The School of Greatness - Try THIS For 7 Days To Never Stress Out Again EP 1390

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today!Today’s guest is Elissa Epel, Ph.D. She is an international expert on stress, well being, and optimal aging and a best-selling author. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, at University of California, San Francisco, where she is Vice Chair of Psychology and directs the Aging Metabolism Emotions Center. She studies the environmental, psychological, behavioral and social factors that impact cellular aging, and is also focusing on climate wellness. She studies how self care practices such as meditation and positive stress can promote psychological and physiological thriving, and is interested in large scale interventions for communal well being and health equity. She’s written a new book called “The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease. In this episode, you will learn:How having a purpose plays a role in eradicating stress in your life.Why you should include more “Nothingness” in your schedule.How to embrace positive stress. Elissa’s seven day prescription to more joy in your life.For more, go to: www.lewishowes.com/1390 Habits That'll Help You Not Waste Another Year Of Your Life w/ James Clear EP 1372 https://link.chtbl.com/1372-podYour Personal Guide to Self Discovery w/ Nicole LePera EP 1358 https://link.chtbl.com/1358-podOvercome Your Triggers & Heal Your Soul w/ Dr. Mariel Buqué EP 1304 https://link.chtbl.com/1304-pod

If you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your copy today. Have we habituated to a certain level of like slow drip, chronic stress that we don't even notice anymore and we just accept?

And that's where a lot of us are. And I've lived for years in that state too. And it is something we can... Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin. You are an international expert on stress, well-being, on aging peacefully, and so many other things in your practice and in your teachings. And you've got this incredible new book that's Stress Prescription, Seven Days to More Joy and Ease. And it seems to me like this is one of the biggest things that people struggle with the most is learning how to Manage navigate and embrace stress in their life Yes And I'm curious in all of your work in your practice and your teachings and your writings and your papers and the research you've done

Why do we stress the most? and Where do you stress the most? As the expert in this. Yeah, so yes, stress, we stress too much. We need to take it seriously and bring it way down because it's toxic for our health, because it creates depression and anxiety disorders.

And we just let it go, free floating, and don't take it seriously so how serious is it to to master stress toxic stress or chronic stress is serious it is a precursor to everything bad that we don't want which is early disease and disability and risk for even dementia and of course depression anxiety so it is there's a big science base on it and it's chronic toxic stress so like really ongoing for years that is what is bad for health the short-term stress we can we're gonna go there but it's like oh that's a totally different story. That is like we harness that for good and we perform that way and we do well that way

and we grow through stress. So the chronic stress, give me some examples of what that looks like. So a typical example is being a caregiver for a loved one. And that's what we study. We study caregivers because they're such a good model. They take care of someone 24-7. They don't get to take care of themselves very much. They tend to have wounds that heal more slowly.

And they, in some studies, even tend to die earlier. Really? Yes. I mean, this is toxic stress. Now, is it the same as a caregiver who is not a family member who is being paid? No. Or is it just a family member caregiver? It's the family member caregivers that we study

because paid caregivers is one of their social roles and it is a hard job, but it's not anything like, yes. And it's not anything like seeing your loved ones suffer. Yeah, so caregiving, you know, partner with dementia or a child with a chronic disability. I've been studying caregivers for over a decade. And the beauty though, is that it's not just the situation within being a caregiver, this may happen to many of us.

It's how we live within that and how we view it, how we cope. And so the ability to maintain purpose and quality relationships and positive emotion, those are critical ingredients. Those protect us from like the insulin resistance and the early aging that we see in character. So what are the main things? Say those again. Repeat those.

Purpose. Purpose in life. Like really feeling like we're doing something each day that's meaningful. Feeling positive emotion. Being able to see the small miracles and the things that make us happy each day. It's the small things that stress kind of clouds over and we miss.

And so if we can still be in touch with what we're grateful for, that's really valuable. It's interesting, I'm gonna butcher the guy's name, but there's a father-son relationship that's well known in the sports world. This father, I think his name is Dan Hoyt. For some reason, that's coming up to me. He's the father. And he runs like ultra marathons and triathlons with his son, who was born a

quadriplegic, I believe. Couldn't walk, couldn't move his body, but his, who couldn't speak, all these different things. And he would do this from the time he was like a teenager until like his son was in his 40s or something so every few months he would be training and preparing and he would push his son on like a marathon then he would swim two miles then he would bike with his son in the front or however many 100 miles or whatever I doing these triathlons and ultra marathons and it's beautiful to watch because I can imagine the pain and the challenge seeing your son not be able to walk,

not be able to speak your entire life and feeling like you're helpless. But to give it, and he said the first time he did this, he was not a runner, he saw his son have so much joy, I think in like a three mile run, being pushed. He's like, okay, there's a purpose here. Let me try to get healthier and be here with my son and create this bond and this experience.

And I'm sure it's not the most ideal situation, but it's giving your life more purpose in that caregiver experience, right? It's a beautiful example, exactly. And caregivers who can actually find meaning in being able to bring comfort to their loved one or pleasure make them smile that's what it's about every day Wow so it's a chronic what other ways of chronic stress lots lots okay so chronic job

stress typical one like low control too much demand too much responsibility without a lot of executive power control that That is a bad formula, and that's related to everything bad, you know, early heart disease and abdominal fat, that kind of stress fat and early mortality. Another one, relationship conflict. When you said what stresses us out most, I was going to go right to, ooh, it's about social relationships. We want to feel part of the tribe. We want to belong.

We get so stressed out when we feel rejected or in some way isolated. Loneliness is a terrible chronic stressor and has its own health effects. Marital conflict, when it goes on and on. health effects. Marital conflict when it goes on and on. I mean, this is the social animalness interprets all of these social stressors as physical threats and so that's why it's got such this big wear and tear on our body. It feels like a huge weight at times. If it becomes chronic, right?

It feels like this is never ending, there's no relief, it's every day or whatever it might feel. Interesting. And right, and so, I mean, on the good side, because we're so social, our brains are so social, we feel, when we feel connected, and it could be one quality friendship, but it's really important to have that support. Social support, quality connection

is the most stress reducing thing we know about. Like it's old news in my field, so we don't talk about it much, it's like, well, you know, during the pandemic, I mean, this is thing we know about. Like it's old news in my field, so we don't talk about it much, was like, well, you know, during the pandemic, I mean, this is how we got by, so many of us, and it was so hard for people who were isolated and lived alone. So these are some of the main, I guess,

causes of, what is it? Toxic stress. Toxic stress. How do we first become aware that it's happening? Because after a period of time, we may never even know it's happening, we just feel exhausted. Yes. How do we become aware of which one of these

is actually causing us the most stress? Yes. And then what would you say is the game plan for starting a process of eliminating some of the stress? Exhaustion is a good sign. Yeah. And it's too late, right? We need to start way earlier to notice how stressed we really are.

And so in my book, I don't talk just about like when we're in the thick of stressful situations, like we know what that's like, we know we're stressed out, but it's more like have we habituated to a certain level of like slow drip chronic stress that we don't even notice anymore and we just accept. And that's where a lot of us are. And I've lived for years in that state too. And it is something we can change. We don't have to live that way.

It's like a dark cloud that changes our perception, dampens our ability to really see other people, see reality clearly, have really good relationships. So I would say that I feel like the levels of perceived stress that we have right now nationally are so high and dangerous. I mean, we just had a national survey, APA Stress in America survey,

and like the majority of young adults feel like they can't even cope with the levels of stress they're having. This is not okay. This is going to portend, this is a precursor to all these other problems, especially mental health problems. What will happen if we as a society continue with these levels of chronic stress, toxic stress in the next three to five to 10 years if we continue down this road? What will happen? I really worry about our youth and our young adults

and the suicide rate and the depression rate. It's already bad and we just don't have the services. And so when you ask about a game plan, my book and what the wellness field is about is what we can do at home as a one person. But the real shift has to be in our culture and our values because we make people feel like their whole worth is based on what they achieve, how much they make

and how they perform and that is toxic. And so changing to a more compassionate, socially connected culture, and it sounds very idealistic, but that is what everything always comes down to in my world. It's like, oh, we need to change schools. We need to change the culture of institutions. Parenting styles. Yeah, I mean, it's all, exactly.

It's all of that. But we do need to start with ourselves and really noticing the stress we're carrying in our body and addressing it with mindful check-ins, with what I like to think of as there's mindset, there's kind of top-down. We can change how we view stress and think about it. There's body up. We can use our body, this whole nervous system in our body to manage stress better. We can clean out stress that we're storing up. And then there's just change the scene.

Like get into nature, create healthy environments, and that helps us more than we even know. You have a seven-day prescription though too, right? Yeah. What does that prescription look like? Yeah, I can run through the seven. Yeah, please. But you did ask me like what my most common stress is. And I mean, there are big ones,

there are uncontrollable situations that I've had to accept. But I think the most common one is like the daily rush, like the to-do list being so long. And I study this in people. We give them these daily diaries, like what was the most stressful thing that happened today? So often it is rushing and time pressure. And that's just bad scheduling. So I've gotten a lot

better about that. I mean, I used to try to use every minute, you know, like phone call, work phone calls in transit and in the car and this and that. And like time is such a commodity. And that is just, there's no chance of decompressing and having spaciousness and having your body actually be able to feel at ease when we live that type of a day. And how common is that type of a day? Very common for a lot of people, I think, yeah. It's interesting because I think a lot of people focus on their schedule and maximizing it.

I actually have, not every day, but a lot of days I put in like strategic nothing time. Yeah. Just to give myself space to do what I need to do. Maybe I'm researching something, maybe I'm just laying on the couch, I don't know. But it's like strategic time to just think, be, take a walk. I think around lunchtime can be good for that too, to just decompress and get away for a few minutes

and just take some time for yourself. It's so basic and it's actually so profound. Strategic nothing time. Strategic nothing. I like it. Strategic nothing time. Yeah, that's pretty much what our psychological first aid was for all our frontline workers at the med school.

It's like, if you can't take a break, you will develop some of this burnout that you already came with and now you have the pandemic. So these breaks, and if we're really taking a break, we're not looking at our phone, we're actually just being, walking, being in nature, doing deep breathing. That nothingness time changes how we think. It allows room for creativity and we just think differently. So when I'm just going through my day as time is commodity,

completely packed, my thinking is boring. I'm not creative. I'm just getting the things done and checking things off. So I think when we're by the ocean or forest or we really have this luxury of these nothing is time to just be, we are more our true essence. We're able to just actually be in our body and be connected to people and to nature. And that is rare. Yeah.

Yeah. There's this thing, I mean, there's a concept of having rest and relaxation and taking, you know, your time throughout the days and not being too full on your plate. But then there's also the concept of pressure creates diamonds and pressure and stress creates innovation and creates, you know, relief. The good stress, yes. Exactly. And so it's like, there's a balance of like, okay, don't make sure your day is too relaxed, but also don't get too burnt out because then there's not pressure to create some innovation some new idea some breakthrough right so it's kind of a balance right totally absolutely like we don't want all like ease and relaxation it's totally unrealistic too and that's not life

and there's you know there's um slings and arrows that are gonna gonna hit us and so we want to have a healthy positive stress response. But this idea of embracing positive stress and I mean we thrive on that right? Like we love, part of us or many of us and I'm one of them loves the deadline and things get done but then you got to do the decompress and the respite and so it's that kind of mixture of both. And I even love that like during let's say like an intense yoga class and there are other things like this where you're going from intensity and you know isometric strength or aerobic fitness to like complete relaxation and lying down and yoga does that they kind of alternate back and forth. And so you're like working your nervous system

back and forth from positive stress to relaxation. I love that. So hot, cold. So in my book we have, you know, in this section on like what is positive stress, this bodily stress that we control and we apply in short bouts. So high intensity interval training, hyperthermia, sauna, cold exposure,

and extreme breathing. Those are four things that we can control and do, and they de-stress us. We don't have to have all this muscling effort to do top-down stress reduction. Right. I'm curious about, we were talking about this before, before we started the conversation here, about healing the body, but also healing the thought. Because I feel like sometimes we get into this chronic stress or this toxic stress environment where it's a consistent thing for days, weeks, months, years. And it's like there's an idea or a thought that you've got to keep living this way.

And it's also affecting the body physically. It's hurting the body. and it's also affecting the body physically. It's hurting the body, but is it first healing the body symptoms, or is it healing the thought that you have to be living this certain way or living in this environment or be in these types of relationships first that hurts you?

Which one do we need to heal first so that we can get back to a baseline of peace? Is it the thought or the body? Dr. Yeah. It's a really good question and I think people will have different opinions. And sometimes we need to start with the body because we might have trauma that's so defended that we can't look at it yet. And the body stores stress and trauma. And so there's a lot of different alternative techniques. They're not mainstream, although they

are starting to be, like somatic therapy, where you're actually using the body to name and clarify and process trauma that we've had. So we can start with the body. We can start with the mind. So we can start with the body, we can start with the mind, and we can also do both. And I'm in the camp of both, that we really should be using the body and exercise. And a lot of your audience uses this as a lifestyle. So the idea of the body for stress reduction, they might not be aware of it, but it's happening. I mean, it's a total regulator. Like my colleague, Eli Putterman has done a lot of exercise studies.

Exercise reduces rumination. Rumination is chronic stress. That's how we carry around chronic stress is through our thoughts, rethinking them over and over. We think we're problem solving. It's not very constructive. We're not problem solving, we're just keeping our body in a stress state. Rumination is chronic stress. Is one of the ways that we carry chronic stress, yeah. If we're doing it for too long, yeah, we can ruminate for whatever, 20, 30 minutes. We can carry stress around our body all the time,

we can ruminate, we can also be anticipating and worrying. And it just turns out, it doesn't really help us much. So like when we anticipate a stressor, does it mean we do better on it? No, it just means we had cortisol and stress arousal longer. Studies have shown that. My colleague, Wendy Mendez. So we know a lot about like how we carry stress in the mind, either thinking about the past or the future and that doesn't really serve us well it's just a way we think we're exerting control so the mindfulness present oriented the certainty letting ourselves feel the

certainty of the present and be present and be engaged have our focus of attention really absorbed like in a flow state that is a beautiful state of mind that is not stressful but it is still highly activated. Like you said, you're working on a deadline or something together. But if we're ruminating on the past or worrying about the future, then we're living in stress.

Yeah. What's the difference between worrying about the future and preparing for the future? Yes, there is a difference. And visualizing what could go right and could go wrong in the future, Yes, there is a difference. And visualizing what could go right and could go wrong in the future, so you're prepared. Yeah.

What's the difference between that? That's a really good question. And when we can prepare and problem solve and be ready for things, we're reducing stress. So planning ahead in that way is completely constructive, and that's how a lot of us reducing stress. Yes. So planning ahead in that way is completely constructive. And that's how a lot of us manage stress.

But the anticipating is more worrying. You know, you're kind of thinking about it, but you're not actually creating, you're strengthening your resources and preparing. You're not taking action to prepare. Yeah, exactly. Well, so one set of strategies is kind of looking at our mindset. So

when we feel, you know, you you are describing how you like routine, but not like an overly rigid routine. And so there's a sweet spot there. And that is our ability to deal with some uncertainty. Yeah, things might not go as planned. can help you get closer to the best version of yourself. There have been many times in my life where I felt a bit lost and confused and just not sure of what direction to take. So I ended up not taking any action at all. And I'm sure plenty of you can relate. This is completely normal in life. And if you're thinking of giving therapy a try,

BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Therapy has been a huge part of my life and has helped me process different childhood traumas. And I would be a completely different person without the use and support of therapy. I go to the gym to work on my body and I go to therapy to work on my mind and my emotions.

It's that simple. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash Lewis today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash L-E-W-I-S. So that's really important. So this being able to kind of be comfortable and tolerate uncertainty or when, you know, when things happen that we didn't plan or predict, being able to actually relax into that.

That is a resilient skill that some of us, just based on personality, are more that way. We tolerate uncertainty really well. And then some of us aren't. And we really get very uncomfortable when we can't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. Yeah. So how did you get that way? Was it work? I mean, did you have to work on it or you just kind of naturally, you know, kind of structured, but not too structured? How I'd prepare for tomorrow, you mean? Or,

Tomorrow, you mean? Well, first off, I visualize a goal that I have, and it really starts with a meaningful mission. So I'm clear on my purpose for this season of life. So when I was playing sports, I was like, okay, this season, these three months, my goal is to get to the state championship or to win this many games or whatever it might be. And then I had a purpose for that season. Just like now, I have a purpose and a mission.

So I'm clear on that, and then I create a goal about what I want to accomplish this year. And then I have quarterly goals, and I just kind of work on every week what do I need to do to support myself in being of service to the mission. So I'm very mission-oriented, focused on giving and creating, on adding value to a

certain amount of people. And that if I feel thrown off of that or like it's been too many days where I'm not grounded for whatever reason because I'm burnt out or I'm distracted or something or I'm overcommitted or something, then I start to feel like okay, something's off. And when I have more routine and more groundedness in my routine, so I have the energy to serve at a certain level. That's the way I think about it.

So I'm always listening to myself, I'm always processing and giving myself the space to rest so that I feel like, okay, I have the rest, I have the workout, I have the nutrition that I need, I have the therapy that I need so that I can clear things and not ruminate so I can be my best self, the best self possible in that moment. That's what I think about. I prepare that way. It's a journey because 10 years ago, I had a lot of wounds inside of me, a lot of anger, a lot of stress, a lot of frustration that

I hadn't processed yet. And so those things would come up in certain moments of life, triggers from relationships or career or business partners, whatever. And it would cause more upset and more stress because I hadn't processed the wounds. And so when I started to address those things and process them and integrate them through practice, then I realized I have less stress.

But then there's a different level of stress the more you grow, right? It's like you're growing, you're developing, you're creating. Now you've got different types of problems you have to learn how to manage at that level. So it doesn't feel like it's gone away. It's like I've become better at managing it and become a better leader to myself and the people around me yeah so I don't know if you've got the answers let me know advanced stress management 2.0 no that's that sounds amazing you have your north star yeah so having purpose is incredibly important for buffering stress because we have so many different existential stressors, global problems, personal stressors to deal with.

But if we have purpose, and especially with a team, you know, with partner, just collectively in not alone, it is the fuel, kind of the regenerative fuel of how we have that goal of service, despite sadness, sorrow, things we can't control. So the North Star is kind of a new area of health research of realizing, oh, if you have more purpose in life, you have less inflammation, you actually live longer. It's, yeah, it's like the big, I mean, I think of a stress as an umbrella that kind of shapes our life and wre know it wreaks havoc on our health behaviors um and then purpose is like all of a sudden stress shrinks and like it's it's more in perspective so our we don't sweat the small stuff as much when we kind of see how we fit into this world like what is our mission in our short life yeah and you know

you've talked about like don't view don't one of your mind hacks you've mentioned is don't feel like you have all the time in the world and so that you use your time aligned with your goals absolutely and there is something called spiritual urgency which happens which is when someone really reaches a crisis they often which happens, which is when someone really reaches a crisis, they often develop spiritual urgency to live what their limited life, this is like a health problem usually, or some catastrophic thing. Near-death experience, or someone dies in the family, or you go through a health problem. That aligns us. And often we have from that post-traumatic growth or spiritual urgency which is realizing, oh my goodness, I was spinning my wheels, I'm using all this effort to try to live well

and it was not using my time for what I care about most which, fill in the blank, different to everyone but usually about relationships, love, gratitude, creating some greater good. And so we can wait until we have a crisis to develop that spiritual urgency, or we can do what you suggested, which is just stop now and ask, reflect. What are my, if I had one year to live, what are are my priorities how do I want to use my time how can I align my time use to fit what I care about most because we really don't know and if we really honestly look at the fragility of life and how short it is even though right now it feels like we have so many unlimited days we don't and that spiritual urgency is one way that we can you know be aligned with these mission-driven um quarters you describe i love it

did you feel like you always had spiritual urgency or is that something you learned later in life i i would say it's recent. Really? Dr. Yeah. I think the... I've been training in some types of meditation and mindfulness and the idea of impermanence is always very big in Buddhism. So the idea that we really have right now and the future is quite uncertain, that is a way to really live more fully right now in the moment, in this day, in this month, and not just take it for granted.

Yeah. And I will say, I do think that dealing with other things that make me, well, the climate crisis for one we know we've been dealing with a lot and you have down here too of realizing how fragile the planet is and how if we want to be of service we can't just go toward this negative gloom and doom view but like how reframe it as purpose how amazing to be alive we can choose to do something in our local sphere where we have power and influence. And that's what it's about and the ripples from that.

Yeah. You mentioned earlier about self-worth and how to keep our self-worth even when we're dealing with stress. How does someone keep their confidence up, their self-worth intact, their identity full, when they're dealing with toxic stress? Is it even possible?

Yeah, you know, it's a great question. The idea of feeling like we are only as good as, and we need the next thing to keep feeling good about ourself, good as our performance or what we can you know acquire etc. Those are all very very strong messages that we all get from society and that is something that we can cut through and just realize that we have inherent worth. Some of the ways of doing that,

there's some really interesting stress research showing that like if you are about to, let's say play in a competitive basketball game and everyone and your value and your role, your identity is as this is what I'm good at, this is what people care about me. And so that's an incredible level of threat and stress. And, you know, you've dealt with this as a professional athlete and performers deal with this. And so

even, you know, a student who has a test and whose identity as I'm, you know, going to excel in academia will have the same kind of threat. This is what I care about most, this is you know how I define my worth. So here's a hack for that. You can write, remind yourself or write it out what you value in life, write your values that's only going to be one of them, this one area of life and social roles that you feel that you care about, friend, parent, being a team player, taking care of an animal, whatever it is that makes you feel purpose, that makes you feel good about life, that you value, those are part of our identity. Our identity is vast and diffuse.

But when we think all the eggs are in one basket, and if I do well, it's catastrophic. So we can fight that. So research has done all these clever studies where they have people write out their values right before a stressful event or a test. And people, it actually arms them so that their ego is not threatened.

Their ego is all of a sudden this big, complex social identity that you can't just poke through based on this one. When you have your values. When you are aware and list your values and it's not just this one area of what you've been trying to perform or show. Not like a skill that you have that you're known for

and shaping that as your identity, but also the social roles that you care about, those values as well. What happens if we don't have values? How more susceptible to experiencing stress are we? So if we're just thinking, this is all that matters in my life at this moment, then we're also thinking,

I won't survive this if I do badly. So it's a survival threat. We all have values. We just haven't identified them necessarily. So like I have a list in the book of like, you know, which of these 10 values, you know, choose three that are important to you or write your own. And so, you know, you'll see like caring about nature or being, you know, having religion or spirituality. There's just all sorts of roles that we play and things we care about that are actually really important about who we are and remind us of our inherent worth. Sure.

Yeah. How would you say we start to develop a stronger mindset to be able to manage and take on more stress? Well, that's it. No one's ever asked me that. How can we take on more stress? How can we take on. No one's ever asked me that. How can we take on more stress? How can we take on stress better? Uh-huh.

Yeah. Either one. Yeah. Because I feel like, well, the reason why I'm asking that is because I feel like if someone develops a big mission for their life, a big purpose, it doesn't mean it's just going to be this easy process. If you're going for something bigger, if you're like, I want to take on ending,

you know, the suffering in humanity or whatever it is, you know, ending hunger or whatever, something you've been taking on a big purpose, not saying that's what you have to do, but for someone that wants to take on a big purpose, it doesn't mean everything's going to be easy. You know, there's going to be challenges and adversities you face.

So if someone does want to do that, everything's gonna be easy. You know, there's going to be challenges and adversities you face. Yeah. So if someone does want to do that, how can they strengthen their mind to manage and handle the amounts of stress that could potentially come? Yeah. I love that question. I will attempt to give you an answer and I would love to hear your answer too.

Yes. Because you have taken on um empires or you know different challenges in your stages so i feel like when we get really passionate and committed to you know big vision we need both the muscle of i am the lion. I am empowering statements that are grandiose and energize us and make us feel like we have the resources. We can do this. And we need the acceptance and letting go that we don't control the big outcome. We only control our efforts and our responses right now. So it's this kind of dynamic of like controlling

what you can and with the positive stress and the adrenaline as well as the letting go part of the time of the outcome. So we've learned this from activists. So it reminds me of like what I've learned about climate activists. And there is a lot of burnout and there is a lot of beautiful coping by basically dwelling in the communal action with others that you care about. We're in this together. You can't do it alone. Like it's completely about team building and relationships. And that brings the joy of like this communal activity.

There's something called, you know, collective efficacy or communal efficacy. So we think so much about like, do I have the confidence? Do I have the power? That's important. But really, if you're trying to do a heavy lift, it's like, do we together believe we can do this? And because you have, you're not alone,

it's like a magnified synergistic collective efficacy. And that can go a long ways. Right, so be the lion, is that part of your prescription? Yeah, so that I- The seven days? Yeah, so part of that is this idea that you can, you know, the lion is chasing the gazelle and the gazelle is having this fear response and the lion is having this really adrenaline and driven positive stress response that she's going to have this great meal.

And so there's all this, you know, anticipation of reward. So that's quite different than the threat response. And so thinking about like, can we refocus on, instead of like what might go wrong, what we'll lose, we're not good enough to feeling hopeful, enthusiastic, confident, like all those emotions that go along with that adrenaline. And that whole mindset shift is actually changing physiology too.

It can help us actually have a stress response that we call the challenge response where more blood is going to the brain. Interesting. Yes, I mean that's what you do. That's the be the lion mentality, right? That's be the lion, yeah. So when you perform, I mean,

I'm dying to hear about like what that's, how you manage that, the stress of, yeah, everyone's watching you and you can't make a mistake. I look at it as exciting. I look at it as more of exciting and I train myself to be excited about the opportunity because I feel like pressure is a privilege in certain levels, in certain arenas of life. arenas of life not in all areas but in certain levels of performance pressure is a privilege to be able to have a stage to speak on in front of thousands of people is a privilege and the opportunity for that stress that potential to like something to go wrong right and so the excitement around at the preparing stage the strategy stage about the how's the speech going to go or whatever it might be or a big interview or something where like now is the moment.

It's a privilege to be able to sit across you or some great athlete or whatever it might be to be able to have a conversation. So it's preparing, it's visualizing, and then it's being, oh, what do I need to say right now? What could I say that could get someone to be like, wow, I've never been asked that question before or sharing a response they've never shared before. It's like something for me where there's this gold in the moment. And for me, that's exciting. And it also means that you could mess up

and you could not do as well. So you've gotta be sharp. You've gotta be excited and anticipating something going good so for me that's that's the way i think about it um and yeah it's just really about the the exciting feelings as opposed to feeling ruminating on the nervousness or what could yeah yeah beautiful total um exemplary of lion versus gazelle so like when we are feeling the fear state, we're like, okay, my heart's pumped, you know, like I feel the stress, this is not good, right? So then we

stress about stress, we're not going to do well. So rather than feeling, focusing on all of the risks and what could go wrong, we can actually view that stress response as like, this is exciting. My body's excited. My body is energizing my mind and my brain and oxygenating it. And that whole reframe to the stress response is here to help me. It's going to help me cope. It's going to help me go better. That goes a long way. Like in lots of studies, people perform better. They recover from stress more quickly if they're saying those things. They're just reframing what our body does to help us.

And what's the values affirmation? Is there an affirmation that you say to yourself in that process or? So I would say that the affirmation is right before we're preparing to do something or perform we want those kind of self-worth statements that remind us well i got this and we can also um do that for other people and it's very um it's like being a positive coach to yourself or someone else you know it's our our beliefs matter our body listens so yes so those are kind of the the positive affirmations

the values is is really just like have a list it's a one you can do it one time thing have a list of your values remind yourself so that you're not just how well the startup does defines your value in life etc mm-hmm gotcha it's not being defined by that yeah now what about when you're in football, like right before you're performing, like how did you manage that intense stress? I just try to keep preparing. You know, I try to prepare all week for the moment or whatever.

And so I would be putting that energy towards preparation or visualization. So if I felt nervous, like if the team was coming out on the field and they look very intimidating and I'm already on the field or whatever with my team. And I'm thinking, oh, these guys look really good. They look sharp in their warm-ups.

They look tight. They look strong. I just go back into, as opposed to focusing on them, I go back into my preparation, into my routine, into my practice, into just focusing on what I can control and doing the best I can do at that moment. on what I can control and doing the best I can do at that moment. Yeah. Yeah. Because if I worry about how good they are constantly and not focus on, okay, but I'm pretty good too.

Yeah. So let me just give my best. Yeah. It's going to be hard for me to get into a flow state. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If I'm just worried, you can't really get into flow. Right.

I love that. And the social comparison is toxic. It said that the comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah. And threat. You're the promoter of threat states. You talk about training for resilience. How should we train so we don't overstress? So it's partly preparing for the hot moments like we were talking about kind of arming ourselves with reminding ourself of our inherent self-worth besides how we do in this. Reframing you know get keep in perspective of that whatever happens is not going to be determining my future in five

years. The answer to that's usually no. So there's also those pump me up challenge statements. Those are powerful. There's lots of those. You develop those. You carry them around in your wallet or post-it or phone and use those as needed beforehand. But there's also building stress resilience when we think we're relaxed and nothing's happening because often like you said we have these we may have negative self-critical thoughts so we don't even notice because they're habitual or stored up stress in our body from trauma and we can work with those and reduce the level of stress that we're carrying around at our baseline on a daily basis down and how can we do that so we talked about stress fitness so like hot cold extreme

breathing exercise so like we work out our nervous system and then there's also the low arousal or relaxation strategies and so we need both and those are I think we can do better than relaxation. I think we think about leisure activities and like, okay, I relaxed. But have you, how deep was it? Like, have you really had deep? A restorative rest.

Restorative, yeah. What is the difference between relaxing and restoring? Yeah, yes, there is a difference. So relaxing is, nothing's being demanded of us. We might be watching a game, doing something enjoyable, and we're probably multitasking. We're probably tense. Like right now, am I like, yeah, my shoulders are tensed and I don't have to be. I can actually notice and release tension in my body and I actually feel better immediately.

And so we can do those check-ins. So relaxing is important and we probably don't get enough of that but we really don't get much of the restorative breaks. And those tend to be the privilege of doing mind-body exercises, retreats, yoga, meditation, massage. Those are like incredible for basically letting our body, turning off our stress responses and our immune system fighting and letting, turning on the cleanup crew in our cells and really restoring our cell age. So I've been studying retreats, and many of us have studied meditation retreats. It's just as an extreme example. I know not everyone can go on a retreat, but when we look at what happens in the cell during retreats, the amount of activity towards stress and fighting things with our immune system goes way down,

like dramatically down after, let's say, five days. And that also means we're also increasing our ability to restore and clean ourselves. So we're getting rid of junk, our mitochondria are able to regenerate. So that's, you know, that's the battery, that's energy. And so we've done that with retreat sites we found whether you meditated or not you're still having this beautiful change in increase in restoration no work no phones no computers sure that's rare right on vacation where even on the phone and so just being able to self-impose the small breaks is a big deal for us in our modern stressful day. Right. That's restoring. That's not just relaxing, right?

That's restoring. Restoring is inwardly focused, very, we have to feel safe. We can engage in something, moving meditation, yoga, an audio, a nature walk. What's happening, regardless of what we're doing, is that our breathing is slowing and our parasympathetic nervous system turns on. So it's that kind of triad of you have to feel like you can, your body can turn off its defenses. You have to feel safe. So probably not in the middle of the city.

And then you can, your breathing naturally slows, and then our physiology has its turn to switch gears toward restoration. Now, the breathing is just a direct way to get there. I think that we underutilize breathing, slow breathing, and it's like within minutes we can actually reduce some of the vigilance we carry in our body. Yeah, the minutes of breathing, yeah.

What is this concept of starting full and ending full? We, you know, I've for so many years focused on stress and trauma and kind of that dark side and how bad it is for us. Or at least the chronic stress. And there is this whole other world of research that has focused on aspects of emotional well-being. And that is the things we were talking about, like purpose and gratitude and positive emotion and just feeling satisfied with life. satisfied with life. Like those are all important psychological constructs that we study and have a really a lot of data behind them showing like, ooh, these are promoting longevity. These are protecting us from depression. And these may be reducing inflammation and slowing aging. So rather than just focusing on stress, you know, the stressors are going to happen. We're going to try to, you know, view them in a healthy, positive way.

We're going to try to have rest, but can we amp up the amount of joy that we have? Because that also is kind of a game changer for, we're not even going to feel as much stress if we're focusing on the positive. If you fill yourself with joy, you'll feel a lot less stress. Yes.

You're full of joy, Right. Enthusiasm, excitement, passion. And so often instead of like waiting for like, okay, once I get that promotion or I'm able to buy this or I'm able to go there, I'm going to be happy. It's really like what's actually in front of us in our day. What are we grateful for? what are we grateful for? So there's ways to actually turn on the light and view the world around us and the beauty of nature, feeling awe, feeling grateful for things. We don't really spend much time as a society doing that.

It's very easy to complain about, ask someone how they are and they, we tend to talk about what's stressful but what if we just shifted and you know asked like what what are you excited about or what what are you grateful for and so we do that at the dinner table sometimes instead of reviewing like what was this most stressful thing yeah so yeah so what are you like what brings you joy, Lewis? A lot of things.

When I work out, I feel a lot of joy. It's a lot of fun for me. When I play games, when I play cards, board games, when I play sports, when I'm with my girlfriend, with my friends, when I'm going on a trip, when I'm doing an interview, it brings me a lot of joy. When I'm with my team, there's a lot of things that bring me joy.

Yeah, and you're so in touch with them, like your list came immediately. Love it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I just feel like, again, I have a perspective that I'm really grateful to be here, to be in the position I'm in, to overcome all the challenges that my younger self faced,

and to say, oh, you overcame them. Now look what you get to create because you faced a lot of your biggest fears you overcame the the worry the stress the anxiety for decades and now it's the time to to reap the rewards of that conquering conquering fear stress anxiety because you did the work because i did the deep intense work consistently it was just like one day it was like every day or weekly I was doing active work to improve and to overcome the things that were holding me back that things that were stealing my joy yeah and so I feel like I'm really grateful for the work that I've done to get here and the people that have supported me in getting here as well.

Yeah. So that ability to be so in touch with joyful things and to feel like stress is not dominating your life and your day is precious. And it took you years and a lot of daily work. And you talked about lifestyle. Health is built through lifestyle. It's not a one- daily work. And you talked about lifestyle. Health is built through lifestyle. It's not a one-time thing. It's not, I'm going to go get my health this week

because I have vacation. And that is really how I think about stress management. It is really this daily nudges and balance. So like waking up and asking, what am I looking forward to today? What am I grateful for today? Having some, you know, that body stress, having some spaciousness, it's that balance, like we need that so much.

If we're not actively doing a few of those nudges, we are going to be compressed and shaped by daily stress. Really? Yeah. What do you mean shamed by daily stress? Shaped, sorry. Oh, shaped, okay. We're going to be living with too much daily stress. We just don't need to be. And so it's a shame that I think our information overload and the news we're always getting and the personal dramas, the daily drama that we'll always have on and off, that those conspire together to make us so much more miserable than we need to be. And so we're rushing and we're not connecting with people

and really stepping back and reflecting on what is my purpose here. What is the science behind drama, gossip, and criticizing others? Or having jealousy about others, speaking about others, gossiping, drama, you know, watching drama. How does the science play into how much that causes stress in someone when you engage in those activities? Yeah, that's a, it's a really good question and I think I don't have a great answer except for doing all of that. First of all we're influenced by those around us so we can be role modeling focusing at a higher level on what matters in life and not talking about other people.

And so being around people who are always talking about other people, we either leave it or we engage in it. And at the core of it, I think is unhappiness. And so that social comparison of maybe that will make me feel better if I criticize someone about something else. So there's this, you know this unsatisfactory sense of self. Sure, interesting. Is there a level, is there any research around

how that causes a lot of stress in the body or is it not a lot of research on gossiping and criticizing others, how that affects you? There is research on quality relationships. And the higher quality relationships are supportive and there's less of criticism and conflict and I you know kind of scornful contempt or eye rolling so in marriage studies all of those negative things predict divorce and being able to like support and laugh and be in the moment

with someone is a quality relationship sure sure because i feel like people stress a lot in their relationships their intimate relationships and it seems like people don't know how to resolve conflict in a conscious way. And they hold onto it and then they ruminate on it and then they blame for so long and that causes a lot of stress. Have you worked with people who have been able to overcome stress in relationships

and have peaceful relationships? And if so, what has been their process? This is the realm of relationship therapy. I really think it's hard to change relationships and it's definitely possible. And I love the work of John and Julie Gottman who are relationship therapists. And it's really, again, comes down to some of the daily

acknowledging, seeing, supportive statements. And not something huge that they need to do together, but really just changing the in the moment dynamic. And so it's similar to the idea of reducing stress by being present for people, appreciating them, showing gratitude, and not, you know, holding back when you want to express love or gratitude. Like don't just feel it but say it.

Text someone, say it publicly, put it on social media. Just creating that kind of cloud of contagious positive emotion and role modeling really. Yeah. And you asked me earlier what brings me joy. And I should probably try to answer that. So it's the, I love working with people on a common goal and just the energy that you get from that. And yet, you know, deadlines can be part of that.

That really, you know, synergizes the synchronicity in the group and the energy. But it's more just feeling like you have a common purpose that you're each contributing to. And there's this, you know, regenerative joy in research because we all, it's team science. It's like a sport. You know, we all do, we all play our role and then it comes together. And I just love that.

And I would say that my, I absolutely love the low arousal calm states that come with all the mind- practices and retreats and those really help regenerate me and i don't love the hormetic stressors the cold stress and and i need it and so you know i try to push myself toward that and get more of a balance you don't like the cold or the hot therapy or the hot i could take the cold you don't like. Yeah. You're tiny, it's harder to keep yourself warm. Yeah, yeah, small mammal, right. The heat you could sit in all day.

Yeah. Like my girlfriend, yeah, she gets cold so quick, but she loves the heat. I'm like, it's too hot for me, I need to be in the cold. What are you most grateful about in your life right now? You talked about how it's a privilege to be able to do the work you do, and I definitely feel that. I love being able to work on social issues and climate change. And I mean, I wrote the book because like we publish articles in journals and no one ever sees them. And there's so many great foundational findings that help us feel less suffering. And, you know, not just,

I really just looked across the field and said, okay, what do we really know well? And it doesn't matter who the research is by. It's not all my research. It's really the foundational things that we shouldn't forget that we can all do at home every day. And so we shouldn't forget that we can all do at home every day. And so it's hard to be practical when you're a researcher because nothing is ever like 100% proven, but this is like really solid. Like the things that I talk about are, you know, have a lot of research behind them.

And so like one of the tips is on going out in nature and actually i just learned so much like i love nature but i was never really aware of why and all the effects it had in my body and there's just this huge calming effect being part of something that's bigger than you makes your worries shrink and reduces blood pressure and cortisol and other countries like use this as a prescription for high blood pressure. So anyway, it's been, it's fun to not just do research, but to like share findings and hope that it helps people. That's the whole point. That's great. Speaking of suffering in your research and findings, what would you say are

the main things that can support ending suffering or is it possible, impossible to end suffering? I think it's impossible. And well, I guess I should ask you more what you mean about suffering. Do you mean like- Inner suffering, inner suffering. Not like suffering in the world that, you know, that people might be suffering in ways

that they're victims to, but I mean our own inner suffering. And so self-critical thoughts, anxiety, depression. Yeah. Okay, very good question. I think that we can suffer a lot less than we do. And part of it is becoming aware of those wounds that you were describing. Like we have wounds, we have traumas, even intergenerationally that

we might not have really realized have come into our family and culture through either environment or epigenetics and so we all have healing to do and we also we certainly have a lot in you know the outer world too and there is the just the way our mind works I think that the negative emotions like sadness and anxiety and anger are not suffering. Those are information and we want to welcome those and notice them and name them. And that like helps us understand our responses in the world and what we should do next. So negative emotions are not suffering. It's when they get too out of hand and unbalanced and they're not reflecting reality, they're kind of taking on a world of their own. Then that's when we think of it as more of a disorder and that we really want to treat it. But the self-critical

thoughts, it's amazing just how common they are, particularly in Westerners and Americans. And why do you think we beat ourselves up so much with these self-critical thoughts? It may be that we're trying to criticize ourself before someone else can. So it's a self-protective mechanism. We don't want to be rejected and criticized. And so we do it ourselves.

And we kind of keep ourselves from trying opportunities. You know, it's a self-handicap. We don't reach for that big North Star when we're full of those self-limiting thoughts, really. It's helpful sometimes to ask, whose voice is that? Is that a parent, a caregiver, a sibling, a teacher? And it's helpful because often those were conditioned early and if we can recognize the source, we can make more sense of it and say, okay, I hear you, but I don't need to listen.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like when people can learn to overcome that and use it as information and shift it to a positive affirmation, you know, going back to the values that you have as a human being, as opposed to being critical and needing to look perfect all the time, it'll create more peace inside of us, right? Yeah. I don't know. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean,

just that having self-compassion when we're beating ourselves up and knowing that this is a common human experience, this is how our mind works, that is an important step. Another one can be reframing that self-critical inner voice as a friendly assistant. And I got this from my friend, Dara Westrup, who's a fabulous therapist, because this voice is to protect us and it thinks it's doing good, right?

It's our friendly assistant that might always be with us. And so we can talk to and say, thank you. I know you're trying to help, but not now. And, you know, just thank the friendly assistant and dismiss it. It'll still be there, but you don't have to listen to it. Sure. Thank you and move on. listen to it. Sure.

Thank you and move on. Is there anything else that you would add to supporting people in overcoming stress and having more joy and ease in their life? I think a lot of what you teach and talk about, and now I've had the pleasure of hearing some of the empowering greatness. It's like, wow.

I mean, I'm in this mental health world that's more focused on, like, you know, doom and suffering and trauma. It's like that is biologically active. Like those lessons, those mind shifts, those ways of empowering ourselves. And there might not be research behind them, but we know that our beliefs are shaping our biology so much. So I kind of view a lot of what you do as also relieving stress and biologically reducing like the inflammation, the pathway of, that leads from stress to aging. So-

Inflam-aging, is that what you call it? Yeah, yeah, we call it inflam-aging, yeah. So- What is inflam-aging? Inflam-aging is the, putting together those those two words because as we age, we get more inflamed and we get more inflammation rising in our blood. It's a natural part of aging, but it does not have to occur with a steep curve. We can kind of keep it down. And everything we've been talking about, the different lifestyles, so exercise, an anti-inflammatory diet, which is basically

Mediterranean diet, reducing stress, all of those keep inflammation down. So it's really, again, goes back to this kind of daily, can we have a balanced lifestyle? Can we get enough sleep? And any of those physical stressors or psychological stressors are kind of pushing us towards inflammation. So I want to thank you for the School of Greatness because I've learned a lot from your podcast and I really do think it's health promoting. I appreciate it. That's my goal.

My goal is to spread a positive message. I've got a couple of final questions for you. But I want people to get your book, The Stress Prescription, Seven Days to More Joy and Ease. I'm just a big believer that the work you're doing, the research you've done for so long is so supportive and helpful for so many of us. And you give it to us in this book in an easy prescribed way that everyone can apply. So I really acknowledge you for how you continue to show up, continue to do the research and do the work and the papers and the books

to serve us with your wisdom and with your experience. So I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. So people can get the book at your website, AlyssaEpple.com. I'll have it all linked up or you can go to Amazon and everything else. Alyssa, this is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths.

So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth many years away. You've eliminated inflammation for as long as you can. And so you've lived a very, very long healthy life. And you've accomplished the things you want to accomplish and experienced the experiences you wanted to. But it's the last day for you in this hypothetical scenario and you've got to take all of your written work with you all of your written work your books your papers this interview videos any

continent view that you've created has to go for whatever reason has to disappear from earth yes it leaves this earth You got to take it somewhere. It's got to go somewhere else. Okay. Hypothetically. So no one has access to your information anymore. Yeah. But you get to leave behind three lessons that you've learned that you would share with the world. And we do get to keep this. I call it the three truths. What would be for you? So one is to be filled with love, compassion, and gratitude for this body and mind, realizing how connected they are and how much our thoughts matter. Number two, realizing how much we are connected to each other in so many ways, emotion contagion and love and caring. And then third, how much we're connected to the planet.

We're just animals in clothes and we think we're disconnected and we're in these buildings and so we don't really feel connected to nature. But realizing that connection and that dependence on taking care of Earth as well, with the same love, caring, compassion, gratitude. So those are connections that we don't always see but that overarching idea that if we can approach things with a glass half-full with seeing the miracle and the miracle of being alive today and

of having this ability to connect is really precious and beautiful. That's beautiful. I love those. Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness? Connection. Not just within an individual, but actually what we can do through connection. Yeah. There you go, Melissa. what we can do through connection. Yeah, there you go. Melissa, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe

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