The Mel Robbins Podcast - If You Struggle With Stress & Anxiety, This Will Change Your Life

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

If you're feeling tired, unmotivated, and lonely you need today's episode. Today, the #1 stress doctor is here to share her toolkit to quickly get out of a rut and live a happier life. Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a Harvard Medical School lecturer and one of the world’s top experts on stress and public health, will reveal the top 3 things that keep you stressed and overwhelmed. Then, she shares a reimagined, science-backed approach to protect your brain from stress and feel calmer now.The strategies you’ll learn today are simple, free, and available for you to start using right away.By the time you finish listening, you will go from feeling tired to energized, shift from feeling disconnected to deeply connected in your life, and break free from burnout and finally feel your best again.By the end, you’ll feel inspired, empowered, and ready to start thriving.For more resources, including links to Dr. Aditi Nerurkar’s research, website, and social media, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked this research-packed episode, your next listen should be Mel’s conversation with Dr. Tara Swart, MD, PhD: The #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same Connect with Mel: Get Mel’s new book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I just read this crazy statistic. It kind of blew my mind, but at the same time, it made a ton of sense. And I think it's going to make a lot of sense to you too. And it's this. Based on research, 70% of us right now are living our lives in a state of chronic stress. And this isn't just a feeling. What you're going to learn today is that this is actually a medical condition.

It's a physiological state when you feel chronically stressed out. And so I want you to hear something. If you're feeling like you're constantly tired, if you woke up today and you're like, why can't I just get back into the groove? What is going on? I want to tell you something. This isn't your fault. This is what the majority of people are feeling.

If you're feeling this, I know I'm feeling this, you're not doing anything wrong. See, what you're going to learn today, because I'm like, oh, whoa, if 70% of us are'm feeling this, you're not doing anything wrong. See what you're gonna learn today, cause I'm like, oh, whoa, if 70% of us are dealing with this, I'm tracking down the world's leading expert on stress. She is here, her name is Dr. Aditi Narakar, you're gonna love her. We're talking professor at Harvard Medical School,

she is also the former director who ran the largest stress management clinic in the entire Harvard system. Her research is showing that 70% of us, that means you, it means me, it means the people that you care about are in this physiological state where we're in fight or flight.

This is why you're so tired. This is why you're chronically feeling exhausted. And today we're gonna do something really cool because today Dr. Aditi is going to unpack her research and she's going to teach you that there are three things that are happening in the world around you that are largely out of your control, that are creating this condition of stress in you.

But then she's gonna give you the good news. The good news is you have power because your power is in how you respond to these things. And you're going to learn three things to do today that will help you lower the stress. It will help you reset your nervous system. This is all coming from Dr. Aditi. You're going to love this. So you are in the exact place at the exact time where you need to be. And by the time you're done listening, you're going to have your power back.

You're going to learn how to lower your stress and you're going to feel more energized. Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited that you're here. And first of all, it is always such an honor to be able to spend time together with you. I am so excited about today's conversation because I know that by the time we're done today, you're gonna just feel more peaceful.

You're gonna feel more in control. And I so want that for you. And I also wanna take a moment to welcome you. If you're brand new, this is the first time that you've listened to an episode, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. The fact that you've hit play on this episode tells me something important about you.

It tells me that you're the kind of person that truly values your time, that you're making time to listen to something that can help you improve your life, that can help you feel better. And today's conversation is absolutely going to do that. And we're gonna talk about stress and we're gonna talk about ways

that you can lower your stress. But I wanna put this inside a much bigger context for you because this episode happens to be releasing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the United States. And a couple weeks ago, I had the extraordinary honor of sitting down with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s son and his daughter-in-law.

They have a brand new podcast called My Legacy. It was an extraordinary experience. And during that wide ranging conversation, which I can't wait for you to listen to, we covered so many topics. We of course talked about the let them theory. And I've been talking a lot about the let them theory, which is a simple mindset tool

that helps you identify in a moment, what's in your control and what's not in your control. And there was something that Martin Luther King III said to me on his podcast, My Legacy, that I wanted to share with you because I think it sets up the conversation that we're about to have in a much more powerful and profound way in terms of what's available to you

based on what you're gonna learn today. And here's what he said as we were talking about this issue of recognizing when something is out of your control. And that true power lies in your response. And we're going to really focus on that today. But I want you to hear these words from Martin Luther King III as he was reflecting on the power of the let them theory. He said, Mel, when you say let them, this is a truth that defined my father's leadership, that true power lies in our response.

My father believed that nonviolence was not passive, but it was the most courageous form of action. Choosing peace when hatred tries to provoke, by refusing to react with bitterness, we reclaim our power and shape a better future. I just love that. He went on to say, let them doesn't mean you're giving away control, it means you're reclaiming it.

By choosing how we respond, not by feeding into anger, hatred, or negativity, we exercise the ultimate power over ourselves. As both my father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy says, and his father, Daddy King, and their vision of nonviolent action. You know, Daddy King once said, Mel, in the face of unimaginable loss, I refuse to let hatred reduce me. And when you recognize the strength

that you hold in your response, you realize that you hold the power and that you hold in your response, you realize that you hold the power and that you can transform your family, your community, and even the world. And today we are gonna be talking about the fact that true power lies in your response. And if you're feeling stressed out or overwhelmed by the world around you,

that today you're gonna get this deep sense of validation that you're not alone, that there are forces outside of you right now. And in fact, you're gonna learn about three things that are causing probably the most amount of stress for you or for the people that you love, because these are the three things that our expert today, Dr. Aditi Nurikar, based on her research, is saying,

are things that are out of your control, and they create an extraordinary amount of stress for you. When you hear these things, you're gonna feel validated. And more importantly, we're then gonna talk about how your power is not in those things out there, it's actually in your response to them. That's what the conversation is about, and you're gonna absolutely love it.

So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Aditi. Dr. Aditi is a Harvard medical doctor. She's a researcher, she's a bestselling author. She's a world renowned expert in stress and in public health. She is a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. She's also a mother, and she's married, and she's busy just like you, and she understands the pressure that you're in. She was the medical director of Harvard Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital's Integrative Medical

Program. What does that mean? That means she ran the largest stress management clinic, seeing patients every day, and teaching them all of these integrative approaches, these evidence-based approaches that helped her patients feel better. And today, that's what she's going to do for you. She is going to help you feel more peaceful. She is going to help you get your power back. She is going to help you focus not on all the things out there, but on the power in here and the power of your response. And today specifically, she's going to highlight three key struggles that she sees in her patients every single day.

She is going to validate how you are feeling, and more importantly, she's going to give you your power back. Because you do have the power to change your response to the forces outside of you. And today you're going to learn how. So without further ado, you and I are going to go to our Boston studios where Dr. Aditi Nurakar and I are going to have this extraordinary conversation with you. Let's do it. have this extraordinary conversation with you. Let's do it. Dr. Aditi Nurikar, I am so excited to see you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming back to the studios in Boston. It's a pinch me moment. I mean, to get a chance to be on the Mel Robbins podcast once is incredible and being here again today, it's beyond my wildest dreams, hopes, expectations, and aspirations. Well, I got a high bar for you.

So I don't want to freak you out, but my expectations are very high because the last time you and I had a conversation, you changed the way that I think about stress and it has had a huge impact. And if you're listening to this episode, and this is the first episode that you've ever heard, don't worry, I will summarize it real quick for you.

And I wanna try to summarize it. And if I get something wrong, Dr. Adida, I want you to like fill in the gaps. But basically I always used to think about stress as just this feeling, this kind of overwhelming thing that just interfered with my life. I'm stressed out. I'm frustrated. I'm stressed.

I'm this. I'm that. But I actually never understood what it was. And it wasn't until you said, Mel, medically and physiologically speaking, stress is when your prefrontal cortex or thinking brain turns off and this little second almond-shaped thing in the middle of your mind turns on. And all of a sudden, your brain is now in a response mode that has hijacked your ability to be calm and to think. And the problem for, I think it was 70% of people, at least in the United States, is that we are living in a chronic state of the stress mode of your brain always being on.

How'd I do? I mean, couldn't have said it better myself, truly. That's exactly right. And a recent study found that, yes, like you said, 70% of people are struggling with stress in the US. A study in the UK found that over 90% of people are experiencing burnout. So just think about that. If you are feeling a sense of stress or burnout, you are not alone. It is not your fault.

Just look at the data. Anywhere you are, when you are in a room of 30 people and you think, oh, I'm probably the only one who's feeling this way, the data says otherwise. 21 of the 30 people are feeling that way. That's crazy. And that's one of the reasons why I love the way that you're gonna teach us about stress today

is because it's one of those things that's humming along in the background. And if you understand this is actually a physiological and neurological state, it's not just the feeling in your body, but you have the ability to reset it. And most people don't realize that you're actually struggling with something that's very

common, that is the cause of the stress. And there are things that you can do about it once you actually understand what the hidden cause is. And the first one is a term that I had never heard of. Can you explain what the first one is? So the first thing that we're going to talk about is this idea of horizonlessness. It is a term coined by journalist Kiana Mogadam. I first heard about it during the pandemic when writer Nina St. Pierre interviewed me for an Elle magazine feature on horizonlessness and this uptick of people who are feeling like they don't really have many options and they're not very excited for the future.

So when they think about their own future, they draw a blank. And that is very problematic because in the science, we know that when you anticipate a future that is potentially hopeful, it is beneficial for your brain. It is also beneficial for stress, mental health and wellbeing overall. In one study, they looked at brain scans. So MRIs of people who were anticipating a future and found that that sense of anticipation

acts on an area called the median prefrontal cortex and it's correlated with wellbeing. And now when you ask around and say, what are you looking forward to? Back in maybe 2018, you may have said, oh, I'm looking forward to getting married or having a child. I'm looking forward to graduation or getting this new job,

maybe buying a car, taking this trip or setting up a garden. I mean, there's so many things that people used to look forward to. And now it's like, we just draw a blank. I felt that certainly that sense of horizonlessness, you probably have as well, because it is how our brains are working right now. It's really a telltale sign of this post-COVID era and this new mindset that we're in. How common of an experience is this?

We don't have enough data in terms of studies to look at what is horizonlessness, how do you define it, and we do need more research. But the reason that many of us are feeling this sense of this blank sensation when we think about or anticipate the future is because your brain is built like a dam. So under normal circumstances, let's say you're going through an acute stress. You shore up your internal reserves and you keep it together at all costs. So let's think back to 2020 when we were all in lockdown and we were told, okay, you're

going to be in lockdown for three weeks, four weeks tops, right? You remember that messaging. And so you kept it together. You said, okay, great, I can get through this. So is that what you mean by damn? It's like the wall goes up in your mind? Yeah, the wall is up. So I've noticed this many times when I was seeing patients, my patients who had a cancer

diagnosis, they would get a diagnosis of cancer and they would come to see me concurrently while they were seeing their oncologist, their radiation specialist and lots of other people. And they wouldn't shed a tear. Their doctors would refer them to me and I would say, you know, are you feeling a sense of stress? Are you feeling a sense of burnout? Do you want to talk about anything? No, I'm fine. I'm good. I can handle it. I'm managing a sense of stoicism. They got that clean bill of health. Congratulations, you're cancer free. See you in six months for surveillance. They were in my office the next day crying, saying, I should be having a party. I

should be celebrating. Why do I feel like this right now? And the reason you feel like that is because when you are going through a period of acute stress, you keep it together. You hold it together, all of those emotions, those difficult feelings, you keep them pent up. When you feel psychologically safe, let's say you get a diagnosis that congratulations, your cancer is cured, or you move through an acute stress and you come out the other end and you feel that sense of psychological safety which is what many of us are

feeling now by the way. What do you mean? Wait, are we feeling the hopelessness or are we feeling the psychological safety? So we're feeling a sense of both. So for example, let's continue with the example of this patient who has cancer and is given that clean bill of health. Okay. You come into my office and the dam breaks, you're psychologically safe. And so you allow that opening and release and it's often a deluge. And the only way around is through. And so when I say psychological safety, yes, you are feeling psychologically safe enough to allow those true emotions to emerge. The dam has broken. Now, for many of us right now, we have lived through that pandemic era. We have come out the other side and we are squarely in the post pandemic era. And so the sense of horizonlessness that you

feel is associated with that damn breaking. Because all of those emotions that you have kept pent up, whether you are psychologically aware of it or not, are now coming to the surface. So it's important to understand that if you are feeling a sense of horizonlessness, you are not alone. Or if you feel like, wow, I feel worse now than I did in 2020. The whole world is telling

you that, oh, we've moved on, get over it. And yet you don't feel that way. You're not engaging in the same way, perhaps with holidays or a change of seasons, right? I'm over it. It's because of the dam and the dam has broken within you. And so when I say psychological safety, it sounds like a positive thing. And it certainly is because you finally feel psychologically safe for those true emotions to emerge. Those true emotions could be horizonlessness. OK, I really want to try to understand this, because when you said the word

horizonlessness, I immediately had that image of standing kind of on a beach, this is what came to my mind, and looking out at the ocean or Lake Michigan, which is where I grew up, and all you see is a blank horizon, nothingness beyond the edge of the ocean. And to me, that sounds like a lack of direction. And then I immediately think about like our oldest daughter, when she came back from this

backpacking trip that she had planned for and saved for for eight years, and then all of a sudden gets home and has no job and is like, oh my gosh, now what? Or I think about friends that are going through a divorce, or they have a major job change, or they get a diagnosis, and they look out on the horizon, and they don't have a sense of direction, that's what I thought this was. But it sounds like that's only a part of it,

that a big piece of horizonlessness is this inability to feel excited about your future because of the amount of stress that has been building up. this inability to feel excited about your future because of the amount of stress that has been building up? Am I processing this correctly? Yes, and it's almost like you don't even see a future. Oh. So it's less about being confused

or I'm not sure what I'm doing. That's that acute stress response you're living in the moment. Yeah. But it's almost like, eh, it's that acute stress response you're living in the moment. Yeah. But it's almost like, it's that feeling. And that is what a lot of people are feeling. It's that feeling of not really being excited. Or the opposite of that is being really angry or frustrated about, oh, I want this for my future, but I'm not able to achieve it. These are all healthy emotions because there's a charge to it, right?

Whether it be a positive charge or a negative charge. But horizonlessness is almost a lack of emotion. It's kind of just like, whatever, I'm not really working towards anything because there's really nothing worth working towards. Well, what's interesting is if I think about the thing that I've learned from you about stress is that medically speaking, if you're in this kind of stress response where you're on edge and your amygdala is turned on, if I recall, you can't leverage the part of the brain that helps you plan and think ahead and get excited

about things. Is that part of the reason why this horizonlessness is so common right now? Because people have been so freaking stressed out that they can't even turn on the part of the brain that helps them get excited and plan and look to the future? That's right. That's exactly right. So biologically, you have been living in amygdala mode and you are thinking purely about survival and self-preservation in the immediate, in the now. The prefrontal cortex lights up that part of the brain that we were talking about earlier. Anticipation, forward thinking, strategic planning, the prefrontal cortex is what governs that. So when you have that sense of anticipating the future,

in studies, the brain scans have shown that your median prefrontal cortex lights up because you're starting to think about a future. You know, forward momentum is what has created the human species and has really propelled the human species forward, right? Like this forward momentum is an incredibly important part of evolution. created the human species and has really propelled the human species forward, right? Yeah. This forward momentum is an incredibly important part of evolution.

And so when you don't feel that sense of forward momentum in your life, you use words like feeling stuck. So I want to try to really land the plane because I feel like this could be a huge aha as you're listening to Dr. Nurikar, either for you or for somebody that you care about because I think when somebody gets into a state where in your language, medically speaking, your brain is locked in a stress response,

which is why you're so overwhelmed and blah and stuck and lacking of energy and you're so overwhelmed and blah and stuck and lacking of energy and you're bringing in this term, this horizonlessness. It's easy to blame it on, I'm stuck, I'm depressed, I'm this, I'm that. And you're actually saying, wait a minute, before you start to label it these big things, really take a look at the fact that this is a hidden cause of chronic stress. And this is also the result of you holding so much in and managing so much uncertainty and then the damn frickin breaks and you don't have the capacity in your brain to be able to look ahead and get excited about anything.

I can think of dozens of people in my life. I can think of periods in my life where I've felt this way. And what do you do? Could you talk to someone that is listening to us right now that this is resonating? Why does it matter that they label it this? And what the heck do you do if you go, oh, I think I'm dealing with this thing that Dr. Nurikar is talking about, or I think that my son or daughter is. It's not that they're lazy and they can't get a job.

It's not like that they don't have any ambition. They have this thing that Dr. Nurikar is talking about. So this thing, clinically speaking, it's called the delayed stress response. What does that mean? So the delayed stress response is what we're talking about. Damn breaking and you all of those uncomfortable negative feelings and emotions are coming up for you. I just got this.

Oh my God. Okay, so this is what you feel after you've been trying to hold it together under all this stressful stuff. And then all of a sudden either the stress is over because the divorce is done or the diagnosis has happened or you found the job after the job search or you made it through the really terrible quarter at work and now the dam is broke because you don't have to hold it together

anymore and what happens when that dam breaks is it floods your brain and now your brain is drowning and you can't leverage the motivation or the clarity to figure out how to get excited about life again. Is that right? Nailed it. And that is why so many people, especially now, right? The messaging, the external societal messaging is like, we're out of the woods, everything is great. Individually, collectively, we should be rejoicing,

we should be celebrating. It's the roaring 20s. If you think back to the pandemic, so many articles with headlines like, we just got to get through this time and we're going to hit the roaring 20s. The roaring 20s are going to come roaring back. And I would see these headlines and I would laugh because I would think that is so not how the human brain works because your brain is a dam. And when that dam breaks, it's not the roaring 20s.

You have to move through it. The only way around is through. Once you move through all of this stuff, whether you seek counseling or you do some of the strategies that you and I have talked about in the past, then you can get to the worrying 20s. But for now, when you're sitting in that discomfort of whether you are highly emotional and maybe you're feeling a sense of real emotional charge when the world is telling you, you should be okay. Everything should be great, but you do not feel that way.

There is a disconnect between your internal experience and your external environment. And that causes a lot of difficulty for many people. It's the same difficulty that my cancer patients had when they given a clean bill of health. I should be doing this. I should be doing this. I should be doing this. I should be feeling this way. And yet you don't. And then that creates all sorts of blame

and guilt and shame. This is terrible. So what do you do about it? So like, if somebody's like, oh my God, you've just described my life. What do you do? Like, how do we move forward? Cause I think in seeing this,

and that's the point of the four things that you're gonna talk about today, that you have to understand that this is a common thing and understand the medical issue that's going on so that you can take the steps that remove this as a source of stress. So what do you do if you're like, that's true, I've been holding it all together, the dam is broken,

I'm exhausted, I can't get excited about life, I don't even know how to motivate myself anymore, and even when I do push myself out of bed or to the gym, it lasts like a millisecond. So how do we clear this horizonless out of somebody's life so that you can get excited about what you're looking at in terms of your own future. The first step always when you're going through

a difficult experience is to normalize and validate that difficult experience. Understand that if you are feeling this way, you are not alone. It is not your fault. It is your brain and biology doing exactly what they should be doing. Your brain and body are not broken.

There's nothing wrong with you. There is so much more right with you than wrong with you. That's what John Kabat-Zinn, one of my meditation teachers has always said. It's very easy to start that self-critic, right? Like it's so easy for you to say to yourself, oh, something must be wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you.

This is the biology of stress, and you are seeing the manifestations of that. So the first step is understanding that. The second is to have a sense of self-compassion. We know that self-compassion is not a soft metric. In fact, it changes your brain. Self-compassion works directly on your amygdala. The amygdala, that small almond-shaped structure that you and I

have talked about. How does it work? How does self-compassion work on the amygdala? When you are feeling a sense of stress or anxiety or you know these uncomfortable feelings, the volume of your amygdala is turned up, right? It's your self-preservation response. And so the goal is about dialing down the volume of your amygdala. The reason self-compassion works on your amygdala to dial down the volume is because it changes your neural circuitry. It helps you get out of your own way. When you're feeling a sense of stress and this feeling of the dam breaking, you can't get out of your own way. Like we talked about, anticipation, thinking about the future, that's your prefrontal cortex. You have't get out of your own way. Like we talked about anticipation, thinking

about the future. That's your prefrontal cortex. You have to get there. But if you're stuck in amygdala mode, you biologically cannot get there. So the first step, normalize and validate this difficult experience. Next, start small. You have to also be authentic in this journey and discovery. So when someone says to you, oh, it's mind over matter, just think about something that you can do a year from now or, you know, six months from now. You are biologically inept and incapable in that moment to living in amygdala mode to use that prefrontal cortex to think about what you are going to achieve six months from now or a year from now. It's not mind over matter.

You know what I love about the way that you talk about stress? I love that you blame it on biology. And I love that you are blaming it on the brain function and normalizing that this is exactly how your brain and body works when it gets overloaded. And this is not the moment to set new goals. This is not the moment to start an exercise routine.

This is not a moment to start like, put more stuff on your to-do list and just powering through. You're saying as one of the most renowned medical doctors and experts on stress in the world, that this is actually a medical condition. And just like if you broke your frickin' leg, you wouldn't be playing pickleball on it this afternoon.

You need to let it rest and reset, recognizing that horizonlessness is a symptom of an overloaded brain in terms of the stress response and recognizing that you got to give it time to be able to reset itself. To me, like that makes, because a lot of times when I'm super stressed and somebody's like, oh, you got to take a break, you got to slow down. I'm like, no, I can't because I'm so stressed.

But if a medical doctor says, you have a brain stuck in stress mode, this is a sign that tells me this is so. And just like you have to repair a broken bone, and not to say that your brain is broken, but that you've got to get your brain working correctly and the biology reset before you'll be able to feel excited about the future again. Is that right? Yes. It's a telltale sign of being psychologically depleted. And so, again, it's also normal, Mel, to berate yourself and say, I should be doing more. I need to be doing more. Again, that's your amygdala speaking. That's your inner critic speaking. Instead, take your

foot off the gas and focus on two things. Even if you can only focus on one thing, say, I'm gonna look forward to getting my cup of coffee this afternoon. Okay, so let's break down the two things that you're gonna do. Because we now know we can't step on the gas. We now know, because you've made it smarter, that when you feel this way,

it's not a sign that your life is going nowhere. It's a sign that stress has overwhelmed you and you need to take care of yourself so that your normal, amazing functioning can come back online. And you say there are two things that you can do immediately that are free, and what are they? So there are many things that you can do

that are immediate, free, and science-backed. So for example, if you are feeling like this, prioritize your sleep. Think about sleep as a therapeutic intervention and don't power through and stay up till midnight. Go to bed at 9 p.m. for one week and see how that makes you feel. We know the golden hour of sleep is from 10 to 11.

As close to the 10 o'clock bedtime as you can get. Next, think about doing something, even if it's five minutes every day to move your body. Get out of your head, get into your body. We know that what's good for your body is good for your brain and vice versa. So it is truly about blood flow and getting good blood to the brain. And so think about that. If you would like, consider doing some journaling. So a gratitude practice, five things you're grateful for every day and why. You can connect with friends or community. There are so many small, tangible ways that you can get out of this mode.

But even if that feels too much for you, what you can simply do is say, I'm gonna look forward to my cup of coffee this afternoon. And then maybe you'll be like, oh yes, I feel better. Oh, I'm gonna take a walk around my block tomorrow. What is that walk around the block doing for you? Is it doing anything for your body in terms of fitness? No, this is about mental fitness.

But what it's doing for you is that it's creating a sense of agency. When you feel a sense of agency, and what agency means is, I have the power to make a difference in my life. You, Mel, you are the poster child of human agency. Some days, some days. And I'm going to be honest with you.

Because when you said, look forward to your cup of coffee, or go for a walk, or journal, I almost rolled my eyes. Because when you feel that lost, and I have definitely felt that way in my life, where I look out and I'm like, this is really what my life is, for real? And I felt a sense of relief when I hear from Dr. Aditi, oh wait, this is a biological response

to an overwhelming amount of stress. This too shall pass if I give myself the space to allow it to pass. When you listed off the particular things to do, it kind of is like, okay, throw away advice, whatever, I've heard this a million times. But when you said the word agency, something interesting happened.

And this is what I wanna highlight to make sure as you're listening, you really understand the power of the action. See, when you feel stuck or hopeless, I'm just gonna speak for myself here, and I'm gonna speak on behalf of my family when I've witnessed them being in their stuckness and hopelessnesses,

the emotion itself makes you feel like doing nothing. And as you do nothing, you feel even worse. And so the condition is keeping you from doing the simple and on the surface dumb things that do make a difference physiologically, neurologically and medically speaking. And so if you kind of had that eye roll moment when you heard look forward to your tea or take a bath or journal or walk, I am so with you.

And so is Dr. Aditi because she's like smiling. She did run the largest stress clinic like for Harvard Medical System here in Boston. The issue is agency. And what Dr. Aditi is talking about is that when you go for that walk, even though you say, this isn't gonna help, the action of walking proves that you don't believe you're stuck.

When you say, I'm gonna look forward to that coffee, the action itself is proving that you are going to start looking forward to things. When you crack open the gratitude journal and you have nothing that you're grateful for and you find something anyway, the fact that you can still hold a pen, the fact that you have a journal, the fact that you got a moment, you are proving through the action that the emotions don't rule you.

And if I'm, that's why this matters, right? Well, we can even go back to physics, right? It's like we have, there's two types of energy. There's potential energy and kinetic energy and Newtonian physics. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It is just changing to a different form. And so when you have that,

when you're stewing in your own stuff, and you can't get out of your own way, there's a lot of potential energy there. It feels like you're wading through molasses, but there is a lot of potential energy there. And when you take that first step, that's the science of action. When you take that first step, it doesn't have to be a big step. It can be getting outside, lacing up your sneakers, going outside, feel the sun on your face, taking a deep breath of fresh air,

take a little walk if you can, anything, a small step, you are transferring that potential energy to kinetic energy. And kinetic energy is energy in motion. Over time, when you feel that sense of, oh, I did this, maybe I'll do it tomorrow. And when you feel that sense of, oh, I did this, maybe I'll do it tomorrow. And when you feel that sense of completion from a small act like walking around the block

or making yourself a cup of coffee or anything small, you want to have that feeling again and again and again. And then you build up on it. Can you tell me how long this is going to take? Because I've been in that mode of feeling completely in the molasses of emotion. It'll take you eight weeks. It takes eight weeks. It takes eight weeks.

Can I feel better on the first day? It takes eight weeks to build a habit in the brain. Falling off and starting again, it's part of habit formation. So it takes eight weeks for you to just get into a habit of daily walking. But you're asking the question, how long does this take? You'll feel better by the end of your walk because it's that immediate sense of agency that you have, which makes you want to do it again the next day. Got it.

And the next day, and the next day, which is why when you're starting something new, it's important to do it every day rather than once in a while because you avoid decision fatigue. Making a decision is taxing on your brain. So that's why something like going to a gym and when you're feeling horrible, saying, oh, I'm going to exercise and I'm going to work out for an hour, you know, three times a week. That's why it doesn't work. I want to share a real world example.

I have a friend who's going through a job crisis right now. She's potentially going to leave her job. And so we were having a conversation recently and she said to me, trying to put in all of these things and trying to do it, but I'm just so stressed out. And my response to her was, forget it. Just focus on sleep because she was in crisis mode. And I said, just focus on your sleep, focus on laughter, community, and that's it.

You can get to the other things later. And so she had this big sigh of relief like, oh, even Aditi is telling me that I don't have to do everything all at once. Because when you are in that mode, you need to just almost parent yourself and really think about what are you going to do to lean into that idea of self-compassion and really nurture yourself so that you can feel stronger to then do all of those big things that you have planned. But when you start off thinking or when other people tell you, oh, you're feeling stressed, you know, join a marathon or do this or that, it feels so inauthentic. And so you don't do anything.

It's that all or nothing fallacy. It's like, oh, I have to do all of it or none of it. No, you can do a little bit at a time and you can fan that flame of empowerment. I love that you have, as a doctor, given us the medical explanation for what's behind this feeling and how it's causing stress and reminding us that it's not about doing more. It's really about letting your body reset itself, which it's designed to do if you simply focus on the things that you know you should do, get better sleep, push yourself through the emotion,

take the walk, start to step back into your life, and slowly but surely, you will start to feel like yourself again. Dr. Aditi, I know I've said it before, but I just love all of the wisdom and the science and the tips that we can put to use immediately. There are so many people that I'm going to share this with and as you're listening, please share this episode because it will really make a difference in someone else's life.

And it's a simple way to say I really care about you. And you can send them Dr. Aditi to help. Alrighty, we're gonna take a quick pause, hear a word from our sponsors. We will be waiting for you with more tips, more wisdom, more science after a short break. So stay with us. So stay with us. So stay with us. So stay with us.

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So stay with us. So stay with us. So stay with us. And Dr. Aditi, I had another question that came to mind. There is a second factor that is causing a tremendous amount of stress for people right now and surprisingly impacting the 20 somethings. And I'd love to hear you share about this second topic of loneliness. Loneliness is actually one of my favorite topics to talk about. How come?

I just find it fascinating. Just like stress and burnout, I love discussing these topics because I like to demystify things that people feel like it's only happening to me. See, I have this unique vantage point, right? Because I've been a clinician and seen patients, and then I've also been giving talks. So I see that perspective of what people tell me when the door closes, and I wish more people knew. So let me share the data with you. Loneliness is a global epidemic. Data shows that globally 330 million people go two

weeks without speaking to a friend or a family member. Two weeks? Two weeks. The Surgeon General, who by the way Vivek Murthy is my friend from college, and now he is the Surgeon General. Look at that, right? The surgeon general has said that loneliness is an urgent public health crisis. He wrote a book about it. When you look at the statistics for loneliness, it is so eye-opening. In the US, 50% of adults experience loneliness. Amongst Gen Z, that number is even higher. So from 18 to 25, that number is even higher, 78%. So from 18 to 25, that number is even higher, 78%. 78% of kids in their 20s are struggling with loneliness?

Yes. And here's one thing I wanna say. I know that there's a big light at the end of the tunnel about what we're gonna do about this. So as you're listening, I don't want you to get like super depressed. Like part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you about these four topics is because people are struggling on their own with this.

And when you think that you're struggling on your own, you beat yourself up and it makes it worse. And there are very simple things you can do to understand the topic and to do something about it. That the power truly is in your hands if you understand that this is something very common and you're not alone in struggling with it, can you explain the difference between loneliness

versus spending time alone? What is loneliness? I love that. I will also say, Mel, that when you're talking about something like loneliness, the first step, like we talked about earlier, right, normalize and validate. So when you share data, it is meant to shock in terms of like, wow, I can't believe that this is

what's happening. Maybe I'm not alone then. And so the data, yes, it is jarring and striking, but it should hopefully, if you're listening, make you feel like, wow, 50% of adults, 78% of Gen Z. In the latest report by the Surgeon General on parental stress and mental health, 65% of parents feel lonely and 77% of single parents experience loneliness. So it's everywhere. The difference, I love your question.

What is the difference between feeling alone and being lonely? Alone is a physical state. So you can be alone and feel fine. Loneliness is an emotional experience. So when you think of yourself, like Sawyer just traveled alone through Asia. I have also in my single days traveled alone. Didn't feel lonely. It's a physical state of being.

You're alone. Feeling lonely is an emotional experience and you can be lonely in a crowd of people. So it's less about interfacing, you know, who's around you and rather what's happening internally. Got it. Okay. There's also research that you wanted to share about how damaging this is to your health. The fascinating thing about loneliness, and this is why I was saying I love talking about it, is because when you think about loneliness, most people, you'll say it's a mental health

thing, right? We know that it increases your risk of anxiety or depression, insomnia, but loneliness doesn't just have mental health manifestations, it also has physical health manifestations. In one study, the risk of death of loneliness was equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Wait, so if you're feeling lonely,

which means you're emotionally disconnected from other people, it has the same health risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day? Yes, it increases your risk of heart disease by 30% and your risk of stroke by 30%. It can shorten your lifespan, particularly if you feel a sense of loneliness in older age. So loneliness is not something that's just about mental health.

It has physical health ramifications. I think this is a really important topic because I have gone through major periods in my life where I realized that I was extremely lonely. And what felt really bizarre about it is that I was surrounded by people. So when I was traveling a lot from work, I was on planes with people all the time. I would go to events and there would be thousand people in the audience and people backstage and I'd be talking to people.

But I constantly had this just nagging sense of not being alone, but being lonely. It's this nod. It's a feeling that like nausea. Yes. And there are even stages in my marriage where I think about kind of Chris and I in our corners and we're deep in caring for young kids and his business is struggling or we're just not communicating well. Life has become all about the logistics that we're not really connected that we've both

felt really lonely in our marriage. And I'm thinking about our son who's starting college and the experience of not finding your people yet. And you're around all these people, but you don't really know anybody, and you feel lonely. So recognizing that this is super common is the first step. But what is your recommendation in terms of what you do about it? Because I think part of the process about feeling lonely

is that I don't know about how you feel as you're listening, but if I'm in a room and I feel lonely, or like I don't have anybody to talk to, the fact that other people are around makes me feel worse because it seems like everybody else has a friend or everybody else doesn't have a problem with this. And then that makes me kind of withdraw more, which means now I'm even more isolated.

The research points to a really interesting discovery about loneliness and finding your way out of loneliness. So whether you're a parent who has, you know, I'm a parent and I very much understand having low bandwidth, not enough time, energy, and then you're, it's difficult to form relationships when you don't have much to give, right? Yep. Very much something that many parents can relate to. Or if you're in Gen Z and you're studying, I mean, no one has enough time.

And so what can you do? You can lean into the science of casual conversation. In one study, one of my favorite studies, a group of people were given two clickers. One clicker, it was a study that lasted six days. One clicker was for every interaction you had with a close contact. In the study, they called this strong ties. So family member, dear friend, someone you're really connected to. When you think about loneliness,

when you say, what is the antidote to loneliness? It's community. So you think, oh, I'm gonna just lean into community or rather that's the advice that you're given. Spend more time with friends and family. But your story and I've had very similar experiences. Sometimes you just don't have that bandwidth to give. And so this study, one clicker was for strong ties.

The other clicker was for something called weak ties, casual conversations for parents, for example, at the playground, your barista when you're dry cleaning, when you're bagging your groceries at the grocery store, just people that you meet along the way. Former science may have said, oh, these sorts of interactions aren't very important for loneliness. You need deep, meaningful conversations. But this study and another I'll share in a second really turned this notion on its head

because the study found that people who had lots of the clicker going off with weak ties, so casual conversations throughout the day had a decreased sense of loneliness, a greater sense of happiness and well-being. So the researchers concluded that it's not about these strong ties. Of course, it's important to have deep, meaningful, connected relationships. But equally so, you want to have these engagements with weak ties, casual conversations that don't require a lot of bandwidth. And so that's good news for someone who's feeling lonely or withdrawn and doesn't have

a lot to give when they're running on fumes. When you're at the grocery store, have a short brief conversation with someone in the aisle, or when you're bagging your groceries, you're picking up your dry cleaning, have a chat with someone there. It can be very perfunctory and terse, but it will increase your sense of community because you will feel engaged in your surroundings. Another study did something similar, looked across eight countries. It was a study done by the Harvard Business Review. And it found similar things that when there's a mix of social interactions with strong ties and weak ties, so of course, conversations with weak ties, it increases your sense of well-being, happiness, and connection.

And so really you're getting at connection through the back door in this situation. Because when you hear about loneliness, you know the antidote is connection, community, fostering these things. But when you are experiencing that sense of loneliness that you and I have talked about, that gnawing sensation, you feel isolated, you feel alone. And also I just want to mention the paradox of stress. When you are feeling a sense of stress, you feel isolated. And yet, you look around and everyone

is feeling that too based on the data, right? 21 people in a room of 30 are experiencing these things. And yet, they feel alone in their experience. So we are experiencing all of these things, but we don't talk about it for lots of reasons. Blaming ourselves, we feel a sense of shame and guilt. And so conversation is really the antidote. We don't talk about it because you feel like a loser

when you're lonely. Because the perception is where did all my friends go? And why has everybody's life looked like a big party? And I literally am not connecting with anybody. And I will share a quick story because again, I think one of the things that I am really passionate about is highlighting why something matters. Because oftentimes on the surface, the solution to a problem that you're facing and let's be honest with each other, loneliness is a huge problem.

You deserve to have amazing friends. I remind myself all the time that some of the most favorite people that I will meet in my life, I have not even met yet. And that sense of hopefulness that there are extraordinary people on the road ahead, that makes me shake loose from that emotional straight jacket that can take hold.

And I remember, and I want to share this because I think it's really important. When we moved, so I lived in Boston or outside of Boston with my husband and our three kids for 26 years. Sense of community, you know where you are. And then we moved to southern Vermont like so many people did over the past four years, relocated to different areas as hybrid work picked up. I woke up in a brand new place that I was, by the way, excited to be in,

and was like, what have I done? I didn't see my friends back in Boston. Now I'm in this whole new community? And I sat in my house for months. I was that statistic of I didn't talk to people community and I sat in my house for months. I was that statistic of I didn't talk to people for two weeks at a time. And I just fed into this, I'm never gonna meet people. I'm so lonely.

How am I gonna break in when everybody's got their friend groups? And I will tell you firsthand, which is why I'm so passionate about this research. Do you want to know how I finally made friends, Dr. Aditi? Please, I would love to. I got my rear end out of the freaking house. I think I was struggling with loneliness and the horizonlessness at the same time.

It was like all crashing down. I forced myself to go to this coffee shop that I loved. Now, mind you, I had been going there, but I didn't talk to anybody. I would get my coffee and then I'd sit in the corner and I would feel sorry for myself and I'd read my book and then I'd go home and I'd cry to Chris and I have no friends and I'm really lonely and why do we move?

And then finally, I just started to turn to the people next to me. Hi, it's awkward. Do you guys live here? And you start casual conversation, exactly what you're talking about. And what ends up happening is this, when you feel lonely, you don't feel connected to anybody.

When you start to say hello to the people that you bump into in your day-to-day life, you are building a crazy scaffolding of familiar faces. You don't need to know their life stories. Simply saying hello to people made me feel like I was part of a community. And one awkward hello at a time, it took me about six months.

And that's why I like to say, how long does this take? How long do I need to keep doing this? For me, one hello at a time to bump into some of the most favorite people that I've ever met in this teeny little town that I now live in. And so it's the same advice I give to my son, who's now in college, you have to get out of your dorm room

and stop watching your old life. And you have to start saying hello to strangers and the person who is emptying the waste paper baskets, because the more familiar faces that you have, the more you feel connected and the more you come out of your shell. And I think sitting around expecting this to somehow solve itself is the worst thing that you can do. And we also know based on the data that one of your prior guests, Bob Waldinger, one of my

colleagues from Harvard, is the head of a study that has been running for 75 long years, the longest running study on happiness, and found that of anything else, not money, not your wild travel stories, of all these things that people think are going to make you happy, the quality of human relationships is the greatest predictor of your happiness. You don't meet a best friend overnight, right? You chat with your barista, you chat with someone at the grocery store, dry cleaning, the drug store. And over time, it's just, it's one awkward hello after another, after another, until you kind of fall into friendships and relationships that one day could be part of this study,

one of the greatest relationships of your life. I am so grateful that you canceled everything on your calendar in order to be here with me and the person listening today. So thank you. I already know the first person I'm sending this to. And as we take a quick pause, we can hear a word from our sponsors,

which allow me to bring this information to you at zero cost. Please take a moment and share this episode with somebody who you would love to see feeling less stressed because the information that we've already covered and all that is to come will help them feel better. And it's something simple that you could do. Okay?

Alrighty, we'll be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and I'm here with the amazing Dr. Aditi. And let's just jump right back into it. Let's move on to the third kind of thing that's in the background that so many people are dealing with. I saw you put up a social media post about this report from the Surgeon General about the level of stress that parents and caregivers are facing. And he used very strong words to describe what a crisis this is. And I wanted to talk to

you about it and hear your point of view and more importantly, what to do, because I think we all just, as parents and caregivers go, of course it's stressful. But as we're seeing with every topic, labeling it and calling it out as a form of stress is really important because that makes you realize you have to do something to take better care of yourself, that this is a real thing and it's not you. So the Surgeon General Snaps snapshot paints a bleak picture.

It shows that parents are struggling and quite badly. In this snapshot of data, 50% of parents, almost 50% of parents say that they are overwhelmed with stress on most days. 65% of parents are lonely, 77% of single parents are lonely. And we know that from prior data, 75% of parents have parenting burnout. And I think that based on all of this data, my hunch is actually that this data, as shocking as it may seem, is actually under-reported. For all of the reasons you and I have talked about. Feeling a sense of guilt or shame, feeling like, oh, I can do it all.

I'm not stressed. This is just what parenting is. And so people aren't coming forward and actually sharing that, yes, in fact, I am stressed. I'm surprised that it's only 50% of parents because I'm a parent and I know all of the science and I'm still stressed simply because we need a cultural shift. When we're talking about parenting stress, of course we need a cultural shift. We need better policies, childcare, parental leave, all of these things.

And while people are working on that, we also need a cognitive shift within ourselves to think about parenting. And the surgeon general says it beautifully, parenting is sacred work. And another phrase which I loved in his report was that simply put, caregivers need care too. And so my solutions are more on the individual basis. While the cultural shift is happening, there's more conversation about child care and parental

leave than ever. But what can we do while these policies are being worked out? We can think about what we can do in our own lives, and we lead with parenting ourselves. We are so good as parents on setting boundaries and limits for our children. When it comes to bedtime or screen time or what they eat or how much they socialize. We are fantastic with creating all sorts of guidelines for our children. And yet we don't do that for ourselves. We tell our kids to go to bed at eight o'clock or seven o'clock because they need a good night's rest. Their brain and their body needs to develop.

Yes, an adult's brain is not developing in the same way as a child's. But due to this concept of neuroplasticity, it's this idea that your brain, it's not a grab bag, it's not like, oh, the brain I have at birth is the brain I've had for life. It is constantly evolving and changing based on external stimuli. So when you do prioritize your sleep or connection

or do movement or when you do all of these things which might, you know, bring an eye roll from parents, you are actively changing your brain. And so the science of action is important, yes, for that sense of agency like we talked about for parents as well, but also because it actively changes your brain so that you can manage the stressors better. The fascinating thing about parental stress in this particular study was that there are many types of stress and they change based on the lifespan of the child.

Wait, lifespan or age? The age of the child. Because I hear lifespan, I'm like death? Wait, what's happening? Oh no, no, it's the lifespan, meaning depending on the age of the child, you have different stressors, of course, right? You've gone through the parenting journey from birth to now all of your children are in their 20s.

I don't know, I know your daughters are in your 20s. 26, 24, 19. 19. I guess the question that I have is, as I'm hearing this and I'm thinking about this report, and I'm thinking about how stressful parenting is. And even when they leave, the problems are just bigger and more expensive. It's not that like that ever ends in terms of the stress and the worrying about, but

you're talking about the acute stress of the caregiving aspect of always needing to be on. Do we need to shift cognitively where you just are like, okay, the caregiving aspect of always needing to be on. Do we need to shift cognitively where you just are like, okay, the next 18 years of my life, we're going to be wildly stressed out and that means I'm doing this correctly? Sort of like you're like, okay, for the next nine months, I'm pregnant and I'm going to go wide, then I'm going to go out, the pants are not going to fit, this is going to be what it's going to be, I'm not going to resist it, I'm just going to jump right into it.

No, I love that framing, but no. Okay. Because you, again, it is very easy to say, okay, this is just how it's going to be. I'm going to be stressed out of my mind for the next 18, 25, 30 years, right? Like they say, you have 18 summers with your children. I've seen all of those social media,

the funny videos of people being 45 and dancing saying, oh, my parents are on the 45th summer. And it's really cute. But of course, we know that parenting and raising a child takes hard work. And of course, it is stressful. But we need to parent ourselves because you can only pour from a cup that is full.

And if you don't feel a sense of well-being and health, this is not just about the parent and mental health for the parent. Research shows that it impacts future generations. So in one study, parental stress and mental health, poor parental mental health, impacts the child because children of caregivers with poor mental health had a four times greater

likelihood of having poor general health themselves. Okay, I want to highlight that. So you just said, and I want to make sure that as you're listening, because I think also a lot of us in the trenches of parenting or caregiving of an aging parent, which is also a grind on your stress as well, that there are different motivations for taking care of yourself. And if you're motivated by being the best parent that you can, understanding that your kids are four times more likely, based on the research, to have mental health issues and general health issues, if you are not taking care of yourself, there's your reason why.

I'm gonna give you another one. You are not put on this planet simply to be somebody's mother or father. And until you start to take care of your health, you will always limit the potential of what is possible for yourself. And you are also modeling for your children that what parenting looks like is sacrifice, stress,

not taking care of yourself. And that's exactly what they're gonna grow up and do to themselves. And if you want your kids to learn how to take care of themselves and how to be healthier and how to prioritize good habits. You have to model it. And it is possible for you to take care of yourself and to give a little bit more agency

to your kids and to your partner if you have one and to ask for help. And these are all functions of a healthy human being, which is what you want your kids to grow up and be and what you deserve to be now. And one of the things that I love about your advice is that it constantly comes back to not sitting around waiting for somebody else to change this, but the power that you have in your own hands to make a decision that, yes, it's stressful, but you're going to get better at managing it. And sleep is a huge piece of this.

Is there any other takeaway that you want somebody who is in the throes of caregiving to have as something that they can do now to better manage the stress? Because you can't remove all of the external stuff that's going on. You can only get better at how you respond to it and how you take care of yourself. I would say once again, because we mentioned this prior, but we didn't talk about it specifically for parenting, you know that when you are going through a period of stress, your amygdala is on and that inner critic has a megaphone. And when you are parenting, that experience is amplified because of societal messaging,

familial messaging, and messaging that you are internally creating. And so that inner critic, that megaphone, sometimes you have a megaphone in each hand when it comes to parenting. So first understand that you are doing so much better than you think you are as a parent. And like we talked about, self-compassion, being gentle on yourself. If you mess up, we know that in the parenting research, repair is really important. And so of course, no one is going to be a perfect parent 24-7 that's humanly impossible. But understanding that you have to turn inwards and give yourself

the same care, attention, compassion, and parent yourself through the journey is really important. Dr. Aditi, thank you so much for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to not only come and bring the science and the passion and the research and to reveal these factors that a lot of us don't realize are very, very common and acute causes of stress, but more importantly, giving us specific things that we can do in order to feel better. It is such an honor and privilege always to join you Mel. Thank you for having me. It has been again, the joy of a lifetime.

You're awesome. And I wanted to make sure that in case no one else tells you that I tell you that I love you, I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there is no doubt in my mind that learning what stress is and how to manage it is something that will help you live a better life and you deserve that. So I hope you take absolutely everything that Dr. Aditi poured into you and share it with you and you not only use it to manage your own stress and to become happier, but that

you share this with somebody that you care about because it's gonna help them too. Alrighty, I'll see you in the next episode. I'm sweating. You're sweating? Oh my goodness. Why? Profusely. Oh, for God's sakes, really?

Always. Oh, for God's sakes, really? Always. Oh, I... We haven't even started yet. Don't write your breakout for Try Out Loud. Although I always joke that the worse I look, the better the content does. Seriously, all you need to do is show up and shine, woman. Do you know how hard it is to get a medical appointment with you?

It is a gift, for God's sakes. Like, you are literally giving people world-class medical advice And so here's what I'm having such a fangirl experience right now You and I are going on a walk right now. Because you are the ultimate in parasocial relationships. What is a parasocial relationship? It means when you feel a sense of connection with someone, but you have no idea, you've

never met them. And you are the ultimate for me in parasocial relationships and I don't know, 15 other, 15 million people. Is that a good thing? It's a great thing. Do I have mine? I love you. You're great. You're just awesome. You're great. 15 other, 15 million people. Is that a good thing? It's a great thing. Do I have mine? I love you.

You're great. You're great. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for

educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.