The Psychology of your 20s - 215. Are you living in survival mode?

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Survival mode is, at its core, a stress response. When our minds and our bodies are put under extreme stress or believe we are in danger, we can enter a state where all we care about is getting through the next day. This can turn us into a person we're not and make us lose the enjoyment and love for life, but also feel overwhelmed by constant panic and anxiety. In today's episode, we discuss how to break free of survival mode, the difference between our learning brain and our survival brain, why we find ourselves here to begin with, what's happening in our brain and our bodies and the best advice, tips and therapies for getting back into safe mode.  Listen now!  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast  For business enquiries: [e-mail]   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. How often do you feel somewhat disconnected from your environment or from your thoughts, your emotions? How often do you find yourself waking up in the morning and immediately feeling tense and alert? How often do you feel the need to be constantly

productive and active only to be exhausted by the end of the day but unable to sleep or unable to accept the fact that you need downtime or maybe you find that no matter what no matter how much caffeine you consume how much sleep you have had you just cannot absorb new information or learn new things the thing about all these statements and what they all have in common is that they are indicative of a stress response called survival mode and if you feel like that you feel like like you spend more time being hyper alert and stressed than relaxed and curious and inspired by life, this stress state may be describing exactly what you're going through. Survival mode occurs when we basically have no energy left to actually be anything more than, I would say, a machine or a

survival machine. We just have to shut down and push through the day. We are operating normally on adrenaline and stress and cortisol and anxiety, basically just trying to survive our current circumstances. Whether that is work related, family related, school related, money related, trauma related, it often ends up turning us into someone when not because all the things that make us have to be shut down by our brain basically in order to preserve energy and to survive whatever it is we're going through. The thing is is that our body and our mind, think that they are doing the right thing, but often our nervous system has become so dysregulated and extremely sensitive from repeatedly feeling overwhelmed or threatened that we are in this state

far more than we perhaps need to be. We all have this very primal ancient system in place for helping us through really dangerous moments. But in the modern world, these systems are often triggered by things that won't kill you, that won't harm you, but would still feel really, really stressful. And being in survival mode for too long can create chronic stress. It can create extreme burnout, emotional, physical, social exhaustion. And it can also just make us feel like we're a bad person, like we've become a mean person or a lazy person. When none of these things are true. We're just trying to survive without maybe all the information, all the support, all the resources that could help our nervous system find its way back to safe mode. So today,

let's talk about it. Why do so many of us in our 20s find ourselves in survival mode far too often when a lot of the world would like to think that we don't have too much to be stressed about? I think we all know that's not true. But why do we feel like we've been this way longer than we can remember and what is actually going on in our body and our brain to make us feel this dissociated and alienated. Above all else, how do we find our way back to a place of not just safety or peace, but of regulation, a place of growth where there is room to be human and room to be vulnerable and actually enjoy life?

I'm definitely no stranger to survival mode myself. I feel like I end up in that space far more than I would. like to. And I'm getting better at admitting that's because I'm not great at managing stress. And there are probably things from the past that I don't manage as well as I should be. And I've learned a lot through that process. I definitely have. And I have so much to share with you today. So much to help you hopefully understand this state. And maybe also understand yourself a little bit better in the process. So without further ado, let's get into it. Let's talk about the psychology, the biology of survival mode.

You have probably heard the phrase survival mode if you're interested in the self-help or wellness space at all if you've been in therapy before, definitely. I really like that this concept and this experience has become more accessible to people, that we actually have the language to describe what we're going through, because not only is it a lot more common, but it's really, really scary. And I think having full information is probably the first step to getting back to safe mode. So as always, let's start with the basics. Survival mode is essentially a psychological and physical state of heightened arousal and awareness. And it occurs when our brain basically believes we

are in danger. And so it activates what is known as our fight, flight or freeze system to basically get us through the situation or the threat. This can be in response to a lot of things. Firstly, really stressful life periods, you know, after a loss, after enduring something traumatic during burnout, that's a really huge one for our 20s when we've kind of been pushing ourselves to our limits and enduring really extreme mental conditions for far too long. Sometimes that can trigger survival mode. And it can also come up in response to past trauma or environmental stresses, like during natural disasters or during war. A big, one that we all went through together was, of course, the pandemic. So many people found themselves

completely exhausted despite being home all the time. Because of how unpredictable and scary the circumstances were, it meant that our brains were constantly in a state of alertness that eventually took its toll on all of our mental, emotional, physical resources. In other words, a lot of us were pushed into survival mode. The important thing to know about survival mode is that, although it may feel totally alienating. It actually means that your brain is trying to do the right thing or what it believes is best, given your environment, given the stress is your experience, given how it's hardwired. And the way that it does that is by essentially switching on the parts of us that are very ancient and primal, which have evolved for millions of years as a way to protect us when it

perceives danger. And the other thing that happens is that it switches off all those distance, that it sees as unnecessary or frivolous. That is the really crucial word to remember here, survival. We want to survive. That is our natural drive. And all of the systems in our body that are controlled by our brain are blindly trying to do that when they encounter stress. The problem occurs when this response is activated for far too, you know, far much longer than it should be. or continues to be activated even when the immediate danger has disappeared.

Like when you're getting flashbacks or relieving something traumatic, even though you are not currently in danger, there is still this sense of urgency and intensity that doesn't subside. There is also the fact that these primal instinctual systems have evolved and adapted for a completely different environment than what we are in now. So there was this fantastic article written back in 2012 by Dr. John Montgomery, and he wrote it for the magazine Psychology Today, which we refer to a lot in the podcast. And basically what he suggests is that we have the brains that we have evolved to have over millions of years. And for the majority, and I mean the sizable majority of human existence, those brains were made for hunting.

and gathering. And they were made for encountering threats and either escaping them, running away from them, fighting back, and that kind of being the end of it. And these threats were very tangible. So many of the threats we encounter nowadays are not. And the best example of that is a sense of threat from social media or online. Like you read a really terrible news article and you're not in any immediate danger. but our brain doesn't know that.

Our brain can't always tell the difference because it just listens to our stress response. And so because it has spent millions, thousands of years evolving to respond in a certain way, it automatically activates that system and it makes us hypervigilant and afraid and anxious, even though the threat is something pretty intangible and probably very far away. So that is where the concept of media overload to take a little, have a tangent here. What I'm specifically referring to is this idea of news anxiety, right? The world feels very dark and dangerous at the moment. And because we are, you know, exposed to all the terrible things going on, even though they don't immediately threaten us, it can actually trigger

a survival mode state. So the American Psychological Association actually spoke about this all the way back in 2012. There is a psychological strain that comes from not only living through, but absorbing all that terrible news. It's where terms like doom scrolling have come from because, you know, social media has definitely heightened that for this generation and with that, it is heightened out automatic states of anxiety and sense of overwhelm and subsequent, some would say like a detachment from reality in order to cope. So this can eventually create a state of hyper arousal where we experience difficulty sleeping or switching off. We're in a constant state of, you know, baseline panic or anxiety.

We could also be really irritable. And we, you know, have these strange emotional outbursts where nothing seems to be wrong. We have these heightened emotional reactions and sensitivity. We get frightened really easily. And we can also be looking for ways to numb ourselves to that and really escape all this extreme nervous and misplaced energy in our body. Survival mode. Whatever has triggered it.

And I said this before, it can turn us into completely different people. You may forget to fulfill your most basic needs, like eating or sleeping or showering, because all of your energy is going towards just getting through what you're going through. It's why people who are in like the real depths of grief often lose a lot of weight, not only because their body is demanding more from them, but you also just don't feel hungry because all of those hunger cues and, digestion is suppressed, right? Like that's part of the frivolous unnecessary systems that our brain is switching off. We may also feel more tired than usual, sleeping 10, 12 hours a day and still feeling

exhausted because those hours that we are awake are so intense and exhausting, we just could never sleep off that exhaustion. It can really get us into such a spiral, especially if you're, you know, survival mode is the result of being an overachiever or from perfectionist burnout. You want to keep pushing, right? That's how you have been, you've almost trained your brain to perform is to keep pushing, but your body is telling you to rest and to restore itself. And so you end up just experiencing even more guilt that means that you end up compensating by extending yourself even further. And that is how we see burnout cycles that turn into survival mode. Our emotional regulation, I think I already mentioned, this also goes out the window.

We snap at our loved ones for the smallest things. We never know when we're feeling sad or mad or bad about a situation. I was actually, in preparation for this episode, I was speaking to my friends. Like when I'm about to do an episode, I love to just kind of like talk to them. We say I bring it up, they ask like, how's work doing? And I said to one of my friends, I was like doing an episode on survival mode. And I was explaining to her like what it feels like, what it means. And she said to me, she was like, after I was in a car accident, she broke her leg in a car accident back in like 2021 maybe, after she was in that accident, even after her leg was healed, she still felt so like emotionally fuzzy.

And she would be angered by the smallest things. And she was like, maybe it was because all of my mental energy was being devoted to processing that trauma and trying not to feel afraid anymore. That's a big part of it. things like multitasking become more challenging. We can't actually relax because it always feels like something terrible is going to go wrong. We have memory issues. You know, it's almost like a zombie state, like a heightened alert zombie state where our brain is kind of switched on, but everything else is really intense.

You know, the other way that I can describe it is there is like this filter between you and the rest of the world, like a blurriness to all your way. hours, all your waking moments, like when you get into a car and like, you know, when you turn on the radio and it can't find a channel, it's just this like high frequency noise and meaningless chatter, that is what survival mode feels like. This specific experience, that buzzing, that high frequency, that noise, that detachment blurriness, that is also indicative of something else going on here. Disassociation. There is a huge correlation between survival mode, and disassociation because detaching ourselves from our emotions and our surroundings is kind of one of

the only ways that our body is able to firstly mentally compartmentalize what's going on but also tolerate hard and stressful things that's why dissociation is known as a stress response often in response to anxiety and it basically occurs when we unconsciously disconnect from our reality as a way of surviving. It's very much an adaptive instinct and adaptive process. You know, disassociation can help somebody feel like they can shut off from overwhelming circumstances by muting, distorting, going on autopilot and pushing through the extreme situation. However, when the trauma is ongoing, even if, you know, the physical trauma has passed, if the memories of the trauma are ongoing. Disassociation can become what some researchers would call fixed and automatic.

Your body is basically saying, listen, we can't trust you with this right now. Trust us. We're going to take over. We're going to numb you all these experiences. And, you know, when it's time to come to, we'll wake you up. Don't worry. We'll get you there. I feel like that so rarely happens because whilst you're in this survival state, you're going to continue to do things feeling like you need to survive. That doesn't include things that are important for self-care. It doesn't include moments of relaxation. It's kind of like you are locked in.

There's no way out once you let this mode take over. So what's actually happening in your body and your brain to create this? Well, we spoke kind of briefly about it before, but it's basically the fight or flight response. Now we also tend to include freeze or fawn. but this is an automatic physiological response to danger. If you have ever done like a basic psychology course, you know about this, but when our sympathetic nervous system takes over in response to a stressor, a stressful event, we get a racing heartbeat.

We get our dilated pupils, a release of adrenaline and cortisol, our breathing rate goes up. This response is meant to prepare our body to get away or survive danger. The other thing that is meant to happen is that response, is meant to go away when the danger has passed. But if not, if we don't ever perceive the danger as passing, eventually staying in that stress state for too long leads to exhaustion and breakdown. The other thing to note about what's happening in your body and your brain when you're in this mode

is that your brain is operating entirely differently than what it would normally be. The amygdala, which is the part of the brain responsible for emotional processing, especially for things like fear, it becomes hyperactive and hyper reactive. It sends signals to hormones like cortisol, which that's what really triggers your fight or flight response. But when the cortisol tap isn't turned off, you start to get muscle tension and pain and sleep problems. And it even sometimes means that we get sicker more often.

So this is interesting. If you've like just done a series of exams, if you've just graduated, whatever, you've just done midterms and you've been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing, do you ever notice that you immediately get sick straight afterwards? That's basically what's happening here. Obviously, that's just like a brief period of stress. But when we live in survival mode for months on end, it's basically like having a stress are constantly poking you,

constantly poking and poking and poking and you can never relax. And over time, this disrupts the body's natural balance. and it puts you at risk for a whole lot of mental health issues, also physical illnesses like we spoke about before. There was a series of studies published in Scientific America back during the pandemic that showed that prolonged stress can even alter our brain's structure. It can lead to long-term memory issues, reduced academic performance, poorer decision-making, and if you think that wasn't enough, our prefrontal cortex, which controls, Rational Thinking also seems to kind of take a back seat. It seems to be almost overwhelmed by, you know, the parts of the amygdala or the inner

cortexes that are really just shooting out danger signals at all time. This is also why we see a difference between what we would call a learning brain and a survival brain. If you've ever noticed that the more stressed you get, the more difficult everyday tasks become, that is because you are experiencing this difference. the difference between learning brain and survival brain. A learning brain is one that is really able to take in new information. It also means that you're able to perform daily tasks that you're accustomed to without much issue.

You don't find those tasks stressful or frustrating. And there is all this space for creativity and for inspiration and for growth. Your brain is clear and it's just soaking everything up. If you're experiencing, currently experiencing, I will say a healthy life. You have managed to really navigate your stress response. You've taken care of your mental health. You're on holiday. You're probably in learning brain mode.

It's why when you go on vacation, right, you suddenly have like a million ideas for your future. And you're suddenly so much more relaxed. And you're really interested in going to museums. And you have all these plans and all these ideas and you're reading. Your own learning brain. Survival brain is what we described before. There is no space for anything new.

there is no space for new information, for curiosity, everything is done on adrenaline and on fear. If you're just trying to survive, your brain is focusing only on what it thinks is important for your survival. So if you are, you know, you've just experienced something traumatic and you step into a classroom or you step into work and you have all these tasks to do, you're not going to be able to do them. And there's this brilliant YouTube video from a creator called Jacob Hamm. and he talks about this so perfectly. He talks about how individuals who have endured a lot of trauma as children or people who have just escaped toxic situations, toxic workplaces who are burnt out, they are operating on an empty tank.

It takes so long for that tank to be replenished. And so, yeah, it may look like you're lazy or you're procrastinating and you're disorganized, but actually when we have a bit more compassion and we look deeper, it's because your brain is still in that survival mode. it doesn't see learning as a current priority. To sum up all this doom and gloom, this can have a bleed-on effect. It's really hard to be a good partner or a good girlfriend or a good boyfriend when every part of your brain is looking for danger.

There is no room for softness when you're just trying to survive. And it can mean that you often self-sabotage your relationship or, you know, if you're really, really irritable, it's not that you have an excuse for being angry or agitated. but it's really hard to think clearly about what you want from your relationship and how to show up as a good partner if there's no brain space for that. The same goes for friendship. You know, I've seen really great, amazing friendships fall apart because one person just had no mental capacity to be present.

It was for no other reason other than that they were stuck in the survival mode. And everything to them became less important because they were just trying to get through. And when all your cues and your drive for sleep and hunger and water and socializing, when all those cues are out of whack, when your immune system is compromised, it's really hard to pull yourself out of that and to kind of find your way back to who you were before. Who were you without the stress, without the tension, without the adrenaline, without the fear? That is exactly what we are going to talk about next, exiting survival mode, getting back to safe mode, back to our learning brain. I have all of the tips and the psychological advice I could

find that I could extract from the research. Stay with us after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with Wright. researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong.

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waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes.

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The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, news, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at

Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Being in survival mode is not a conscious choice. I really want you to know that. and to know that if you've identified yourself in these descriptions that I gave, this is not something that you are actively putting yourself through it. It's not your fault. You're not an angry person, a bad person, a mean person. Maybe you're just trying to get to the other side and that's something I can hopefully help you with.

Getting from survival mode into safe mode means finding a way to tell your brain and cut through the noise and communicate with it that I'm safe. It's okay. There is no threat. I'm not in danger. thank you for trying to protect me, but you can take a backseat now. I can take control. That starts by creating an internal and external environment where you don't feel threatened or alert, where there is no reason for your brain to be on all the time.

And I think that that really begins in your physical space and in your surroundings. Sometimes we can't escape the environment that is keeping us in survival mode. But if you can, your mental health is going to thank you. Whether that means leaving a toxic home, a toxic roommate situation, a toxic work environment, those are the places we need to create change first because it is so often outside stimuli and our environment and the places that we exist in that are creating these high levels of stress. If you're, you know, restricted by finances or obligations or leases, make the space that you can within that. create a routine and a room, a home that prioritizes comfort that gives you a place to feel secure and peaceful. Basically, find your oasis. For most people that is going to mean their bedroom or their room,

I think the first thing that you can do to bring a sense of comfort and calm is warm lights. I know that's like the silliest tip to include, but there has been a lot of research in the last 10 years showing how light can affect our mood and our stress response. Just think about how alert you are in that intense blue clinical lighting that tends to make us feel very awake and very alarmed and overstimulated versus soft lighting that imitates our natural environment. That has been shown to reduce cortisol levels and to realign us with our natural circadian rhythm and melatonin release schedule, all things that are big pluses for getting out of survival mode. Less noise, less stimulation is also fantastic. because that means fewer things your brain feels alert to and might perceive as danger. Even better if you can find a space like your room that is phone free and you can escape the

doom scroll, you can escape the work emails, you can escape the negative news cycle, the constant to-do list that is infiltrating your downtime. That can make such a small difference. There's a reason why a lot of people suggest having times and having a big period during your day where your phone is not present. I think all of these practices can actually help us become very aware of the triggers or the stresses which are immediately in the moment pushing you into a fight or flight state.

That simple act of noticing, you know, do I feel better when my phone is off? Do I feel better when I'm leaving a certain environment versus another? Do I feel better when I'm not seeing this person, when I'm taking something off of my to-do list? that is something to really notice because when we remove sources of stress, even just tiny ones, that can make a real difference when you're in survival mode. This is kind of the same premise behind why we might value a routine during this time.

Routine often means less unpredictability, less to be uncertain about, less to adapt to out of the blue. And it can help us ease into a calmer, less. alert state where we know what's going on, we know what's happening, we feel in control, there is less pressure and instinct to be on all the time. Part of that is also thinking about what you can take off your plate. You know, I've mentioned burnout. Burnout is a huge contributor to survival mode in our 20s. It's such a simple philosophy, but if there is less to do, less to stress about, there is more mental space for honestly healing and just silence. There is more mental space to give back to you.

Here's something that I want to talk about and that I want you to remember. Sometimes our busyness is actually hyper arousal in disguise. And it's the instinct to be doing something always, to constantly be on and constantly be productive and moving forward and fixing problems as a way to self-soothe and as a way to give that anxiety somewhere to go because it feels like you are fixing your stressed state by getting rid of triggers or getting things off the to-do list or getting the project out of the way or making, you know, like maybe I could go to sleep, but if I clean my house, I'll just feel a little bit better tomorrow morning. It's like, no, the reason sometimes we want to be more busy is because

we are trying our hardest to find a way to reduce our sense of arousal and alertness by getting more stuff done. That's something that really like blew my mind when somebody said it to me. They were like, you think that maybe you're busy because your thoughts will spiral if you're not, or because you don't know what to do with that empty space, or because everything that isn't done feels like a stressor to you. But when you force yourself, and I mean force yourself to just stop, pause, do it tomorrow, give yourself the afternoon off, there becomes all this space where you can just really sit with your big emotion,

and just be like, okay, I'm not doing anything right now. I'm not trying to fix anything. I'm not trying to do anything. And I'm not dying. And I'm not in danger. And the world has not collapsed. It's basically a learning experience for yourself. It's basically being like, okay, when I do force myself to face whatever it is I'm going

through, when I do force myself to just be present and alone and to feel all the instincts that I'm feeling, I'm not going to die. this is just this constant need to be productive. It's just a survival or a defense mechanism and I need to consciously reprogram that. I think it's also really important to put time aside to do things for you that are just naturally going to make you feel more relaxed and to once again fight the urge to be prepared for the next disaster by doing things. We can't talk about safe mode without talking about self-care and I'm not talking about the kind of

glamorous self-care you might see on social media, you know, face masks, spa days. If that's within your means, you should definitely go for it. But we definitely need to prioritize some seriously rich and psychologically nourishing self-care practices before we do that. We need to find a way to self-serve and self-regulate. A lot of things are beyond our control that much is, you know, probably obvious. But what is within our control is how we respond. to the things that push us into this aroused state.

And self-soothing and nervous system regulation are part of kind of the tools that we have in our chest. The premise being, if we can calm down our stress response deliberately, we stop ourselves from automatically entering survival mode and we stop ourselves from being ruled by basically our fight or flight response. The self-care practices that help us with that should involve filling up your cup, but also providing the space to relieve some kind of tension or stressor or to find a way to kind of, I always imagine it's like a fireball is being thrown at you and you find a way to

twist it and throw it back. You know, you find a way that allows you to process the stress and process whatever it is that's being thrown at you and essentially get rid of it. some big ones are obviously things like nature walks exercise one of my favorite episodes of all time is the healing power of nature and how nature helps us regulate naturally regulate our nervous system i would definitely recommend movement and movement that you actually enjoy is another one movement is a natural stress relief i'm not going to go on about a tangent on exercise and its impact for our mental health it is obviously more complex than that but you know you've got to remember that

when you run, when you exercise, when you box, when you cycle, when you go to Pilates, there is energy required in that. And sometimes it helps us really burn off some of that adrenaline and burn off some of that cortisol. Full body movements, especially, like progressive muscle relaxation and rhythmic movement. That is so valuable. If you've ever been to like a, what are they called? It's like a rhythmic movement class. It's like a rhythmic movement class, like a dance class, but you basically, like, respond to where your stress is in your body and you move according to that and release it. Amazing. Amazing. It's so holistic, right? And I think sometimes holistic medicine and holistic therapy and holistic healing if that sort gets a bad rap until you do it,

and you're like, oh, no, no, I totally get this. I totally get why so many people do this. Another big thing that I love for myself and I will always endorse, I have seen the benefits of this in my own life and it's becoming so much more popular recently is a thing called emotional freedom technique. It's probably better known as tapping. That's probably what you've heard it as. This is a relatively new practice, but it's basically a method of combining tapping certain parts of our body whilst restructuring our thoughts. So slowly tapping your forehead whilst thinking about something really stressful or feeling panicked about your to-do list. Or, you know, another example is slowly tapping right underneath your eye whilst you're reliving a really awful encounter at your old toxic workplace. So if you want to try it right now, think about something you're feeling super anxious about, super troubled by,

and slowly and gently tap just above your eyebrow. and then just below your eye and above your mouth. Just focus on that pressure point and just see if and how your body responds. The moment I do this, I'm always brought so much peace and calm. And this technique is based on some really amazing science firstly, but also traditional Chinese medicine principles. And you might think it's placebo. In other words, it's all in our head.

I get it. I was definitely skeptical because I think that we're very used to the normal kinds of therapy that we are prescribed. But I don't think I would mention it if I, if you know, it didn't have clinical backing. And EFT definitely does. Basically, the reason that it feels so good and the reason that it does reduce our stress response is because of acupoint stimulation. And that acupoint stimulation can promote the release of serotonin in the amygdala, which we spoke about before, basically the fear center. of the brain and also in the prefrontal cortex, it releases quite literally like opioids, serotonin, GABA, which is a calming neurotransmitter into the bloodstream. So you're immediately flooded

with both happy chemicals in your brain and then calming chemicals in your body and in your brain as well. And it helps regulate cortisol levels, the stress hormone. And that tends to rise, as we know, with psychological stress. So when we counteract that, it kind of puts a ceiling on how high we can go. You can find EFT sessions online and there's been recent clinical studies that have shown that this particular kind of technique has a lot of promise as a long-term therapeutic tool for working through past trauma, specifically what we know as adverse childhood experiences. It can also also kind of help us recover from, I've spoken about this one a lot, but toxic work environments, toxic relationships, toxic housing situations, so many.

different situations. And the reason why is because EFT basically helps us correct trauma responses. So when something that resembles a traumatic experience occurs and our vital flight system kicks in, we can basically deliberately, automatically and voluntarily desensitize ourselves by imposing relaxation to rewire our response. Rather than feeling like our external environment or this trigger suddenly has all the control. This helps regulate our nervous system to be in a more parasympathetic, which is the opposite of sympathetic state instead of that hyper aroused state where you are always on alert. Finally, try and bring forth your learning brain when you can. Once you have hopefully created that small slice of peace and safety for yourself and your little home oasis of

comfort where you know you are safe, you know you are secure, you know you are in control, try and introduce things to be inspired or excited by, and see what brings you into a state of flow, whether it's painting or running or video games or Lego, quite literally anything that just for a few minutes makes you forget about the world around you. Please find a way to do more of that. Anything that helps you switch off. Now, I'm going to give you some rapid fire tips. I've gotten from therapists along the way for getting out of survival mode back into safe mode.

This one might sound really obvious. Just stop drinking caffeine if you can. Drink less caffeine and drink less alcohol. Self-explanatory, I no longer drink caffeine for this very reason. It takes a while of getting used to and it's just like amazing when you eventually get accustomed to not feeling like your energy levels are relying on something that's actually very, they could very quickly and very easily put you in a stressed state. And I notice now, like even if I have a matre or like a diet Coke, which I rarely do, I get so jittery. I immediately feel like the burden and the

pressure of everything that I have ever experienced and have to do. So caffeine and alcohol in particular are substances that we want to avoid. Sometimes because we often use these substances to self-soothe or compensate for our dysregulated nervous system. We might feel like they're doing something. They're either calming us down or increasing our sense of alertness when we're exhausted, but they can actually make it worse in the long term. It's just one more artificial interaction or artificial situation that we have to become reliant on that interrupts our body's natural ability to regulate itself.

Also pursue joyful activities. I kind of already mentioned this, but doble. Perman makes us happy. It also makes us calm. And it brings about a state of peace because if your brain is experiencing pleasure, it basically automatically assumes that, you know, we must be safe. There mustn't be anything wrong. So that's a great way to get back into your safe mode, activate your parasympathetic nervous system. And practice self-compassion, practice radical self-compassion, loving yourself for no reason, accepting what you're going through. Instead of trying to, immediately feel better and get better and get back to the person you were before, the person

who wasn't irritable, the person who could do everything, just take some time. Like this is an intense state to be in. It takes a lot to get here. So no matter what you've been through, you still deserve love and compassion from yourself. Before anybody else can give it to you, you deserve it from yourself first. And just recognize that you're not superhuman. Your well-being is still worth prioritizing despite you not being able to do it all at once, despite what you may have been going through. Now, at least you have some more information about your circumstances. And you can see how so often it's almost like a domino effect.

We just don't realize that things are getting that bad. We just don't realize how deep in we are, how far into survival mode we are, until we kind of look around and realize that maybe we feel like so disconnected, we felt disconnected for months, for maybe years. And the fact that you are even able to recognize that shows you that perhaps you're closer to escaping that state than you might initially think. So I hope you learned something. I hope you took something away from this. I hope there is something within here that you can implement in your own life. And as always, if you did enjoy the episode, feel free to reach out to me at that psychology podcast. If you want us to expand on it further,

if you have another topic suggestion, make sure you're following along on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm just going to say it. We've got some pretty cool episodes coming out soon. So hopefully you're around to listen to them. Make sure you give us five starts as well, especially if this is something that you found useful so that other people can reach this content and find this content. As always, until next time, stay safe, stay kind and be gentle to yourself, and we'll talk soon. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%.

I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T.W.O.% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target.

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