patients optimistic for better health outcomes. Can you share some of the research around how optimism benefits our lives? I found that fascinating.

Yes. So in 2019, there's a study in JAMA Open Network, and it's one of the most well-respected journals, and they did a study of 200,000 people. And they found that optimists live longer on average of like 10 to 15%. They also experience what's called, exceptional longevity, which is living into your 80s with good health. So it's not enough to say, oh, this person is living longer. Like, what good is living longer if most of your final years are spent bedridden with cognitive decline and feeling like you're dependent on other people, you're immobile? I know a lot of people like that. Like a lot of the patients that I treat are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and then even up to their 80s. And they'll tell me that I feel like I'm taking care of elderly parents of mine and they're depressed. they don't leave the house, they don't have friends, they're immobile. And that makes me really sad. So often I'm like helping their parents with the parents not even knowing it by giving the patients like tools to be like, take this back to your parents and like help them. So wound healing, if you give someone in a 15 minute optimism intervention and you have them practice it regularly after surgery, their biopsy wound heals faster, less colds, less infections, less heart disease, less stroke, less death by all causes. And I feel like,

No one knows about this and no one is talking about it and no one is like, this needs to be in schools. We need to implement this from like early on. What I love about the idea of becoming more optimistic is I feel like I can be happy most days. But I feel like I have to work for it. I feel like I have to do a lot of labor to get to the place where I'm happy. And the idea of being optimistic is appealing to me because then I'm like, well, I just wake up and feel more positive on a daily basis. Is that the promise? Yes.

because for me, a lot of navigating hardship is about giving someone a sense of agency and control in their life. So there was a study in 2022, and the American Psychological Association does an annual survey on stress in America. And this particular time, they found that not only were like 60 to 80 percent of people stressed out by a lot of variables, war, inflation, discrimination, there's climate change, there's a lot happening in the world. But, The key in the study was people are feeling stressed out about things that they cannot control. And to me, that was the most important takeaway from the study. I know people are stressed out.

People are coming into my office all the time because they need help. But you can give back somebody a feeling of agency. So Liz, when you wake up in the morning, if you're like, okay, it doesn't matter how the day turns out for me, I have control over two things, my mindset and my behavior and what tools I choose to employ. And I love in my mind knowing that if plan A doesn't work, fine. I've already got plan B, C, D. And then if none of that works, then I'm going to engage in acceptance. And one of the things I talk about in the book was a quote, it's very much from Eastern Wisdom. It's something I grew up with in my parents. And they always ask me, is this a problem to be solved or a truth to be accepted? And I feel like that's so important because in Western society, we like to solve problems, right? Like the country was developed. based on very adventurous, hardworking people who took chances. And things didn't always work out for them. But we have this idea, you want your life, go create it. And I love that, right?

Like I was born and raised in the United States. And I love that independent frontiers, men and woman idea. At the same time, in Eastern Wisdom, they teach you that there's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is all of the things that happen in life, the losses, the grief, the tragedies. Some are small, some are big. I call them the big tease of trauma and the little teas. The big teas are life-threatening.

The little teas are everyday hassles. But at the end of the day, if you can't get what you want and you're resisting it, that's what causes suffering. So like ordinary pain versus suffering. And then practical optimism says, we don't need to suffer. Let's do what we can to change it and then accept the rest. So we might still have pain in our life, but our reaction to that pain will be different. Exactly. Because when you realize that nothing is permanent.

permanent and nothing is guaranteed except for change. And once you embrace that to say, oh, okay, this is a natural evolution in life. There's a phrase that I love, nobody ever promised you a rose garden. I think that we expect so much from ourselves, from people, from society. And that entitlement comes back to bite us and haunt us because we feel entitled. And there's a way to do it so that you go 150%, 200% go after your goals, go after your dreams. Acceptance is an active state. When you've tried everything and it didn't work out at the end of the day, it's okay to engage actively in acceptance and say, okay, I'm going to take a pause. Maybe this is not right now. Pause instead of stopping. So if you're working for a goal, it's not working out for you to say, all right, I'm going to revisit it.

I'm not giving up. And sometimes you do decide to hang it up and say, well, not for now. Is there anything else that active acceptance would include? People in our lives, toxic relationships. I think this is the hardest one. I know we're talking a lot about narcissism and dealing with people who hurt us. And I think sometimes recognizing and realizing that people that we love so much that we want the best for them, sometimes they're not going to change. And then so how do we rewrite the script in our head about that relationship? Maybe it's about the pain that they might have caused us.

And I talk about the idea of forgiveness and there are so many steps to it. And sometimes we're so afraid of forgiveness because we think it's letting someone off the hook. But really, it's just putting your psyche at ease. So interesting. Okay. I'd love to ground this in reality a little bit for people who are wondering if they're an optimist or a pessimist. Can you share maybe a real world situation and how an optimist might react to that situation versus a pessimist? I have a friend who she's very open about it and she's like, I have sent my script 200 times to publishers and they've all gotten rejected.

Now, a pessimist right out of the gate wouldn't have even attempted 200 times. The difference is a pessimist might not have attempted at all. They were like, I'm not a writer. This person wasn't a writer. They had a completely different career. And they wouldn't even try. And that's the biggest thing is that in pessimism, the difference between optimists and pessimists is that pessimists, believe it or not, are actually more real. They actually do more thorough evaluations.

They might be actually more in touch with reality. But the difference is, what do they do with that information? So let's say I'm not a writer. This was my first book. I could easily said, who am I? It's none of my business trying. Why bother? And I don't even know if I consider myself naturally optimistic.

But I do think that I've developed these skills over time and I choose to employ them. So first of all, if you're a pessimist, the take home for this is recognize that you are that way, right? And there's an optimism inventory online that's free. It has to do with do you believe that things will mostly work out for the good? Do you give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time? So it took a certain amount of optimism for this person to not try once and fail, not twice, but 200 times to get rejected. And now the book is doing really, really well. One of them turned into a movie like our show and is a hit. So the pessimist does certain key things. The three piece of pessimism, as discussed by Martin Seligman, who's the founder of this whole positive psychology, optimism movement. He says that optimists engage in three types of thinking. They take things personally. They think that the negative thing that's happening to them is pervasive. It speaks to all aspect of their lives. And they take it that it's permanent. So if someone is attempting to write a book and literally fill in the blank, like for this person who was writing a book,

for another person, it could be musician, it could be getting into medical school, it could be, whatever. So they're going to take the rejection. So that's the common theme here, is that a pessimist will take the negative rejection and say, I suck. There's something wrong with me. This is not meant for me. And not only do they think that they suck in that one thing, like writing, for example, they'll say, you know what, maybe I'm like a loser. It starts to trickle in to other aspects of their life. So then they start to think it's pervasive. Or they think it's permanent. I'll just never succeed. It's not meant for me. And they'll give up. A lot of girls will say young women, I'm not good at science. I'm not good at math. I remember when I was in undergrad, I was in a organic chemistry class,

and that's like the well-known weeder out of people. If you can't get past it, you're not meant to be a doctor. And my professor said to us, we were in a class of 300 people, and there were 600 total between two sections. And he said that women just don't have the visual, spatial capacity to understand organic chemistry. And no woman in my class in 30 years has ever gotten an in organic chemistry. Now, a pessimist would say, this is not meant to be for me. If I can't pass this class, I'm not going to get into medical school. And you know what happened is most people internalize that. And by the end, most of the pre-med students had dropped down. One-tenth were left by the time we graduated because of internalizing the negative messaging or just trying, not doing

well. I had two girlfriends, and the two of them looked at me and they're like, this is like a crossroads. We can either take what he says, fail, or we can double down. And that's what we did. We doubled down. And we formed a study group. We went to extra help sessions. And the three of us ended up getting an A in the class, not just enabled like a hundred and something. And this guy had never seen that. And he was so mad. He was so bitter. But there was nothing he can do. And if I had bought into that, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have passed it. Probably not have been able to get into medical school. But the difference is that do we internalize the obstacles and see them as personal or do we see them as part of external circumstances that we can sort of navigate around?

It's so interesting because I kicked off the conversation by saying, I don't think I'm an optimist. But one of the life mottos that I live by is never be the one to say no to yourself, which just means always going out there and trying and finding somebody else to say no to you, which is a very optimistic trait. as you've described, which I find fascinating. Yes. Liz, like we're meeting for the first time, but I followed your work, and I'm so impressed by everything you do and are doing.

And that's what I want people to know, that even if you don't initially think of yourself as an optimist, ask yourself why. Look at your life. Your life is a representation of your practical optimism. So there's no way. So like maybe what you're saying is not something I identify with, but then when I look at everything you've done,

there's no way because I imagine, I don't know your personal story, but there must have been stumbling blocks along the way. Yes, very much so. This is an interesting question. So roll along with me here. But there's a bilateral relationship between like our gut health and our mental health, say, where our stress impacts our gut microbiome and our gut microbiome impacts our stress. And the way that you're saying, like optimistic people go for things, does that work

backwards the other way too where if you go for things, you will become more optimistic? Yes. But here's a thing. is that when you go for things, go in them with a clear mind that rejection is possible and often probable in the beginning stages, but that they don't define you. And that you need to do the work so that you actually develop some skill and ability. So what's interesting is I talk about one of the peas is proficiency and it's self-efficacy. And it's this idea of having confidence in your ability. It's not your actual ability. But confidence is only going to get you so far

if there's no skills to back it up. So I would say do the homework, continue honing your skill or your craft by getting mentorship, by having role models, by asking for help and feedback and advice, and keep practicing. And I talk about the idea of behavioral activation, which is a tool used in cognitive behavioral therapy. And it says, put the cart before the horse. So in the treatment of depression, when a patient says, I don't feel like it, I don't want to leave the house, I'm not in the mood to socialize and interact. That is precisely when I know to tell a person, please do socialize, please do interact, because your mood will benefit from it. And this is why it's so important to do little hacks throughout the day. I love how you talk about like micro movement and like micro-exercise.

I talk about like micro-connections with people and these like little 10-minute snack, social snacking of talking to someone at the bodega when you're buying bottle of the bus driver or wherever, like the dog walker, barista, have conversations with people because those five or ten minute interactions boost our mood in a way that we're not even realizing. We kind of lost that in the pandemic, like these built-in layers of contact. When you're in a better mood, you're more likely to tackle the email that you've been wanting to send out, that help that you've been wanting to ask. And all of those little boosts in mood then put you in a position to put yourself out there. And I'm a firm believer, you have to put yourself out there. So many people are so afraid of rejection.

that they never ask. And like they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Well, and I love your point of continuing to hone your skills, changing your actual situation as you're going out and seeking out those reactions, I think is so, so smart. Yes. Do you have any other little hacks for putting the cart before the horse? I've had so many times where I'm feeling kind of down in the evening and I know I should go work out. I know that'll make me feel better. I'll be sitting on the couch and I'll be like, I know working out will make me feel better,

but I can't bring myself to do it. And so I'll just sit there and scroll. Yes. So I'm a big believer in planning in advance. You cannot leave it a chance to will, to discipline, to feel inspired. And I would say in that moment, don't even allow yourself the option. Like when people talk about this idea of like, oh, I have bad habits, I don't think it's a matter of having a bad habit.

I think it's a matter of not having a habit at all. You have left yourself to up to chance. I'll give an example so many times. If I'm seeing patients, I might be sitting in my office all day and then I'm like writing in the evening. And it's so easy to not leave if you're comfortable in your home and in your sweats to leave the house. But I've made it a non-negotiable rule that even if I don't get to exercise or go to the

gym and I try to go three, four, five, whatever I can manage, but I have to go for a walk. It's not even an option. Maybe that day it didn't work out, but say to yourself, what is non-negotiable in my life? and I'm just going to put my clothes on and I'm going to go literally for five minutes. So lower the entry barrier. So instead of thinking about a big gym workout, because here's the thing, high achieving people are often perfectionists. And they feel as if they didn't get to do something 100% right, they didn't do it at all.

And so they don't do it at all. And that's the problem. We have seen so many benefits of walking. And just even from a mental health point of view, like anxiety, depression, because your eyes, the whole EMDR idea of eye movement, desensitization, like you're looking left and right? When you're walking, you have to focus on the outside world. And as a result of that, you come outside of your head and come outside of your ruminations. And rumination, you can see that on a functional MRI. You can see the person a certain part of their head light up. You're familiar

with the saying that perfect is the enemy of the good. And so say to yourself, I'm not going to be going for the 60-minute workout, but I'm still going to get benefit by my 20-minute walk because I'm doing my brain a service. Don't set the bar so high. love the idea that a bad habit is the absence of a good habit because the second you said that it unlocked for me, the reason that I was sitting there on the couch scrolling was because I hadn't created a good habit to do something else. And almost the vast majority of bad habits that I can think of in my life is because I haven't filled that space. It's almost I tell people with food to instead of depriving yourself of anything to add more vegetables to your plate. You're almost saying

that with good habits to crowd in the good habits, which will crowd out the bad habits. Oh my God. Absolutely. That's exactly what it's about. Totally. That's fascinating. And anything that you want to achieve, it has to be a habit. It can't be a choice. And studies show that fatigue is one of the biggest things that interrupt our ability to carry through. And they show that judges at the end of the day are less likely to give parole or show mercy to people. And that doctors, at the end of their shift, if they've been working long hours, are less likely to give pain medication because they have less empathy for the patient at the end of the day. So you don't want to be the anybody's end of anything. So make sure that your court case is early in the day. Go to the doctor in the morning.

Yes. But is there anything that we can do to fight that fatigue in ourselves? Yeah. So, you know, I have a lot of patients who want to take an LSAT or an MCAT or a GMAT and they're at a different stage in life where they're now having a full-time job. And on top of that, they have to carve out time. Or let's say somebody wants to start a side hustle. They want to be an author. And they have a full-time job. They have a family. Maybe they have young kids at home. And they're like, I just don't have the time. Once I get home, I just want to relax. Like, I'm a professional at this point. I don't have the ability the way I did when I was 22 in college with no responsibilities. So I find that there are a lot of people who want to work on whatever, music, blog, something fun, mastery, a hobby. They just don't have the

time for it. And I would say that you have to plan in advance. You have to carve out. You have to think of all the obstacles that can get in the way. And so, for example, if you had a full-time job, I have a patient who was a lawyer and they wanted to, you know, study for an exam, they wanted to go back to business school, get an MBA. So I said, would you consider instead of going home? Because once you go home, you have all these cues for relaxation, for fun, to play with your kids. And what we came up with is that they would stay at the office, they would go to the office cafeteria, a communal workspace, before going home. So if you know that if you understand your cues and triggers for both good habits and bad habits, you're able to better plan accordingly. And I love the idea of just making little

plans for the things that normally trip you up. To just have a plan in place ahead of time, I think that's absolutely brilliant. One thing I find really cool about practical optimism is that it seems like it's an example of neuroplasticity in action. Can you explain in brief what's happening on a neurological level? Yes. So, you know, there are actually rewiring of the brain. When you do, like, this intervention that I love, it's taken from the positive psychology movement, and it's called the best possible scenario, where you ask a person to envision the best possible outcome of anything. And I've added my own little twist to it by asking a person to think of a problem, and then I ask them like, okay, think of a problem that you're struggling with. Think about the road

that is going to take you from that problem to your best possible outcome. And I ask them to get really granular, think about how the problem makes them feel, where do you feel it, if you feel tense in your shoulders, are you clenching your jaw? Then tell me about that road, is it straight, does it twist and turn? And then tell me the feelings that are associated when you get to the best possible outcome. So like the book is the best seller. You know, the song is a number one hit on the charts. And I want you to really revel in that positive emotion.

And we can see on functional MRIs that there is a. signature neural pathway for optimism that is distinctly different from pessimism. Pessimism is the rumination, our default mode network gets activated where we're worrying and you go down this spiral. So you can see the activation in the brain in different areas like optimism is associated with the left frontal cortex and pessimism is with the right. And so by doing these activities, you can boost activity in your left lobe. And I think that that's amazing that you can actually cause brain changes.

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And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. Yeah, when you said that there are permanent changes on a neurological level. So when you're practicing, say, the best case scenario, you're activating that part of your brain. But then is the idea that that part of your brain is going to be more active even when you are not doing that practice. Yes, exactly. The more you rewire over and over and over again. And there's this idea of cognitive distortions and being able to catch them. So to give you an example, if I sent an email to my boss and I didn't hear back two days later, three, days later, five days later, there's a tendency for pessimists to be like, oh my God, I'm getting fired. My boss hates me to personalize and then to think I'm losing my job to go to the worst

case scenario. So catch yourself. So much of worry is used as a form of avoidance, emotional avoidance. We worry because we think we're doing something. But there's a difference. There's productive worry and there's unproductive worry. An unproductive worry is your wheels spinning in the mud but you're not making accelerations like the rocking chair. You're moving, but you're not getting anywhere. And so by practicing these distortions and then challenging them. So what? Best case scenario, worst case scenario, you're making permanent changes in your brain. So now, after years of practicing, immediately, like even though the first blip, if someone doesn't respond, oh my God, it's me, they hate me. I must have said something. Oh my God, I put my foot in my mouth.

Immediately the second thought of take a break, take a breather, it's not you. They got delayed. And sure enough, vast majority of the time, it turns out that I was overreacting, I was catastrophizing, and things worked out in my favor. In fact, they say that 85% of the time when we worry, the things we worry about never actually happen. And 15% of the time that they do were better able equipped to deal with them than we previously thought. Wow. And not better equipped because we were worrying. We just have inner resilience and we are inherently better equipped. Yes.

had the resources and the capability to actually execute. And that's something I talk about in this book because there's a patient, you know, their case composite, so their names and everything have been changed. But there's a woman, Nicole, who's really struggling with the idea, oh, she has three kids, very young. She needs to get help for her youngest child at home in home care. And she's very reluctant and very resistant because she was like, I have messaging associated with that. It's indulgent. I don't want to do that. But that's kind of where her life was headed because logistically, that's what made the most sense. And I found it so interesting because so many of my patients, they know what they need to do on paper. And she was an HR executive.

And so hiring someone and interviewing them in theory shouldn't have been that hard. But in her mind, there were all these obstacles and barriers. There was anger towards the family for them not helping and being more supportive. So I just think it's interesting that so many of the time that 15%, we have the logistical capabilities. But our worry starts to diminish our agency. Can you give us one tip if we recognize ourselves in Nicole's situation and we want to overcome that? Yeah, so I would ask yourself, like, okay, what is the best case scenario? And the best case scenario for Nicole would have been to like, okay, I'm going to find a caretaker who loves my child and who's going to be great. And so you envision the best in mind and then you work backwards. And then you get very granular. These are the qualities that I'm looking for in the person. And you could substitute this with anything that you're dealing with, whether it's a life partner that you're looking for, whether it's a job. And to list out, like, what am I looking for? And then what are my non-negotiables? I was helping a patient with this the other day. She's like, I I want someone who's kind and loving, and then it's okay. Maybe English doesn't have to be their first

language, and maybe there's benefit in that because they can teach my child that language. So the thing that you think matter in the end, maybe don't, and then be flexible, right? And a lot of times people are very stuck and they're like, it has to happen this way. And it can only happen this way. That's when we do ourselves a detriment. So being very granular about what you want, being equally granular about what you don't want, and being accommodating and being flexible, being creative, asking for help. So like putting out that WhatsApp, because sometimes people are like, I don't want to have to ask because I'm going to look like, I don't know, there are people going to think I don't have my act together. When I was asking for advice with a book, everyone was like, but Sue,

you know, so many people. And I'm like, whatever. You know, after a while, you just have to get over the fact of how you look when you ask for help because it is what it is, right? This is what I need. Let me focus on my agenda. And let me drown out the noise of what other people think and other people's approval. So a lot of times we don't do things because what will people say? Yeah. It's interesting because it's another example of the bad habit is worrying, worrying, worrying, and then you are establishing a good habit to crowd out that bad habit of making these little plans. Yes, yes. And recognizing that you have and phrase it however you want, but I have more agency than I realize I have more agency than I give myself credit for. And this is figure out a ball. Like I can figure this. I can figure this.

out. I will figure this out. The answer and the solution may not present itself in the packaging that I thought it would. When it's maybe the person that you thought you would be with when you were 20 is not the person you end up being with when you're 30 because you've evolved and you've changed. Allow yourself room for growth and room for change and room for questioning when you have certain ideals. Whose ideals are these? Are these imposed by the cultural messaging of my family, of my profession, and do they really serve me still? I want to walk through the eight pillars of optimism that you outline in the book. We're just going to talk a little bit about each one, but you go really in depth in the book,

which I highly recommend. Let's start with purpose. Can you explain to us why that's important for optimism? Yes. So purpose is about being intentional and being deliberate. And I talk about this with aim. It's about acknowledging what it is that you want and how you got here. Like a lot of times people are.

like purpose is scary. It's like such a big question. And I'm like, it could be purpose in life, but it could be purpose in this particular activity that you're doing, this particular friendship, this particular relationship. It could be anything. So just get granular about what purpose means to you. One of the biggest things that's important for purpose is giving back because a lot of times people feel like my life feels like it doesn't have purpose. The quickest way, the easiest way, is do an act of kindness for somebody else. And if you can do that on repeat on a regular basis to be like, did I do my act of kindness this week? A weekly thing, it could be a daily thing.

I realize that that's a big ask, and people may not have the time for that. But volunteering can be four times a year. It can be five times a year. In this one study, they show that people who volunteer 100 hours a year live longer. Adolescence that volunteer by helping little kids out, like younger than them with their homework, with artwork, they have less inflammation in their body. They're less likely to get heart disease when they grow up. So get your kids into it. That's so cool.

That's such a cool fact. And you say that our job doesn't need to be our purpose in life. What happens if our job isn't our purpose? We're just like we're clocking in to make money, but then it leaves us too tired to find purpose and passion in the rest of our lives. Everyone we know it right now is busy. But I would say it's your job. If you can't find your purpose, it's your job to create it.

And it doesn't have to be something that you do every day, though, if you do find meaning. you can find at the end of the day, another piece of purpose is about cultivating joy. And cultivating is an active, actionable verb where you say, if you get meaning and joy from painting, from ceramics, from pressing leaves into a document in something pretty, or making cards, if you have any artistic bend, if you like to cook, anything that allows you to experience your creative expression and mastery, but then in service of someone else. So I have a patient who has a patient who has a a full-time job, she's in media, she enjoys it. But at the end of the day, she's like, there's something missing for me. What's missing is the creative aspect, because a lot of

people have maybe corporate jobs or working for someone else. And I say that purpose is a creative expression, and it's your soul's way of engaging with the world aligned with your own values, talents, skills, and hobbies. And I think that's key that everyone has an outlet where they have creative expression. So she ended up. it up on her days off or carving out an evening to do artwork and then was giving those to friends for like birthday presents and they brought her so much joy to go to their houses and to see her artwork on there. Wait, that's so interesting. So would cooking for yourself be passion but cooking for another person be purpose? Yes. Yes. Oh, that's such an interesting framing that I've

never heard that before. Like you can turn your passion into purpose when you align it with benefit for somebody else. They see that in a study, healthcare workers are more likely to wash their own hands knowing that they were spreading less infection to other people. So if you want to get someone to do something, you want to get someone to recycle, whatever it is you want to get someone to do, tell them that other people are benefiting as a result of this action. And they're so much happier and so much more willing to comply if they know that their little act of kindness impacted impacted someone else. I think at the core of it, it doesn't seem like it with all that's happening in the world right now, but at the core of it, people are really good at heart, and they really do want to help other people

most of the time. So if you're listening to this and you've been feeling like a little adrift, like you don't really have a sense of purpose, would a good action plan for you to be to take something that you're already doing and do it for somebody else? Yes. And somebody who would appreciate it, right? That might be the trickier part, but loneliness, same idea. The best way to cure your own loneliness is to reach out to somebody else to ask them how they're doing. And a lot of times when someone is feeling down or lonely or lost or confused, they're like, I don't have the bandwidth to help someone else or be like, why? Like, I'm the one who's lonely. No one else is checking. And that's pessimistic thinking. No one else is checking up on me. No one else did this for me.

Why should I help someone else? When I was sad, when I was grieving, when I was mourning the loss of a relationship, when I went through a breakup, nobody asked me how I was doing. And you can sit there and you can get fixated. You know, it's like you can be right or you can be happy, right? Which one do you want to be? Wow. Talk to me about the relationship between purpose and working out. I found this fascinating. Yeah, I find it so fascinating because I was like, I never thought of the two together. And if you feel like you are lost on purpose, go for a workout. Because the exercise itself boosts our brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Your test scores will be better. Your memory will be more on point. But a person who exercises feels like they have purpose, and then a person who has purpose is more

likely to exercise. So it's this beautiful, virtuous cycle of putting the cart before the horse, and then that cart pays dividends. So it really does pay off when you're not feeling like it to do it anyway. There is so much benefit in doing it anyway. Okay. So two really solid action steps for purpose. One, take a passion, do it for somebody else who will appreciate it. it to just work out and trust that that'll have a really interesting cyclical effect. Yes, and you'll be in a better mood, and you'll be more likely to then pick up on all the things that need to get done, because most people have some idea in the back of their mind of what they want to do. I always say if money wasn't a problem, if time wasn't a problem,

what would you be doing, what makes you have fun, what lights you up? And also remember that, it's your purpose. No one else needs to approve it. So drop the judgment and take a chance. Love it. Okay. Next is processing emotion. what does that mean and why is it important to optimism? So it's so important that you not suppress your emotions. It actually takes more energy and effort to suppress the emotions than it does to simply release them. And we see that people who journal even 15 minutes a day, again, benefit from all of the wound healing, the immune system, the less cold, coughs, infections, just 15 minutes a day. When you are bottling your emotions up, you end up getting a lot of physical ailments.

They call this like type personality D. We've all heard of like type A and type B. Well, personality D is like this angry person and this person who suppresses emotions. It is very well known and correlated with more heart disease. So if you want to do yourself good from a physical health point of view, talk about how you feel. If you don't feel like you have a safe space with friends, consider therapy. If that doesn't work out, keep a regular journal where 15 minutes a day you do something called a worry diary, which may seem counter. intuitive. Why would I talk about my worries? Like write them down. I'm trying to get away from them.

The act of doing this helps in what we call desensitization, where you write about the things you worry about. And you noticed, like we said before, the vast majority of times, they never happen. And then you start to see a pattern. I'm worrying about the same things. How interesting. And so I give a little exercise, take home, name it, claim it, tame it, and reframe it. So naming it is like, what am I feeling? What's the antecedent? What was the trigger? Okay, so I got yelled at today, you know, at work. And, okay, I'm going to claim it. So like, I'm feeling sad. Where am I feeling it? In headache, in bowel movements, I keep going to the bathroom because of it. I'm peeing a lot because of it. I'm waking up. It's causing me insomnia. So getting really granular. And people who are granular, we know this for a fact, are less likely to

have anxiety and depression. And if they do, it goes by, they get better quicker because they know the direct antecedents and causes for them feeling down. And then, tamed. it, and there's a variety of things you can do. The journal for me is one of the best and it's one of the easiest and also engaging in like quick exercise. How am I going to feel about this five years from now? And most of the time, you'll say, okay, I'm not even going to think about this. I'm not even to remember this. What would I tell a friend? What is another way of looking at? So these are like ways to kind of challenge your cognitive distortions. First, you'd have to recognize that you're engaging in one. And then reframing it. This is where all the money's at, right? Because reframing is

such a powerful tool. One of the hats that I used to wear was I was a medical director of the 9-11 mental health program and helped 9-11 survivors. And I don't know how someone ever reframe something negative like that. But most of us, God forbid, like won't go through that, right? It'll be the daily small tea, the daily hassles. Ask yourself, is there a way for me to look at the situation in a different light? Is there a way for me to look at the situation in a positive light? So a lot of times people will say, oh, I'm really upset. I didn't get that job. Or I went on those dates and it didn't work out. Later on, they'll say to me, I feel like I dodged a bullet, right? Like, at the time, I was so angry and upset that it didn't work out in my favor, but I wouldn't have gotten this even better,

fill in the blank had I not gotten rejected. It wasn't meant for me. You know, I tried writing a book proposal and a book, like, very early on in my career. I had an agent, but it didn't go anywhere. I can't believe either one of us, but, you know, I just said I have to come back. I had two young kids. And I'm glad it didn't work out because I could not. I could not. have written this book that was meant to be written at this time with my life circumstances, having become a mother, having lost a mother, all the things that I went through have made me a better clinician. But I know that we want things like yesterday. And so being able to reframe it and say maybe there's something better. So name it, claim it, tame it, and reframe it.

Can you briefly say how practical optimism differs from toxic positivity? Because I think even hearing you say that, I'm like, yes, yes, yes. But then I could also see somebody saying, well, not everything is good. And I'm not going to be able to have this positive reaction to everything. Yes, 100%. Like the first and most important thing you have to do when you're experiencing something painful is to sit in it and say this freaking sucks. I am mad. I am bitter. I am resentful. I want you to own all of the negativity. That's the claim it. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So the claimant is essentially the thing that protects it from being toxic positivity. Exactly, exactly, because in no way are we saying when you're in the depths of something really, really, really down, like I can even say, okay, yeah, I'm feeling like crap right now, but I know a week from now, a month from now, five years from now, whatever it is, I'll feel better. But like at this moment, just leave me be in my negativity and let me stir and be pissed off, whatever that didn't work out for me. I want you to claim it and I want you to sit in it, right? But I just don't want you to stew and dwell beyond a certain point. And, you know, when it comes to venting, I think venting is very important.

ask permission to vent. Is this a good time for you? Is it okay? I have this on my mind. And then be respectful, obviously, of like looking at the other person's body language and, you know, knowing when to end. But it's important that if you vent, after a certain amount of time, if you're in therapy, do what you got to do, right? But otherwise, there's a point where there's a cost-benefit trade-off, where when you're too stewing, then you start activating that negativity we talked about on the right side of the brain and the pessimism and the downward spiral. So I want you to claim it, but not stewing. it. Is there an ideal length of time to vent? If you're having a conversation with a friend and you haven't seen them in a long time, like there's a variety of reasons why you wouldn't want to spend

two hours. But like if you have just gotten through a major rejection, a major whatever, you're going to sit and talk about it for a while. So I don't want to put a number on it. But depending on the magnitude and the severity, it could be 15, 20 minutes to like two hours, which is a long time. But at the same time, I don't want someone to feel like they can't ask for help or can't revisit something. But one thing I would say, is that if you feel like it's this negative loop, that's when you want to get help to interrupt it. And that's where getting out of the house going for walks. Walks are really good in interrupting the cycle of rumination.

And so is going to a beautiful nature, nature awe in a museum, architect, traveling, all of those things that make you feel small and insignificant. It sounds funny. But that's what you need to do to shut off the rumination, is you have to realize that I am one part of something so beautiful. so great to give you context and perspective. I love that. Okay, problem solving. This one surprised me. I wouldn't have naturally grouped problem solving with optimism. Why do they go together? Problem solving is such a big part of optimism because it's this is what you do when things don't work out for you.

So this is how practical optimism differs from toxic positivity, where toxic positivity is like, rah, ra, go for it. Everything will work out. Yay. And I'm like, okay, well, how? Right. And the the problem solving is the how, right? And so it's like figure out all of the obstacles that are in your way, both in the physical world and then also in your head. So part of problem solving is emotional regulation because part of our obstacles are all the negativity. I can't do it. It won't work out for me. No one will like me. No one will show up. They're going to say I suck, right? That's what you have to take control of so that you can quiet it and then get out into the world. And then if you want to execute the the habit or the behavior, think of all the obstacles, the troubleshooting. So practical optimist,

every single one of the eight pillars is equally important, but this is the logistics. This and practicing healthy habits is you interacting with the world. So if you're like in your little box at home, it's like, great, I can be as positive as I want. I can imagine. I can manifest. I can do all these things. But then I'm out in the real world and like 99 things are not going to work out. I'm not going to catch the train on time. That's how it differs. It's all in the fact. that like, yeah, shit's not going to go my way. But you know what? I'm going to try again. This is what I'm going to do. This is who I'm going to ask. This is who I'm going to call. I've got a list. I've got plan A, B, A through Z ready, if needed. What's one specific thing that we often do wrong when we're

trying to problem solve? Not anticipate for obstacles, not ask for help, not have contingency plans in place, and to give up too easily. Can you give us one specific tip to be better problem solvers? to take a break when things don't work out to hit pause instead of hit stop and to say, you know what, it's late, maybe I'm tired, maybe I've been ruminating on this too much, maybe I'm too attached to the outcome to be able to remove myself and think objectively because this is all I'm doing, that I'm like, you know, bathing in this one project that I want so badly that has not worked for me right now, getting feedback, going outside and talking and troubleshooting with someone and saying, like, I really value your opinion. What do you think? What do you

see my outcomes as being? And then also the acceptance part, saying that is this a problem to be solved or a truth to be accepted? And I think at some point, you may need to let go and say, I've done my due diligence. I've done everything. And maybe this isn't meant to be for now. When I think of rejection, I just think of it as a no for now. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I am so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refused to die. They sit there releasing inflammatory signals,

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as you would in the morning after you've slept well. 100%. I also work with couples and I'll say, you know, nothing good happens after 9 p.m. because you're both tired or hungry or both. And you can't problem solve at night. So 100% come. back, you will come back while rested, you will have a sense of humor and have a sense of humor. Like, that's the key when things don't work out. And we know that with couples, having a sense of humor is a big part of it. Pride. Why does pride matter for being optimistic? You know, when people think of pride, they have like a negative association because I think it's associated with arrogance or they're just like, I don't get it. Like, where does this fit in? But pride, really, the way that I've

defined it is self-compassion. And I think self-compassion is what we need. I talk about self-esteem. I don't love the idea of self-esteem. I found that fascinating that you didn't like the idea of self-esteem. Yeah, because it's all we talked about when I was growing up, like, oh, we need to boost our kid's self-esteem. And I think that they're on the right track in the sense that how we view ourselves. The problem is your self-worths should never be attached to external achievements and accomplishments because it's like the weather. You know, one day it's great and one day it's not. Whereas self-compassion is more like climate. It's like more stable and steady over a longer period of time. It doesn't fluctuate with that level of variation day to day hour to hour,

whereas weather it can. And self-compassion is something that I really needed. And I think a lot of people who are either giving or highly accomplished, their whole focus is on doing. And there's no grace for being. And it's like I get to rest simply because I'm human. I have worth simply because I'm human. This is a personal question. But can you give one tip for feeling like we have self-war? worth outside of our accomplishments? If in the moment I feel like I must do to have value, is there something that I'm telling myself to say you're okay just to be right now? Yes, this is something I struggled with. Like growing up in a family where they put so much emphasis on productivity and achievement and giving back to others. And that was a big one,

is giving back. We would have all of these like things that we were expected to do every day. And so I've carried that and this is my burden. If I don't have anything to show for the day, if I wasn't productive, God forbid I'm sick and I can't work at 150% speed and whatever. I feel like crap about myself. This is something I'm actively struggling and dealing and working with. And so I had to tell myself, you don't have to ask permission for rest. You are owed this. And this came up this week.

I don't know if you followed the six-day energy challenge in the New York Times. And I was interviewed for the first day and the fifth day. And the first day was about creating oasis moments. So oasis moments are carving out like five-minute block of time. where you're resting. You're not achieving anything. It's not necessarily a meditation, but you're acknowledging the importance of daytime rest and adding to your productivity. So here's what I would say. Own the fact that you feel the need to be productive. It's part of who you are. It's not going to change. Nor do I think you need to change it because it makes you

so successful, right? So instead, what is more likely for you to embrace is these five-minute breaks that you can take once a day, twice a day, however often you need them. And I feel like five is the perfect number because you're not going to feel guilty. Oh my God, I wasted so much time. And we actually see this when it comes to leisure time that the people who benefit from it the most are those who see the value in it. So if I told someone like you, okay, go take a month off and just go, I don't know, do nothing, go travel. I mean, it sounds amazing, but you've so many amazing podcasts and like you're just always doing so many things. You might feel restless after a certain amount of time. Like I have patients who call me from their vacation. They're like,

what am I doing here? I need to be doing. Oh, this is too weird. I have too much time off. I don't know what to do with myself. And they say, like, the idle mind is a devil's playground. So for some people, long periods of time, it doesn't work. But if I told you that five minutes is part of your, like, medical prescription, I'm asking you, and you are going to, and they showed a study that people are more productive at the end of their workday throughout their day, who do this daytime rest. So whether it's five-minute oasis moments, you shut everything off, you're sitting in your chair, you can lie down on the floor, whether it's a 15-minute nap. If you know that this is my productivity hack, this is what I'm doing to be more productive, you're more likely to embrace it. I love that. It's also putting the cart

before the horse. Like, I'm not having to believe that I have worth outside of my doing. I'm actually doing something that will translate into me having that self-worth. Yes. Yeah, I love that. Okay, proficiency. Why is that related to optimism? So proficiency is more about your confidence in your ability than your actual ability. And I'm never saying don't get actual ability. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're something that you're not. But if two people have equal amounts of ability, what's going to change is the fact that you think you're going to win. So they did a study where they put two athletes against each other and one person is in on the experiment, the other person isn't,

and they tell the person who isn't, hey, you're playing against somebody who's not that great. And so when you think you're going to win, you bring your best game and you're like, I got this, I'm going to do great. And the skill and the experience of the other player didn't change in the next experiment. All that changes and then they told the second person, this person is a lot better than you. And their confidence got eroded. And they're like, I'm not going to win.

So they just didn't try. And so we're more likely to come 150% if we think that we have a chance. And we see this like with kids going into a classroom when they're told that the kids are going to be friendly, when you expect the best, you get the best because you bring the best. Fascinating. Okay. So what's one trick that we can do? to go into any situation thinking we're going to win.

So first thing I would say is be prepared. There is no substitute for preparation. Once you're prepared, let it go. So I had to give a big keynote speech, and I hadn't done something like this. There were like thousands of people. I was like scared. I was like, okay, I have been talking to in TV interviews, like three people at most, five people because there are a couple of people in the studio.

Well, millions. You just don't see them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I don't see them. Yeah. You're right. And so this, it started getting into my head of like, okay, and it was a 60-minute speech.

And there were no slides and I had to memorize it. and I had written it and changed and revised and like, who are these people going to be? Are they going to get it? Are they going to love it? Blah, blah, blah. And then what I did the day before, I was in a different city was just sightsy. And I was like, there's no point in me sitting here going over and over and over again. It'll be great. I'm going to do fine. But I got feedback. I hired someone an editor to give me feedback. And so part of self-efficacy is having role models, having mentors, getting feedback, right? And this is someone who was like, had been a speaking coach and was just like, okay, this will resonate, this will not. And so I felt prepared because I did the preparation, but I also brought in someone. And that's

not something I've ever done before, like really like get that professional input on speaking, because I've been doing this for so long and I feel like I know what I'm talking about. But recognizing what is not your expertise, which is entertaining people for 60 minutes with all and educating, right? So know what you're good at. Know your blind spots. Know where you need help. Get additional help. And the one thing I would say is there's so many ways. So Albert Bandura is the expert in self-efficacy. And he says that you can learn things by doing them yourself. You can do them vicariously. You can do them by getting a role model. You can watch athletes. So there's so many ways of learning. It doesn't have to be you. But he always believed that doing things yourself is the best

way to do it. And there's a quote by Rumi and says, you know, basically don't get enamored with the tales of others. Go out and unfold your own myth. So at the end of the day, you can read and you can talk, but you have to do it. So again, it's that belief in your ability. and I don't want to say fake it till you make it, but at least fake the confidence. And the more that you do the thing, the more you'll come into the situation with the belief that you will win. Exactly, exactly. And then being able to celebrate your wins, that's a big part of it.

That actually helps it on the reverse side. It'll help you believe you're going to win more. Yeah, because I think so many of us have blocks to like enjoying and we're always on to like the next achievement, the next goal. And because we're perfectionist, we may not be able to like sit with the compliments, but the talk went well. It was a standing ovation. So many, like, people came to me afterwards. And so then I realized it's hard for me to take in the positive. It's always like, oh, but should I have done this? Don't get mired in the negativity. Stick with what worked and then do more of it. Being present. Can you give us one tip for being more present in our lives?

Yes. When we're not present, it's because we are stuck in the past. We're stuck in the present with other people's comparisons or we're worried about the future. And figure. out where your trap is. Are you stuck in one of those three tenses? Because when one of those, we're never going to be present. When you are talking to someone, I know right now we may have devices, but like put the phones away. The likelihood of you being present is a lot lower because you know that you're going to get an interruption or distraction. And the other thing I would say is don't get caught up in your own negative thoughts. Think of them as you would think of baggage carousel at the airport. You might notice other people's baggage. You might have opinions about them, but you're not taking them home with you, right? You notice them and you let them go.

So think of your own thoughts as other people's baggage that you are not taking home with you. Oh, that's such a good metaphor. I love that. What about when we're by ourselves? So like phone devices are away and then is the baggage tip for when we're by ourselves essentially in trying to be present in those moments? Yeah. And I would also say, You don't have to fill up every moment of your day. I saw a person at Starbucks. They were not scrolling on their phone. They were just drinking their coffee quietly by themselves.

What a psychopath. And I was like, we just don't do that anymore. A lot of times people will say, I'm in the shower, I have the TV on, or now I'm at home, and I've always got noise. So try to turn down the noise and the stimulation from the outside and try to do things single-mindedly. A lot of times we buy into this whole multitask. and really all you're doing is compromising the quality on everything you're doing. When you're washing dishes, just wash dishes. Don't feel like you have to also listen to a podcast or something. I mean, it's great, but they should listen to your podcast. But just leave space. Sometimes you can

wash the dishes with the podcast and sometimes you can just wash the dishes. I've been practicing at red lights, not reaching for my phone, which feels so silly, but it's a habit. When I'm sitting a red light, I'll reach for my phone and just see if anybody's messaged me. And I've just sat at the red light. And it's a tiny, tiny moment, but it makes such a huge difference. Yes, and you're reclaiming your time and your attention, and that's what being present is about. However you feel like you're reclaiming it, if it's at bedtime, there's power in that to me, because we are so addicted to our devices, that there's power in saying no to it. No, you are not the boss of me.

I am. And then we've talked a lot about the people and the practicing healthy habits, but just to round us out, can you maybe share one more really actionable tip for people as our pillar of optimism and one more for practicing healthy habits? Yes. So with people, the two parts are developing what I call an aloneness practice. So learning to appreciate your own company, taking yourself out on a date. I saw this whole thing about book parties. It's not a book club.

It's like people getting together at a bar or a restaurant. I saw this on TikTok. That looks like my dream interaction. I know. Like I love that, right? And so this idea of creating time for yourself and like a book is probably one of the best ways or really just walking without necessarily listening to anything, spending time in nature. but meaningful engagement to me is about going deep and going vulnerable and being authentic in

conversations. And there's a dance and there's a delicate balance to it. So it's sharing when appropriate about yourself if you feel comfortable and if there's trust and then also asking someone how they're doing and how they're really doing and inviting them to open up and then to follow up with people. So I'm a big believer in the aloneness practice and then having meaningfully emotionally attuned conversations where you're sensing the emotional content. and then validating and saying, I'm so sorry, tell me more. Oh, that's amazing. So listening for the emotions and then the micro connections.

I love the micro connections. I'm happy you brought it up because I was going to ask you about it because we talk about micro workouts all the time. We talk about micro habits. And I love the idea of adding a micro people practice into the mix. Yes. Yes. And that's exactly what it is. It is a people practice.

And being very intentional, like there was a patient who was like, you know, I'm going to go through ankle surgery and I don't want to be alone. so she sent out a calendar-level Google calendar invite and said, just please populate. I don't need anything from anyone. I just want someone to come sit with me and hang out with me. So populate my calendar with whenever you're available. So people are so afraid of like, oh my God, I don't want to seem like desperate or lonely. And like when you meet someone and you exchange phone numbers, keep in touch with them. Say, I thought of you, oh, you need to listen to this podcast. You made me think of this. This was a follow-up to our conversation. I've become intentional

about trying to follow up the last thing. And I always keep in mind when I see someone at a party, I always think to myself, like, at that moment, like, what was the last thing this person told me about themselves and what was going on in their life? Their parent was sick or, like, they were looking for a job or a home. I will always ask, and that's something I learned from my dad because he was such a good listener and he was always really good about following up and celebrating people. So natural compliments where they fit and make sense, being authentic and sharing and asking. Love that. And then for healthy habits? Yeah. If there's something you really, really, really want to do, I want people to car. carve out the time, be intentional about how it's going to happen, what are potential ways that

things could get in the way, have an accountability partner on it, and then to make it simple and easy, lower the entry barrier. One example that I love to give where accountability comes in, it's like, have a friend, and I know this is not realistic, but figure out what works for you, is that let's say you had a running partner. Two people swap sneakers because they know that if they don't show up, the other person can't run. So in whatever way that makes sense to you, if it's signing up for a class, I know a lot of people are like, oh, I just won't go to the class and, you know, I'll lose the money. That's not something I would feel comfortable with, like signing up and not going or telling a friend. So whatever way that you know you can't get out of it, that's what

you do if it's something that you really want to do or hire a coach or hire an editor so that you have deadlines of it's something that you're trying to write. So you hold yourself accountable in advance. I love that. Okay, we've covered a lot today. Can you leave us with just one. homework assignment, something that we can do as soon as we turn off this podcast that will have a powerful, noticeable impact on our ability to be practical optimists. Yes. So can I give you two? Yes. Okay. So one is that best possible scenario advice of that exercise of leading and guiding. Create five or ten minutes and envision a problem in your life. Envision a path out of that problem. Describe how the problem makes you feel. Describe the path. Then then experience the positive

emotions associated with reaching the best possible scenario. And I want you to feel all the positivity, the relief, the release of achieving what you wanted. And then I want you to sit with those positive emotions and then invoke them throughout the day to be like, oh, this is what it felt like to win, how amazing this is, and carry that throughout your day. And the other thing I would say is the four Ms of mental health are four very quick science-back techniques that you can can do and create a calendar for it and make sure that you meet the 4Ms every single week. So meaningful engagement, who are you going to call or see in person ideally that week? Mastery, what 10 or 15 minute skill or hobby are you going to hone?

What is it that you want to do? You don't have to be a master to experience mastery. Is it the cooking? Is it the pottery? Is it the painting? Is it the salsa dancing? What is it that you want to do? Or learn?

That puts us in a flow state, which is so important, learning and having fun. The mindfulness is, you know, the five-minute oasis moment exercise or meditation. And then the movement is just like what you talk about a lot, like the micro-movement. Love that. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your beautiful book? Oh, thank you. I want to tell you about the cover. I wanted to pick the right cover because it needed to say something that understood or could recognize hardship in life, but also celebrate positivity and wins. and I love the ocean, and so it had to be like that light blue cover, and then the lemon is about, okay, things don't always work out your way, right? But then how do you make it into lemonade? And, you know, we came up with a couple of different concepts. And I love the idea of like the straw,

like just being stuck. It says, screw it. Life is going to throw me lemons, but I'm going to make a party out of it. So not only did I put the straw, but I put a little cocktail umbrella in it that says, and I'm going to jazz it up. And that's really what the book is about is it's not just the lemonade, which is great. Lemonade is wonderful, but how are we going to go to the optimal functioning? And it's about thriving. So, you know, the book comes out February 20th, anywhere books are sold. And if there's one thing, any gift that you gift to yourself, let this be the gift of wellness, of optimal wellness, of optimal and exceptional wellness for you and for the people in your life. So I hope that you get it. I hope that you practice it. I hope that you share it. Well, and what I loved about the book is it's so

pragmatic. You have like a script for a therapy session that you can do with yourself. There's just so many very actionable things on every single page. You packed in so much information. So I think it's going to be an incredible resource for people. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Such a pleasure. You're such a wealth of resource yourself. So knowledge and information. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. So it was such an enjoyable conversation. Thank you. I hope you loved this episode. I love Dr. Varma's tools so much. You all know that I, can I get enough of a micro habit? There are just so many takeaways in here that I never heard anywhere before and that feel actually simple and doable to apply to our lives. If you have a friend or a family member that you think could benefit from

hearing all of this wisdom, please share a link to the episode with them. This information could be life-changing. I feel like for so many people, it was really life-changing for me. This is, like I said, it's something that I've had to work on, but I want to feel better every day. And I don't want it to feel like such a slog, such an effort every single day. So if you know anybody like that, please, please send them a link to the episode. It's also the best way to support the podcast. And it is so, so appreciated. If someone shared a link with you and you are new to the podcast, welcome.

I am so glad that you're here. Make sure that you are following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. All you have to do is go to the main podcast page. that's the one that lists all of the Liz Moody podcast episodes, and you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. Also, Apple just did an update that is very annoying. So if you follow the podcast there, even if you have been following it for a while, go to that little button in the top right of the page that lists all of the Liz's moody podcast episodes and click turn on automatic download. so the pod keeps showing up in your feed.

This way you will not miss out on any new episodes. They will appear right in your feed every single Wednesday. And now every other Monday, which I am so excited about, we are now adding in if you missed it. Chattier, more advice episodes, more solos, things like that on Mondays, every other Monday. And then we will have our experts, our doctors, all of that will still be every single Wednesday. And you do not want to miss out because we have some very exciting ones coming. up, including an episode about why you don't need to find passion and purpose at work, and another that's breaking down what a narcissist really is and how to heal from relationships with them.

Okay, I love you, and I will see you next Wednesday for the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular

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