The Morning Stream - TMS 3052: Polite Bear

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

The Cleanest Mummy. Dumber Than Scott's Dog. A tiny drop of retsin. Can't spell Gaslighting without AI. No Hairy Chested Men From Idaho. Raccoon Finger Things. There's Only One R in Crusher. Be a real man with the doorbell. Raw Dong Simmons. We have authoritarianism at home. I got this new thing and beat the big boss. I watched Longmire so I am an expert in Wyoming. Practice Relax. Eu-3.5-ia. If your burnout lasts more than four hours, consult Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream.VIDEO: https://youtu.be/xx3bc0qqpB4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that the Beatles on the album cover for help aren't actually doing the correct semaphore for the word help? The photographer didn't like the way those letters look, so he had the band switch to NVUJ. Nvudge. Anyway, please give your Nvudge to TMS today at patreon.com slash TMS. Coming up on the morning stream, the cleanest mummy. Dumber than my dog. A tiny drop of Retson. Can't spell gaslighting without A and I.

No hairy-chested men from Idaho. Raccoon finger-themed. There's only one R in Crusher. Be a real man with the doorbell. Rod Don Simmons. We have authoritarianism at home. I got this new thing and beat the big boss. I watched Longmire, so I am an expert in Wyoming.

Practice relax. EU 3.5ia. If you burn out lasts more than four hours, consult Wendy and more on this episode of the Morning Stream. A funny thing happened when this movie, the Pokemon, was actually first released flashing lights, triggered seizures in hundreds of Japanese children. Is that by coincidence?

Or did something happen that they can't explain? Man oh man. Man oh man. The morning stream. The Beast with a millionized. By just last week I had my entire car millionized. And it smells great. Hello and welcome to TMS.

This is the morning stream for Thursday, August 13th, 2026. I am Scott Johnson. That is Brian Abbott. Hello. Good morning. Hello. Hello. Yes. Another day. Another dollar. That's all it takes to get on our Patreon. A buck a month. That's right. That's right.

That's not even another day. It's another month for you people. Another month. Another dollar. You'll never miss it. Put it in our Patreon. Yeah. It's another 16 episodes or something. The change in your couch cushions. how do we shortchange ourselves so much? Exactly. Why are we so damn cheap? Why? Take advantage of it while you can. Because shrinkflation's coming for you or something.

Hey, it's good to have you all here. I hope you're all having a good one. I wanted to start things off today. So we got a lot of good stuff today. We got Wendy coming up and some news and some other fun stuff. I went to the gym, so I'm feeling good. Good. And yesterday we talked to Tom about. AI stuff and how the industry might or might not have better ways to sort of let people know when something's Gen AI and when it isn't, that sort of thing. And for whatever reason, that sent me on a little bit of a path. And I found what I believe to be, the most ridiculous example of why

AI is such smoke and mirrors. It's such, it's such snake oil sometimes. Yeah. They want you to think that it's this magic box. And honestly, it's just, sometimes you just, you run into a thing and go, what the frick is it doing? Like it's, it's dumber than my dog. My dog would have a better answer than this thing. And there are times when it impresses because it's like, oh, it's like a real voice coming out of there. And they seem to be talking to me. And this is like the real freaking deal here.

Well, I got an example of it that's going to make you all cringe a little bit. So here is maybe my favorite example of this, about a minute 21 of a guy talking to his phone. I believe this is an chat GPT agent. So this is their thing. So for whatever that's worth. And he's just trying to get answers out of it. Here you go. Spell strawberry.

S-T-R-A-W, B-E-R-R-Y. How many R's are in strawberry? Two. Are you sure? Pretty sure. S-T-R-A-W. B-E-R-R-Y, two R-S. You just said three R's.

Huh. Nope, still two. Maybe your mouth heard an extra one, but there's only two. How many R's are in the word straw? One. S-T-R-A-W. How many R-R-S-W? Stramar?

No. How many R is in the word berry? One. There's only one R in the word berry? Yep. Can you spell it? E-R-B-E-R-R-Y. Yep, you just said,

Yep, okay. Yeah. So how many R's are in berry? B-E-R-R-Y, two R's. How many R's are in straw? S-T-R-A-W, one R. So how many R's are in straw-berry? Checking.

Three, one in straw and two in berry. Great. How many R's are in the word strawberry? Two. 1,000% accurate. Great job. Yeah. This is why, you know, the new captcha really needs to be,

identify the strawberry in this picture. Yeah. Because they can't figure it out. Yeah. No, that's a great idea. We've got to figure our way to beef up our captions. So find all the dumb shit these things do and exploit them. Count the R is in the word strawberry.

Gosh, dang it. It's so bad. And the thing is, like, it's all about presentation that's convincing. because you hear her going, oh, you want me to spell, like she's kind of interrupting. She's sort of like backing off and saying, no, I think, you know, she's responding like a person. So our brains go, ooh, magical, intelligent life we've created in our little phone box. It's not, dude. It's just predictive text shit and it gets it wrong a bunch of times.

Is it useful for things? Yes. But we got to stop pretending like this is like. The end all be all. Yeah. It's not, you do not rely on it. You know, it's a great tool, but make sure there's a human at the end of it that is there to, like, make sure things, all the eyes are dotted, all the teas are crossed, and all these strawberries have three hours.

Yeah, when Sam Altman gets up on his next little weird stage thing, and he goes, we've been able to tap into the future of all intelligent life. He starts talking like that. Give him the bird and change the channel, because it's just a bunch of bunk. They've got to get their billions of investments somewhere. they are lying to you. This stuff is cool for what it can do and it's shitty at a bunch of other things.

Think of it as like an advanced search engine, honestly. That's kind of what it is. And it's actually the most use I get out of it is search engine stuff. And it's pretty good at it. It searches the actual web, but it also has information that gets to me quicker than some ad riddled Google search.

Then scrolling exactly through a bunch of sponsored results and that sort of thing. It's a nice bypasses all that. Yeah. And so there's, you know, I'm not, here. I'm not poo-pooing. Someone at home's going, oh, but I love what it does. Great, do it. I use it for TLDR stuff all the time.

It's like gigantic article on some complex tech thing and I need to learn real quick. I'll toss the link in and say, give me the fifth grade level. Yeah, paraphrase this down for me. Yeah, we use it for daily music headlines for just that. Yeah, and it poops it out and gives you the hits and you're done. But it's still, but it's still, we have to edit almost every, every headline because the stuff it gives us is not, completely accurate. You know, say,

there was one a couple days ago, those like, well, no, that's not exactly what it was saying. It was describing a concert

and said that, you know, this person had to be taken off stage. Maybe it was Rod Stewart. I can't remember what the deal was, but it phrased it as Rod Stewart took somebody off stage during his concert.

It was worded so stupidly that it's like, no, that's not what the article is saying. Let me fix a couple things in here because you're getting it wrong. But 80% of it we're able to use. But I mean, that 20% is not just, eh, it's, no, that's wrong. Yeah.

Like a Google search or like a book edit or like anything else that a human has to do the work. You've got to do the deaf, deaf and work, man. Yeah. That's really it. So I'm just saying it's easy for people to get lulled into the sense of the future. Right. It's in my palm of my hands. It's like, no, dude, you're not talking.

to the Star Trek computer and even that thing effed up a lot. It did. You know, there are a whole episode about that thing effing up. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Do you've never, this ship has never needed more than one or two people to pilot it. Yeah, that whole episode sounds like that conversation, doesn't it? That's right.

Exactly. It's like Beverly Crusher is the only one left on the ship. There's only one R in Crusher. You know what computers are good for, Scott? What's that? Computers are good for telling you, like, with every, everything you buy, right? Every pocket taco or whatever you buy,

you get one of these in there. And it's a little USB cable. Usually these days now a USBC cable. And you're like, cool. Another one of these, I'm going to throw in a drawer, forget about, and then dump into a bag, donate to Goodwill or trash later on. You always think you might need to keep it,

but you really don't. You really don't. But how do you know which ones to keep? How do you know which ones are good cables versus bad cable, Scott. Sure. Well, I can tell you right now, there is a site that is awesome at this called whatcable. Dot UK.

What? This sounds like something I need. This is something you need. So here's what you do. You download it from here. And it's a tool that sits in your menu bar. I think it's just for Mac. You download it.

It sits up in your menu bar. You don't have to have it running all the time. Just launch it. But what it tells you is, The cable you're plugging in, is it charge only? Is it slow charge? Is it fast charge? Is it like the thing that's kind of...

Thunderbolt? Does it have the chip in there that tells you like all the bonus stuff, like that that cable does? So I've whittled down my cables. Just, you know, every once in a while, fire this thing up. I've got five or six cables on my desk that came with things. And it's like, oh, this is a fast charge cable? Cool. I'm holding on that one.

This one is like a trickle charge. No reason to keep it. I am so doing this. This is so good. I've got countless cables. And I have some that I really like and they're currently in use. And I would love to know what other ones in the background I could swap out or use for other things I add or whatever. And I never know.

Yep. And I don't know if something's slow charging or fast charging sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't matter. It's overnight. So I don't care. But it's like I'd love to know. Yeah. No, this is really, really good for the.

that. It seems so silly and so easy, but it's like, and as soon as you plug it in, so you've got the, the list showing up on your menu bar, like you've clicked on it. It's got, here's what's currently plugged in. This is this USB cable. Oh, and it's got a camera. It's got your OBSB bought plugged into it. And that as soon as you plug in another cable, doesn't even need to have something on the other end of it. It says, oh, you just plugged in a fast charging cable or a slow charging cable or a data cable. I'm not keeping charging cable. I'm not keeping charging cable. anymore and one give me give me ones that do data and charging why keep just ones that do charging yeah if you're only getting the one exactly that's great Bobby Frank says he has a USB tester device that uses this for it's like an actual

piece of hardware I guess that's the thing right here probably too oh okay that's cool yeah yeah this what's cool about this is that you can plug it in like X like it's a go between right so you plug this into your device and then this into the

cable going out to the vice and it also tells you how much energy that thing is drawing. Oh, that's cool. And I saw this on Adam Savage's channel around Christmas time. It was like one of his favorite things of 2025. And so I immediately put it on my Amazon wish list because I put stuff up there to get notified when they drop in price. Sure, sure. And my dad saw it on there and said, oh, I'm getting this for Brian for his birthday.

And so this arrived earlier this month. Wow, it's a great idea. You know what I've noticed about the wish list? They're sure making it. They should kind of bury it now. You notice that? Yeah, they do. It's harder to get to it for sure.

To also, to not only add, especially I'm mobile, to add things to your wish list is a little cryptic. Yeah. And then people wanting to go see somebody's wish list is harder than ever. It used to be easy. I think that's a sign that they're like trying to curb that or phase it or something. Man, it seems like it sells more things. Yeah, I don't understand why.

You don't think. I can think of is like some people exploit it for commissions or for, yeah. What do you call that? They do that, Amazon. Affiliates. Yeah, affiliate links. That's the only thing I can think of is there's somebody's found an exploit and then they're trying to tamp it down without eliminating it or something.

I don't know. It's weird. Oh, and they don't want you price tracking says Batapur. That's true. They don't. Which is weird because, again, I may never have bought this anyway. But because it was on a price tracker, if it dropped down to a price that I liked, then I would have bought it. So, I mean, they're making money that they maybe wouldn't have made.

Sure, they're making less than if I just, instead of putting things on a list, I just bought it. But I don't think 80% of the things that I put on the list, I'm going to buy immediately. Right, right. That's interesting. Bobby says he's got the bigger version. So the one you have, it probably has the buttons on the side, right, and can do, yeah, he's saying it does the USB. be a micro that's cool oh that is cool yeah i got rid all my micros because i got nothing that needs them but i still have like two stupid things in the house that use the micros i've got oh you know what

that's drive one it's my my doorbell is a generation just before they changed to see and i keep having to do the micro on that when i forgot about that because i charge it i don't have i need to just go out there and be a real man and wire it into the house like it's possible to do, but I'm just like, oh, just charge it again. It's lame that I do that, but I don't, I've never had the patience to like go and actually figure it out. There's a bunch of these. There's like, yeah, I think that's the one, like, I've got the little $20 one. You'll see it at some point there. Just like what Bobby has or is this different? Bobby's got one of the better, nicer deals. Mine is by Power Z. Okay. I think that

might be, it looks a lot more like that one that's the $27 deal that's just got, you know, no buttons on the side. It just does USBC cables and things like that. I know what this one does. Let's see. This one has a bunch of ports on it. Kind of curious

about all this. Because I have eight. My box of cable is gross. I have so many. Who's, Dr. Calhoun? Whose wish list did you just put in the link for your own? I think it's his. That's really funny. Yeah. must be.

Must be. Well, there you go. Although I'm seeing stuff in here that's like, oh, no, that was on my wish list years ago, but this is not my list. Let me click it again. I didn't look that close to it, but maybe it's not mine. The Northern Exposure Complete Blu-ray series and the Land Party Gaming Guide. Yeah.

What is the? Whose is this? I don't know. Soft 99. Oh, is it your own? It must be your own. own. Oh, it's his. All right. It's funny. Yeah. He wants men on Blu-ray.

It's funny, though, like, we've got a lot of the same things. Like, I've got that Anchor USB 7 and 1 hub, or I used to have that on there. Yeah. Got some little dry race boards. Damn, you use your...

I have, like, five things on mine. You've got... You're using it right, man. You're, like, your pages and pages of stuff, too. Or you're using it wrong, because if you're just using it to stick stuff and you're never going to look at it again, you'll, yeah. So, Dr. Helen, you probably do the same thing, right? Where you use it as a price, like your price notifier. Do you use it with camel, camel, camel?

I use deals. What's it called? Deal, not streak. Oh, what's it called? It's called deal something. I'm going to look it up. Come on, phone. That's my face. Deal seek. Deal seek. Yeah, I like that one. Is that automatically look at your wish list? It looks at, so that's a good question. Camel, Camel, Camel just looks at your wish. He just looks at your whatever Amazon wish list you tie it to and will always notify you when something drops down below a certain percentage.

Yeah, I don't know if this will do that or not. These might just be deal deals and like here they are on Amazon, Walmart, blah, blah, blah. Or check. Oh, see that has the worst effect for me because, oh, that's, That's a thing I didn't need, but all of a sudden it's cheap. Well, I'm totally going to buy one. Exactly. Kind of want whatever this says because it looks like the Dune box repeat.

It does. I don't even know what it is. Hand massager with heat compression. All right. Sure. I'm totally putting my hand in there. That's a... Put your hand in there, Atreides.

Put it in. That looks like something of a Roman holiday. Yeah. Weird. All right. Well, we've done it. Let's get to some news. Yeah.

Time for the news, everybody. Today's news is brought to you by. Brought to you by Coverville. Hey, that's going to come off right after TMS today. We're going to start it right up after this show. And listen to the music of Ben Gibbard. Ben Gibbard. A dude turned 50 a couple days ago.

And you know him from Death Cab for Cutie. You know him from the Postal Service. Maybe you know him from just being Zoe Day Chanel's husband for a couple of years. But that's Ben Gibbard and lots of covers of and by the dude. That's all I knew him from was the marriage. I didn't realize he was a musician. Oh, yeah, Postal Service and Death Cat for Cutie. I will follow you into the dark.

I am. Maybe that's why they got divorced. She followed him in the dark and fell over or something. Maybe. Yeah, see? Exactly. Don't trust Ben Gibbard. But today you're going to hear him a lot.

Today you're going to hear him and there you go. All right. Very cool. Ben Gibbard on the menu. Let's get to the news stories of the day. A bear is a Colorado story for you. A bear walks into a Colorado home and eats all the cat food. Sounds like the setup of a joke. A bear walks into a Colorado home.

Yeah, yeah. And he ate all the cat food. A woman who lived there who left her back door cracked open for her cat ended up feeding or excuse me, coming face to face with a polite bear inside her home. The polite's in quotes. I assume that's what she described it as. What a polite bear. Do you know this Lynn Feldman? Is that name familiar? I don't know her now. I don't know most of the people in Loveland.

I know a couple wonderful people in London, in Loveland, but I don't know, I don't know that person in Loveland. So you're saying in a state of millions of people. That's right. You don't know every single person. I don't know everybody. No, they probably know me, but I don't know them. Anyway, she said she left the door cracked in her Loveland home so her cat could leave and then return as it pleases. That's what cats like to do.

They're into it. But the decision led to her encountering a bear in the hallway. Feldon said the bear made its way into the living room and she initially considered trying to scare it away but decided to instead lock herself in the bathroom and call 911. Probably the better choice. How it got to my pajamas? I'll never know. Picture it's sitting out there in a pair of comfies. Yeah. Says I wasn't fearful for my life, she says, but I was uncomfortable.

Yeah, I get it. She says, I was very... You've given me some discomfort bear. She even went on to say it again She says, quote, Yes, I was uncomfortable with a bear in my house. Jeez. Police arrived on the scene and found her bear or the bear.

It had already vacated. It already got out of there. Well, I'm sure. Yeah. Do you have bear worries in where you live in? In Nevada? We do. We're pretty close to the mountains.

We've seen bears in the area, but one in like the last five years. And not hairy-chested men from Idaho. That's not what you mean. We got a lot of those. But they're more up at Candelis, the next neighborhood up. Gotcha. Yeah, no, we get mountain lions occasionally.

We get a lot of coyotes. We get mountain lions, but no coyotes. That's weird. Interesting. Yeah. I don't know why. Yeah. Seems like we share the same climate.

We should have the same. Should have the same. Well, it really depends on your proximity to the mountains and how unobstructed they can get from the mountains to where. you're at. And we've got a pretty clear shot. We've got a, between us and the foothills is a reservoir and a neighborhood, a neighborhood

where I've dumped a lot of squirrels that I've captured in the no-kill thing, although now we just give them peanuts. Now we don't care. We like the squirrels now. Oh, they've got you, it's, we've had a turn around here. We've had to turn around. That was in the last year that we just decided, you know what? It keeps them, they don't

they don't bother the birds anymore. They don't deal with the bird feeder. It's the raccoons. but ever since I added one extra length of pole to the bird feeder, the raccoons have been, have not been able to get up there. So all these other things that I did, all of these like, you know, well, the barriers still help. The barriers and the tall pole still helps,

but there were other things. Like I had a raccoon cage for a while that I was going to try and catch him in and relocate them. But yeah, just an extra length of pole. actual raccoon cage. I didn't know they made such a thing. Makes sense. Oh, yeah. It's a like one of those where there's food on a little center thing. And as soon as they touch the food and it moves it, then the two doors on either end come shut. And then you can just take them somewhere, stand back, open one of the doors, and hopefully they run away from you and not towards your leg. I think there's a period of time in every young boy's life. I can only speak for me, but I have to think this is more universal.

Maybe it's because we saw all these Looney Tunes cartoons growing up. But I had a period there, a stretch of time when I was young where, and let's say it was, I don't know, 9 to 11, where I just had to make those traps where it was like a box and a stick. Oh, yeah, like you see in cartoon like you were talking about. And you go hide in a bush and you wait for a thing. Just around the corner, you're sitting there with the other end of the string waiting for it to come and get the Reese's PCs underneath the box. I thought that was the coolest thing. So you actually made one. Oh, we did it.

Me and my brother made him. I never made one. I don't know that I ever caught anything. I think we tested it on the dog and it kind of worked. Yeah. Yeah, we were into it. I think, I feel like the cardboard box landing on the raccoon, he's probably going to be able to just kind of lift the cardboard box and get out of it.

Oh, they're way too smart, dude. Yeah, it doesn't even do use his little prehensile finger things, but, you know. Yeah. We do get a lot of deer here, though. so we don't get a lot of raccoons. We don't, we'd never see coyotes, but we see a lot of deer.

Lots of deer. Yeah, certain times of the year we get deer like crazy. Yeah, which again helps bring them outlines down too. Yeah, they come down to hunt them. Yeah. And you can always tell when it's the drier year

because they come lower. Yeah. No, it's the other way around. I would think they'd come, they'd come further inland to get water, to more sources for water. Yeah, I think so. If it's drier in the mountains.

I think that's what's going on. And then they always warn us. Like, oh, if you see deer, that's a bad sign. That means this and that. And I'm like, all right, well, let's not build that data center then. That's going to suck up all the water, you butt holes. How about that? How do you like that?

How do you like them apples? Let's talk about North Korea for a second. Sure. I'm fine with that. We're talking about temperatures and weather and stuff. North Koreans have been urged now to beat the heat with dog meat soup. Okay. Uh-huh.

You're thinking what I'm thinking. soup is hot. It's the summer. How does that cool them off? Yeah. It's very weird. As the Korean Peninsula swelters through this heat wave we're having, or they're having, North everyone's having something version of it.

North Korean state media has touted everything from dog meat soup to chicken broth as ways to cope, while portraying Kim Jong-un as the leader who ensures, or excuse me, endures harsh conditions alongside his people. Oh, of course. You know, we got a guy that reminds me a lot like this now. Yeah, we do. says things that clearly aren't. He says things while they're right behind him,

they're happening, and he's saying they're not, it's like that. It's a real, we're getting our own version of real time. It feels like there's no secret that, that our administration wishes he had the kind of control over all of his people that the, uh, that Kim Jong-un has.

Yeah. If he doesn't, it sure feels like it. It sure feels like it. Like he kind of idolizes him. Yeah. He loves him. He's always talking about how he shook his hand and, touched his wiener or whatever they did.

Love some more than Robman even. It says here, the temperature hit 37.7. That's Celsius. That's 98.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightweights. Yeah, nothing. We had that last week.

Humid, I guess. The humidity is the worst part. Oh, yeah. The highest weather's recorded since, sorry, recordings began in the country's capital. So that's the highest they've ever seen on record. With the accompanying string of tropical nights, state media is devoted

unusual attention to the hottest weeks of the year, known locally as Sembock or the Dog Days of Summer. That's the translation. Wow. You know what? We should start saying it. We should start saying it.

Dog Days of Summer. We've said that phrase. Did it come from Sembock? I don't know. Is that a Korean, like a phrase that we got from Korea? Yeah, and I'm starting to wonder if it's got something to do with eating dog soup based on this article. Maybe.

Yeah. Among the more eye-catching recommendations is dog meat soup, reflecting a traditional belief that helps people with stand summer heat. That's just weird. In a health feature published on August 2nd, ruling party newspaper, Ron, sorry, Ra Dong, Simmon. Rodong Simmon. Quote the doctor at Pyong General Hospital, Pyongyang, rather. He said this, recommended cooling foods such as watermelon, cucumbers, and mung beans,

as well as nutritious foods, including dog meat soup, fish porridge and red bean porridge. I don't understand how this helps you deal with the heat. Yeah, just stay hydrated, man. I guess maybe you don't, maybe the dog meat soup is cooked and then cooled like cold soup. Oh, here's the worst part, Brian.

Sure. Okay, this is such a nonsense. The newspaper devoted a separate feature to dog meat soup, describing it as traditional summertime food and reviving an old saying that says, quote, even if dog meat soup spills on the top of your foot during the dog days of summer, it becomes medicine, unquote. That's great.

It fills your foot. It's not snake oil, it's dog meat oil, is what it is. And didn't they, South Korea, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, they finally banned dog food consumption. Dog is a food? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think that's how that went.

You can still get it in China. North Korea and a few other places, but I think in Korea, South Korea, I think it is like a band practice, I think. So don't eat dog food. Joy is about to hurl. Oh, don't hurl. That's not good. I was just about to ask, like, what are the better breeds for it? But I guess we don't have time because Wendy's got to come in. According to China, when I was in China, they said, you only eat black dog tongue, you never eat brown dog tongue. So like labs, just black labs? Any kind of dog with black hair, which also made no sense to me. But sure enough, while I was there,

and they tricked me to eat in a dog tongue. I never saw a black dog out in the wild. I only saw brown dogs. Just brown dogs running around? It's not just the fact that they're eating the black dogs. It's the fact that the other black dogs are hiding. Yeah. They're either hiding or I don't know what,

or they weren't barking because their tugs were taking out. I don't know. Like, oh, but there's a weird tall dude with a trench coat and a tail wagging walking by. That's strange. Yeah, and I'll never forgive that lady for tricking me into eating those. It was awful. Yeah. Terrible.

That would be horrendous. I can't even imagine. Well, let's switch gears from dog tongue soup to this. Something wrong, Batman. Has anybody seen Wendy? Well, we have. She's right here. She's on the air.

Hi, Wendy. How are you? What did you just say about dog? When I was in China, I ate dog tongue. Ew. I've told you this story before. Scott French, French kissed a dog, Wendy. Did you know that?

No, I did not know that. We might want to deal with it here on therapy Thursday. What? No, they served it to me and said it was beef strips. I was in southern China in a town, a factory town, and the lady, this is a joke they play on like dumb Americans, business people that come over. And she says, oh, beef strips, very good, very good.

And I said, okay, well, I can eat some beef strips. I like your beef strips, Michael. And everything else there look like nightmare food, right? So I was just like, I'll take the beef strips. But then I noticed the beef strips were all very uniformly shaped, like a little too like each other. And they had weird bumps on one end. You get the idea.

Yeah. And I bit one and it was like chewy and I'm like, well, you know, we're in China. They don't, they do different here and whatever. I just was trying to like justify it. But I mean, it kind of tasted sort of like beef, I guess. And then she goes, ha, you ate a dog tongue. Ha, ha, ha. And she started laughing at me.

Oh, no. And then it was like, well, I'm never talking to her again. And then I killed her. Yeah. And then I'm done. She was a translator and her job was to like translate mostly, but apparently it was also to punk me. so thanks lady that was great wow yeah her name was Susan which is 100% was not her name

well that was the translation of her name yeah must be there was a lot of like there were like 50 kevins we worked with and like three or four susans they all picked these names to make it easier to work with us yeah and it was always Kevin and Susan I don't know why anyway yeah you know if Hammond would have told us that the fried chicken candy we we ate at their tagular was like like like like lifesavers and then it turned out to be that fried chicken candy I'd be done

that would be the last episode of soundography yeah we'd all be we would all quit Hammond yesterday yes exactly so gross might even have them escorted

out of nerdtacular yeah we would have brutish men take him outside Amos we would have Amos

yeah take him outside Amos could do it well anyway Wendy it's good to have you here she's of course my sister

but also a trained professional in the mental health industry. Is it an industry? I suppose it is. I mean, sure. It's a practice.

It's a practice. It's, um, I mean an industry, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Are you guys in the podcasting industry? We are. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're all in the, it's all, it's all, it's a generic term for business. It's all some, it's some form of capitalist whatever. We're all in it. It's fine. Here we are. Um, and we answer your questions from home. We got a real short one, but I think a really good one.

this week. And I think it's one when he's going to key on real good here. So let's do it. This is somebody named Wondering in Wyoming. So I assume they're in Wyoming up there wondering. It says this. I was always told as a kid growing up that stress was normal and that everyone has some. And it's good to learn to deal with that stress in life. But how do I tell the difference between normal stress, everyday burnout and actual anxiety or depression. They all kind of have the same smell to him that he says, or he or she, wondering in Wyoming. All right.

Kind of true, right? They all kind of manifest similarly. But I'm going to guess you're going to give us some nuance here so we're not, you know, flailing around. And is Wyoming stress different than New York stress or? Wide open stress. Black dog in North Korea stress. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I think, I mean, this might be a banoxious way to start. But like when you were told that, you know, you think of context. So most of us aren't great at remembering how most things have operated in our lives. We have our little window of the world and we see it a certain way. And then, you know, someone standing right next to us could be like, no, that's not at all what happened. So.

that said, like, was your childhood pretty stressful, right? Was there a lot going on? And then where you just told like, oh, it's normal, you can handle it? Or, you know, maybe you had some more sensitivity to certain things and felt a little more anxious. And so you were kind of expressing concerns and you were just told, like, you know, you got a deal. But it is truly a universal experience. And then how we handle it and what is quote unquote normal or not is,

is really going to vary based on your sort of ability to process it and your perception of it, maybe the story you have around it, or like what it's about. Because we'll do some basic definitions. We have stress as like this overarching physiological impact of psychological burden, task burden, work burdens, like you name it, right? It comes from all angles and it is put strain on your body, right? So we have two kinds specifically. We break it into distress.

So it's obviously something that is not pleasant. You are not liking. It's difficult and probably more damaging, right? And then we have U stress spelled EU stress. I've never heard of this. European Union stress. It's just the spelling. And that is good stress, right?

And so this is the one most people are like, give me more of that and then sometimes don't recognize. It actually is still a strain on your body. So take like best day ever. You get to do all sorts of fun things. Everything's working out and you're tired at the end of it. That's because it wasn't neutral. It was this sort of positive stress.

And some most of the time we're not complaining about that. That is usually like the lovely part of life, right? But I'm throwing a party that I'm really excited for and for a friend and it worked out really great. There was plenty of stress, but it was on that end versus usually distress is happening to us. It's not something we are hoping for or planning on and creating on purpose or at least consciously, right? Okay. So we have a kind of that gamut. And so when you say, what is normal?

Let's, if you could see my fingers, they're quoting normal. A lot of people ask that question generally. Is it normal that I hear a voice in my head telling me to eat that donut? And it's like, okay, is that, do you mean healthy or do you mean common or do you know? And everyone has maybe a different reason they're saying it. But most people I think want to know, am I crazy? Am I the weirdo? Am I the only one?

It's usually what they're saying, right? And stress is the kind of thing that I think from a biological perspective, nobody is living with normal stress. And that's because we have ways and means to never de-stress. So real quick, have either of you had a massage in the last year? Last year, no. No. Like a good one. Have you had a really good one at any point in your life?

I've had somebody, I've had somebody crank my shoulders real hard at a party and that was it. Like a family party and it was like, who was it even? Yeah, somebody, somebody, crank my shoulders and yeah. Yeah, he even been Carter. Carter's really, just really strong hands and I think she may have done it and it was great for a very short period of time though. Okay. Okay. Wow. I'm not going to call that. That is not some EU stress. I can tell you that. No, no, but you have stretched or gotten a massage a little or you've, you know, popped your back or you've like laid down after a long day or something and you have felt de-stressing. You've felt the relief before. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Okay. I would say the vast majority of people because of like chronically being online and exposing themselves to distressing things don't even recognize what a neutral to. relaxed state maybe is anymore. And you have to have some kind of differential. I know this is true for me that I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fun, I'm fun. And then honestly, a nice back crack will do a lot. Yeah. And I'm like transformed into a new human suddenly like, wait a second. I didn't, I didn't realize all the tension. So one way you can tell is everyone right now grab the back of your neck as far, reach down as far as you possibly can and tell me about the little hump that's growing there.

I've got a little something going there. It's like a Boy Scout knot back there. I love Boy Scout knot, right? And also maybe feel that your traps, that's just between your shoulders and like your neck, right? Or the sides of your neck, just kind of take your fingers and like you're playing the piano and push around. Anyone got any pain or any tension that you feel?

Yeah. Yeah, a little tension. So what I'm getting at is normal stress in 2026 is, causes bodily structure reformation of our bodies. It really is a lot. It's constant and it's sort of all-consuming. And what most people have to learn now is how to actually truly distress rather than I think at other times throughout history,

like you were moving a little more. There was a little like work would end and you could go home kind of thing. So I don't know. I wasn't filling anyone's traps in the 1940s. And war probably did it. But you take this just like different times, different eras, what would be measurably normal is going to maybe switch. And so we have this sort of chronic thing. This person is asking an interesting question, which is what is normal? What is everyday burnout? Which we got to define what in the world they mean by that. And then actual anxiety or depression.

The fact that those are not for very distinct things to someone tells me that we, it's like a little bit of everything all at once all of the time, you know. Yeah, but that also, I'm glad you brought that up. That phrase he uses, they use, where it says everyday burnout. What do you think he means? Like, yeah, he's, he is he because he's in Wyoming. I don't know why either. He's a cowboy on a horse.

Only man live in Wyoming. That's only good picture, right. He's like the Marlborough man. Exactly, exactly. Wyoming has some rough steps. So there might be some everyday stuff going on there. Yeah. There's a lot of gun deaths.

Anyway, this like burnout that you, if you say everyday burnout might be like, oh, I'm tired after every day is what I wonder if that's what they're talking about versus actual burnout. Because burnout is way intense. In fact, I was thinking I'd do like a little mini class on burnout because I've been doing it for a couple of different organizations. And man, it is universal. And it is much more than just, so I'm tired at the end of the day. It's a consistent, essentially, like, stress, stress, and then you hit a wall. And when you hit the wall, the idea is that you can't physically do the same things.

Your brain, like you lose literal, like desire to do something. Sensations change. There's like a blunted nothingness that can come. And I keep, when I work with people, I find them on the road to full burnout. And if that's what he means by everyday burnout, call a doctor. Oh, I see what you mean. So calling it everyday burnout could just mean these are signs of the pending burnout, which is like a big crescendo of all those moments.

And I don't know if that's what they meant. They might have just said, yeah, I'm burned out for my job. And that happens every day. Well, if you're feeling burnout every day. Yeah. So normal. And then we're going to call burnout its own thing for a second. And then the differential between anxiety and depression.

So just really quick. a lot of them share things. You know, it's like when, when you have this sign, like a medication, the side effects, and they just name the flu, and then they're like,

you could be dying, and then it's just flu-like symptoms. Or it's the flu and it's flu-like symptoms. It's because we only have so many ways that we express, like, biological distress, right? And it's often nausea or whatever.

Yeah. It's similar with these things. These are all mental stresses and processes. So, for example, Two people could have the exact same job and have the same boss and have the same kind of workload. And one is being crushed under it. And the other one is like, this is fine. Now we could, you know, tear it apart.

Like, why is that okay for you and not for you? And it might be, you know, maybe the internal story about the job. I need this for the money. If that's your story, you're going to be more stressed than the person who's like, I'm fine meaning here. You know, like it's as simple as those different sort of mentalities. And it's not as easy to just say, well, I'll make up a good one and then I'll be fine. Because that story usually is there for a reason. Or the boss doesn't like me.

And the other one's like, the boss loves me. What? You know? So that difference is often this internal assessment of the stressor in life. And so that will indicate whether that stress can be released easily at the end of the day or over the weekend versus you can't stop thinking about it. You're waking up in the night. So that's usually when anything gets toxic, you'll know because it's knocking on the door past 5 p.m. It's waking up in the night.

You're working way longer than you should, you know, if it's like a work-based thing. A relationship-based stress or, you know, an organization you're part of a family stress. It's going to have similar effects. It just pops up a lot. We know we're getting out of your basic stress and into this leads to a lot. words, you know, it's more dramatic, right? Right. And then long term, any of this will eventually lead to burnout or can.

It doesn't always, always, but a lot of times. And I think most people are walking around in sub-burnout conditions. I rarely meet anyone who is seeking therapy that isn't in sub-burnout in some way in their life. So this is always a factor, eh? Like, yeah, kind of. Yeah. Kind of. And so when you, then when you take a part, the anxiety and depression part, they,

there is some chicken and the egg situation, right? If you are struggling with anxiety, it's going to make and create stress in your life. So, for example, your body just does not know the difference between reality and a story. That's why we like a horror movie, right? So you can get all of the adrenaline and the fear and the fun and the jump scares,

but you're not actually threatened is like a really fun way to play with this dynamic because it ends, you know, you're sitting on your couch, but it draws you in. But your body is not like, oh,

you know what? I'm only going to use a little adrenaline because this is just a fake movie. It's actually going to be producing because it's seeing a story, right? Does this with video games too, yeah. Same thing. Absolutely.

It's partly the way it's so fun and helps you feel alive. And, you know, you get the dopamine reward that from, you know, I got this new thing and I beat the big boss or whatever those things are, right? So our body doesn't know the difference. You did really good, by the way. That was great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You see how natural I threw those out? That was really awesome. The big boss, yeah. It's actually very helpful in therapy. Most people don't know much about video games. If I use it, they still get it. They get it.

Yeah, that's the reason that's used in games. Like everyone understands what fighting a big boss means, even if you've never played a game. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so you get all sorts of response. is that would occur in the natural world, but they are fake versions of it, right? Okay. So that's like a fun version, a eustress version of it.

A distressed version of it is I am worried about something that might happen. I am replaying what conversation I had earlier in the day over and over. Our body is absolutely like, okay, I guess we're in terrible states again, and we're in fight or flight again. And it just doesn't know that you're not. It's just you replaying it while you should be having a conversation with someone. You know, it doesn't know. It just is going to do the chemical response.

Maybe it's not as sharp as if it's happening right that minute, but we are replaying it and our bodies are responding. So when we think of what is normal now is that the anxious thoughts or the depressing thoughts have an impact on our body. And then we are sort of never taking a break. So that's actually what I want to focus on for this person. So growing up in Wyoming, I don't know what stress you had in Wyoming growing up, but was it normal the amount you probably had then? Sure.

Okay. I watched Longmire. There was a lot of stuff going on in that show. For yellow stuff. A lot of stressful stuff. Yeah, exactly. And so, okay, do you're taking a script you were handed as a kid by other people living in a different era, right? And I don't think you write into a show and ask this question if you are feeling like it's,

out of normal range for you, right? Maybe it might just be a curious question. So I would ask a couple of things, like what is causing the stress? And I would try to determine how much is story-based and how much is I have a boss who literally stands over my shoulder and yells at me while I'm working, right? Or I have this sense that my boss will yell at me if I don't do it right. Right? I have a story or I have a reality.

And, you know, we're going to be guessing. Our brains do that all day long. Let me guess what's going to happen next. Let me predict this. Let me read that person's face and figure out if I'm in trouble. You know, blah, blah, blah. It does all of this background noise. And then what do we do? We work all day and then we scroll on our phone and then we have three screens up at the same time. And then we go to bed late and we have abnormal sleep patterns and we eat like our orange and we're like, I'm doing great. Yeah. And we're not. What could possibly be the problem.

But we do it so long. And that's because our whole systems are so. tolerant of distress for a period of time. And this is why we have chronic metabolic disease and heart disease because it slowly gets us there. And we don't have a lot of practice at relaxing. So that's what I want to do today. As I want to teach you guys how to relax. Relax. You know, it's never worked is telling someone to relax. Yeah. Never. No, unless you're like, here's how to relax. Yeah, yeah. Or you're a hypnotist. Yeah. Or calm down. When I was having. When I was having my like really bad all the time, multiple times a day, panic attack era of my life. I remember Wendy doing this very thing with me.

She sat me down in a four year somewhere and said, here's some tricks. And we talked about breathing stuff and some other things. Some of it I still use to this day. And now I rarely get them. But when I do, I remember those things. And I go like I had a really bad one on the show the other day. No one knew because I hide it really well. Yeah.

And I had no idea. I hide it well because I know what they are now. And I, so it's no longer like a big scary mystery. The story isn't, I'm going to die. No, the story is, oh, one of these right now, really? Like, that's more of the story now. And I have to remember those things. So you do the breathing stuff and it totally helps.

But never once anybody when I was really going through it, come to me and go, well, you just need to, you just need to relax. That never worked. That made me just want to flick him in the face. I hated that. Anyway, yeah. Or like if you're about to get in a fight at a bar, do not tell someone to come. down. Yeah, it doesn't work. There's something else because that isn't the appropriate moment.

But if we could practice regularly calming ourselves, ma'am, I think we'd have less barfights. So that's all I'm saying. Okay. So let's do a couple things. Number one is a great example. Last night, I did a training on sleep with a bunch of social workers. And it was like, hey, what do you guys use? and their faces were like, what? None of them had kind of skills with their own bodies to sleep. And then so they're helping their clients and just be like, well, we'll just empathize that it's hard. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, we have to actually dig into the biology of how to, I mean, sleep issues often come from,

I don't know how to relax without 20 AIDS, right? I have the noise. I have the TV on. I will scroll on my phone until I black out, like all sorts of really bad sleep hygiene because the actual space to relax doesn't work well. So, for example, if you sat there for five minutes in total silence, which most people don't do, obviously, because there's so many other things to do and or ways to be distracted or sounds, right?

But just five minutes of your own brain going, you will find there's a lot. There's a lot that it tries to tell you. And so as soon as we lay down and there's quiet, that's when it's like, all right, fine, then we got their attention. And it comes all crazy and, you know, or middle of the night kind of thing, right? And so the key is not like, oh, use your mind to fix your mind. That is a very strong urge we have as humans is to take our mind and fix that. And that will get our mind to shut up.

And what we have to do actually is use our body to get our mind to calm, right? Right? If it's, because think of it as like a, you know, two-way communication. It's messaging itself through the brain is telling the body, the body's telling the brain. Those cues are really powerful. And that's why I can get you to be really anxious by telling you a really scary story. Or I can soothe and calm you if I have, you know, words that work and soothe and calm me because the brain will tell the body, I'm okay. Or the body will tell the brain, I'm okay. Okay. I've over-explained it. Here we go. All right. So, what? What I want you to do is think about, well, first of all, I think everyone, if I can find a massage therapist who will give you a nine to 10 pressure massage, it works every time. A nine to 10 pressure, like level nine, level 10 is what you're talking about. I have found somebody here. I have only, I've only done like two in my whole life. And anyway, and so every time I'm like, it's like someone barely touching me. And so I was like, hey, will you just show me what a nine is?

Hey, more. Yeah. And she put her full, full hefty self-law into it. It was amazing. I will never go to anyone else again. And at the end, she goes, yeah, people say they like it like that. I've never had anyone do a home massage at that level. And I was like, are you tired?

She's like, wow. Yes. I've had one. And it's because I have so much stress. I had one like that one time years and years ago. And it was super hardcore. and during it, I thought I was going to freaking fall apart in the pieces.

Yeah. But then later, immediately after and for maybe a month after, oh, man. I feel like I only ever had a level nine, level 10. I mean, there was this woman that I went to, um, named Sarah and I did her website and like basically we had a trade deal of like,

I do her website and she, uh, would give Tina and massages and she was great. The first time it ever happened, I fell asleep. She relaxed me so much. I actually fell asleep. And so she like chided me after this. Please don't fall asleep while I'm massaging. I'm like, okay. But then, and maybe it was a response to that the next few times I went to her. It was like, you will never sleep in my table. Okay. Yep. I'm white awake. This is not, yeah. It probably was. It was probably her going well. I guess he can take more than I've been given. So here it is.

Easily could have been the case. Yeah. I did this one recently. And it was a nine, maybe a 10. And I had to sit in my car for about 45 minutes because I was not safe to drive. Yeah, it messes with you. Really? Wow. If you think about it, because your driving requires awareness and stress. It requires your body to be alert.

And I was so relaxed. And I thought, I don't even know how to how this feels ever. So that was a really big indicator to me like, oh, none of us ever actually relaxed. I never relax like that, right? It takes, it takes manual manipulation for that to work. But are there ways to just feel more relaxed? Take it down a notch. Even at any point in your day, absolutely.

Maybe it's not a full, I can't drive level of relaxation. But, you know, just everyone listening, think of the last time you felt relaxed that you would tell someone, I'm relaxed. I feel great. Like, nothing's bothering me. I feel good. It's maybe been a minute. Yeah, it has been a minute.

I can tell you, though, the other day I had a moment of, I don't know if I responded properly, but I had a moment of, I sat on the couch, I had my notebook with me because I was trying to get an email written or something. And I just had this overwhelming feeling of like, you know, if you just put that down and put your head over here for a second, I wasn't tired. Yeah. But that this would just feel really good. Like there would be this kind of, you just feel kind of nothing for a minute.

it would just lay down for a second. So I did that. I just chilled. The dog sensed it, jumped up on there and immediately laid on me. And it was the most chill, maybe 15 minutes of relaxation. I didn't even close my eyes. It's just kind of quiet thinking. It was thundering. That helped. Nice. Yes. Yeah. So it was like a weird, it's a weird thing to, to have those come up just kind of randomly like that. But what's usually hard for me is to recognize it and then respond in that way. Usually I'm like, oh, I got more to do. I can't stop now.

And like that kind of feeling. And so trust, yeah, trusting it is the, that's the word I was looking for. And I'm still not sure how I managed to do it because I'm mostly kind of bad at this. So is there any tricks to recognizing it more or knowing this is the time to take, that kind of thing? Here's what I would love if people just did. So this would just be a fun experiment for everyone to try. You could just Google the word nidra or yoga nidra.

N-I-D-R-A. Yogan-I-D-R-A. It's basically a guided meditation practice you just do while you're lying down. And it is about deeply relaxing and not sleeping, but you're still awake, but trying to get you more into the state you just described. Okay. All right. And so it is, because here's one of the things, everyone's going to recognize this with sleep. You wake up, you're like, I got to get up at three hours.

You look at the clock and you stress because now you can see the time and go. go, oh, now I'm going to be grumpy tomorrow. You have an entire story that just takes over about how bad it is that you're awake, which is shooting cortisol and stress hormones through your body, which keeps you more awake. The truth is, and the science backs this up in many ways and is so helpful when you have the accurate story, which is even just resting your eyes will rest, will be rest. It will count. It's not as good as deep R.E.M. sleep, right?

But it is actually as good as some of the other sleep you get in the night. And so when people can stop thinking, oh, no, this is so bad, and they can start to go, well, I'll just do my yoga sleep. And I'll do my knee drug, whatever. And maybe you have a little tool you can use there. Or even if you just breathe and relax and you keep your eyes closed, but you're like, I know this works. I'll feel rested.

This works for naps. If you're like, oh, I can't nap. Oh, you can. You can do a yoga nap. You could do a Scott nap where you don't actually have to nap, but you're resting. There's huge benefits for 20 to 30 minutes of that. I do something like that and it just doesn't feel like it counts. Right.

Like I'm not really sleeping. I'm resting. Does this count? Is it doing anything for me? I get that feeling. That's kind of usually my reaction. I was a little bit different the other day. But normally I'm exactly the same.

I just go, well, I'm not really, this isn't really doing anything. But you're saying it does. All the pictures I see, by the way, people doing the yoga nidra. Yeah. It's starting to be fun to say. They're all laying down flat. Is that part of this?

It's all about. Yeah, you're laying down. Okay. All right. I mean, they're on mats, probably in studios, right? A lot of them are, yeah. Yeah. So essentially, here's the thing about it.

I could send you a couple of research studies on it if you'd like, Brian. But it does work. It's called the technical term is like quiet wakefulness, right? Like, you're still awake. it's a little daydreamy, it can be a little groggy. What it does, what it is actually doing for you, it is lowering your bread pressure, it is reducing stress, and then it like it kind of resets some visual memory. So just closing your eyes for 20 minutes and resting them.

And they found that is as effective as actual sleep. Wow. It improves your mood. That just does all the stuff. It's just like a snack of it, though, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, I get it. Right. And so if you could lay down and go, this works. You might find that you're like a little more able to, you know, put off the, okay, I should just get up. I'm wasting time. Right. And really just like move into it a little bit. So you're saying there's science. The science backs of this, though, is what I'm saying. Because a lot of people, I want to make that clear. A lot of people hear, oh, the yoga nidra and ancient people and baby and we might start thinking it's a bunch of hokey. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want that. We want. Yeah. And the. Yoga Nidra is just training to do it deeply, right?

That's the difference. What you did, Scott, is just as effective. This is an ancient practice of, you know, sort of finding that liminal space. And that's people doing it on command because they have a thing to follow. You know what I mean? Whereas you just followed your sort of instincts, right? Yeah. And it felt like what you just described, there was even the, I wouldn't call it groggy,

but there was a feeling of like fuzziness when I was done. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's weird, hard to explain it. All pleasant, by the way. None of this was like, ew, weird. I don't like how that feels. Euphoria, maybe, as opposed to a groginess.

I don't know about euphoria. It was more like a, not quite that extreme. U-5ia? U3. Yeah, a little lower. U3.5ia. There you go, yeah. No, it was like this weird.

There's an actual term. There's a term for it. If anyone wants to look it up, it's NS, let's see, NSDR, I think. It's non-sleep deep breath relaxation. Okay. And so Yoga Nehagia is one way of doing that, right? It's not like, that's not the only way. It's not the only way.

Okay. But essentially, you know, they're comparing people taking, doing that for 10 minutes versus people taking in the nap for 25 minutes and they, they're having similar, basically similar responses, right? So, so people are looking at it because. A, we all need help de-stressing. We all need to take it freaking down a notch. And what we're doing is consistently keeping ourselves with our shoulders up and our hump backs growing and are curling into balls. And like, you know, we are, there is a physiological effect to all of this stress that you can see in our bodies. But you can also, like, in your moods, in your appetites,

in your relationships. Like stress, as you know, right? If I come chasing you with an axe and you're trying to use your keys to open your car door, you're going to drop those keys. It's not going to go well. And our performance and our behavior is like we really are impacted by this. So it's a great question. And I want to just throw in one other thing.

If you start to practice some relaxation, right? Like let's say you do some mindfulness meditation. Let's say you stretch every night. So you say you start to just journal. Journaling is a great way to de-stress. Like you're just doing a bunch of these little techniques to reduce stress overall in your life and you find, oh, I feel better. Or like now in this stressful moment, like even the extreme of a panic attack, I know how to calm my nervous system.

Overall, then you probably have normal ratcheting up stress because of the era we live in. Right, right. If you are like, I don't, I'm irritated. I don't want to go to work. I sort of hate everyone and you start to feel numb. I mean, we're in more burnout territory. Hopelessness, some of that stuff. There we go.

If we are nervous and scared about everything and can't stop ruminating, we're more in the anxiety territory. If we are an hedonic, which means we don't find pleasure in the same things, we're feeling sad and blue all the time, you know, that's more of the depression. So we've got different sprouts of these things that are going to show themselves. So get an evaluation if you really can't tell what's going on. But it'd be great to practice some relaxation stuff and then just see. Like, oh, that really does improve things.

So, like, if you could turn off your devices an hour. Let's just even start with an hour before bed, dim some lights, read a real book, get a good night's rest, and you feel better the next day. And you, you know, you do that consistently. you might just be, it might be just a behavioral strain you keep putting on your body. So any of those we can remove the better relaxation. Obviously, you know, massages are a privilege and hard to come by. And you can't always find a lady who can get her freaking whole forearm into your trap.

But I can't. But I can't drive. I need someone to take me. Anyway, what else can you do? And if it's hard to get work off, what can you do on your day off that actually can give you some relaxation built in, right? You know, it's one of those things we have to take care of in ourselves. And when we're kids, no one's going to A show us. Nobody showed us how to do this.

And also, you know, we just say the words like toughen it up, you know, everyone has this. You're not special. The last massage lady I had, I don't think I've ever told anyone this. Maybe I did on the show, but she kept saying, even though I wasn't doing it, she kept going, now I just want you to know it's okay if you have to fart. It's fine. She's like, it's normal. Maybe she sensed that you were like tensing up or something.

Maybe. There's the only guy I can think of it because I wasn't, but and I didn't need to or anything. Did you say anything? No, I just went, okay, that's good to know. And I said, I said, that makes me feel, you know, like you've, You've seen this before. She goes, oh, you wouldn't believe. But then, like, a few minutes later.

Maybe she likes it. Maybe. And a few minutes later, she said it again. She goes, now, again, if you need to break wind, it's okay. It's fine. Very normal. At some point, did she say, you know what? Just try and fart for me right now.

You just rip one out for me. Let one right out. I'm more comfortable because I also have to fart. It was really weird. In fact, yeah, that's what I was kept thinking. It's like, are you going to fart and blame it on me in a minute? Here, I'll start. Yeah, let me start.

Oh my gosh. It would be so hard. I have a hard enough time having someone that I don't know, like to not talk to them and find out literally everything about them is really hard for me. So I have to work really hard to be quiet. I would die. I don't know if I could go back. Well, I haven't been back. So maybe that's.

There you go. Maybe there's something to it. That's amazing. All right. Okay. So either get a massage people or do your ass. At home stress reduction program. If you are feeling stress, if this is resonating, like, oh, man, I am super stressed.

Yeah, there's a lot of different things that you can do. One thing we've done on the show a couple times that is still a favorite is making sure you're exhaling longer than you're inhaling. So you really slow your exhale down. Is there anything to the nose versus mouth thing? Yes. So breathing in through your nose. And I like the double one, the cyclical breathing where you breathe in twice and get all that air and then slow out your mouth. That is the ideal way to get this parasympathetic nervous system reset is it just it messages the brain that you're safe because you have all day to breathe out.

And out of the mouth you want it to be kind of not forceful. Just like a straw. Yeah. And as long as you can. And when you look at like some ancient practices like, you know, mantras and words. So om, you know, the position. Ome is a long exhale. So if you think about it, it's just mimicking that same thing,

which is why people can get into sort of a different, sort of almost conscious level, that kind of fuzzy mid space, right? Because they're exhaling so long. I always wondered about that. Why was that a thing? It turns out there's a reason. Yeah, it does.

It doesn't just sound stupid. It actually works, yeah. Yeah. And anything that's lasted 3,000 years and everyone's, you know, benefited from usually has some science we have figured out since about it. Yeah. Because eventually someone will go, wait a minute. We should look that up.

Is that actually work? Oh, it does. Weird. Why does that work? Yeah. I like that. In America, we're like, just give them four pills. Let's see what happens now.

Yeah. What did work? Try five. Too many? Side of fact? Try three. Yeah. Cut it in half.

Pay me more money. All right. Well, that's great news. Everybody try these things at home if you're having any kind of stress or whatever. And in the meantime, No Better You.com is there. Go sign up. Yes. So send up. We're doing the happiness class in September and start September 13th. So you have a little time to sign up. We have plenty of scholarship. So please reach out.

If that would be helpful to you. I have a couple friends coming who are have never seen me work. So it's going to be awkward. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, weird. Yeah. Yeah. Once a family physician. I don't know. What's a family physician? And she's like, I might want to refer this to other people. and like, oh, crap. Anyway, but loveliest humans. So it's going to be a really good group.

We've already got quite a few people, and it's going to be really fun. Yeah, sounds awesome. Check that out. Know better you.com. And all the ways to contact, sign up, do all that stuff. It's right there for you. Wendy, have a fantastic week. Thanks so much.

All right. Bye now. Bye. Go do some hoopah, gupa. What was it called? Homeanubra. What is it? The yoga you pulled up.

Yoga nidra. No, yoga. Nidra, yeah. I don't remember that name. All right. Well done. We're done with the show. That is the show.

We've done the show. And here's the good news. Tomorrow there will be a TMS Friday. That's right. There will also be not too long after that an instance, but we'll record that live. Oh, cool. So there's extra stuff tomorrow. In fact, the way I think we've worked it out, if I remember it, I'll have to look at the time.

But I think it would work to do, because when you do guess the connection, you usually roll right into it. Right after it. Yeah, right after this. So I think our thing would be after that. that so it'd be like this full block of stuff man nice that's the idea perfect so i got to look up the time to make sure i can't remember what we locked in on but anyway stuff's usually 30 minutes so it goes pretty quick yeah your stuff's this i'm in for sure i've got time between it because i need to there's prep and stuff so um whatever that is we'll make sure we tell you more properly tomorrow but that will

be tomorrow tms friday last week we gave it out for everybody since we missed a day and um people really like the friday edition show us how much you liked it by joining the Patreon and getting it every damned week. How about that? Get in there. There you go. That's it for today's show. Frogpants.com slash TMS is the place.

Don't forget Coverville after this. We'll raid right over after the post show and Core at 1 p.m. today. I'm sorry, noon today. We're moving the time to noon, bumping it up, giving us a little extra time in the day. So noon for Core today at these same channels. All right, Brian, let's get out of here with a song.

What do you got? Yes. Let's go to Chris, who wrote in and said, My wife goes under the knife tomorrow. This is back on August 5th, to remove parts of her most affected by the Brocka 1 gene mutation. It's going to be, quote, unquote, another roughly six weeks of recovery. Her first surgery was in late April. I leave it to the cover master to find a good song for the recovery anytime in the next week or two is fine. So we pushed it out a little bit.

You're the recovery master now. I like that. Yeah, the recovery master. Um, yeah, that's, uh, that's hopefully things are going well. She's recovering, uh, fine from that. That's, uh, you know, one of those things you got to watch out for because it's the cancer, like one of the cancer indicators, uh, is the BRCA gene. Yeah.

Um, let's go to, uh, something a little upbeat. Cranberries put out some nice upbeat songs on their first album. This was actually, um, this song, the original version was written, like Doloresa Riodin was like 20 when the cranberries recorded dreams on that first album. She was a little youngster and wrote it when she was 18 about just someone in her life that that always was there for and made her, made her happy. Oh, 19, Monica, I thought she was 20. 19 when she recorded that. All right.

No, no, no, no, no, 19. Anyway, first 2.11 recorded it and included on their most recent collection of covers, volume 23. Can't believe these guys put out that many cover albums and they're always good. It's never, it never feels formulaic or phoned in or anything like that. It's just so good. Anyway, here's first 211 and their cover of the Cranberry's Dreams. Dogpants.com. You look mostly like a tanuki.