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#1566 Thinking Yourself Sick - Harps · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I'll get out of t him. I hope you will.
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Speaker 1: So I'm opening the conversational door somewhat tentatively today because
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Speaker 1: I am not an expert in inverted commas in what
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Speaker 1: I'm about to discuss. But obviously most of you know
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Speaker 1: that I'm doing a doctorate in europsychology, psychology, you know,
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Speaker 1: so mind stuff, brain stuff, human behavior stuff. You also
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Speaker 1: know that I have a background in exercise science and anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, movement.
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Speaker 1: So I think I have a reasonably good, albeit not expert,
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Speaker 1: but a reasonably good grasp of the human condition. So
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Speaker 1: the mind stuff, the body stuff, the emotional stuff, the
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Speaker 1: behavioral stuff, while not regarding myself on any level as
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Speaker 1: a guru. And it is with that disclaimer that I
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Speaker 1: tentatively open the conversational door today on this topic and
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Speaker 1: what I want to talk to you about because you
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Speaker 1: are an know that anyway, but is about the idea
1:03
Speaker 1: of thinking yourself sick. So I'm going to be exploring
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Speaker 1: the relationship between thought, what happens in our head, our stories,
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Speaker 1: our ideas good or bad, negative or positive, our self talk,
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Speaker 1: our rumination, our self doubt, our self loathing, all of
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Speaker 1: those things and the impact that that non physical stuff,
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Speaker 1: that internal cognitive stuff can have on our very real physiology,
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Speaker 1: our body. So the relationship between what we think and
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Speaker 1: what those thoughts can produce, for better or worse in
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Speaker 1: our body is the door that I'm opening. So for
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Speaker 1: this episode, I'm just sharing my thoughts, experiences, and insights
1:49
Speaker 1: into an area of the human experience that genuinely excites
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Speaker 1: me and fascinates me. I'm eighty percent student, twenty percent teacher,
2:01
Speaker 1: and so this is me. This conversation is me sharing
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Speaker 1: with you what I'm learning as I go. And none
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Speaker 1: of this is intended to be personal advice. That's not
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Speaker 1: a call to action. It's not me telling you asking
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Speaker 1: you to do something. It's not an individual prescription. As
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Speaker 1: I always say, It's just me thinking out loud. So
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Speaker 1: if I say something that resonates with you, then you
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Speaker 1: might you might choose to look into it. You might
2:35
Speaker 1: choose to do some research. You might choose to jump
2:38
Speaker 1: online or read a book or listen to some more conversations.
2:42
Speaker 1: Or you might choose to take that idea or thought
2:46
Speaker 1: or concept or strategy or piece of information that I
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Speaker 1: shared for a bit of a test drive and see
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Speaker 1: what happens. So I decided to record a podcast called
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Speaker 1: Thinking Yourself Sick in an attempt to unpack the very
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Speaker 1: real and powerful, but largely unknown and undiscussed in terms
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Speaker 1: of the general public anyway, relationship that exists between negative
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Speaker 1: thinking and our body. And it's I mean, it's been
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Speaker 1: my experience, my observation, my research that chronic negative thinking
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Speaker 1: might just be, I say, might one of the leading
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Speaker 1: but undetected drivers of or in science, we might say
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Speaker 1: psychological or physiological pathways too, physical dysfunction, disease, and disaster.
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Speaker 1: In other words, there is and can be a very
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Speaker 1: real correlation between toxic thinking and toxic outcomes in our body.
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Speaker 1: And while it's pretty well established that thoughts have the
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Speaker 1: power to heal or at least again as positively influenced
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Speaker 1: health outcomes, I've interviewed a bunch of people on this show,
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Speaker 1: world class academics and researchers, you know, Professor Jeffrey Reticker
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Speaker 1: from Harvard Medical School. We've spoken about spontaneous healing, the
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Speaker 1: place Ebo effect, the potential healing capacity of thought. That
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Speaker 1: shit's so exciting, isn't it? But I guess what's not
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Speaker 1: discussed so much is the potentially disastrous physical health outcomes
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Speaker 1: or consequences of ongoing negative like chronic negative thinking, rumination, obsession,
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Speaker 1: those pessimistic, dark kind of holes that we dig for
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Speaker 1: ourselves cognitively overthinking, not not thinking a fair bit, not
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Speaker 1: as in, you know, like we can have busy, a
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Speaker 1: busy mind. Sometimes I have a busy mind, but it's excited,
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Speaker 1: it's creative. But when I talk about overthinking in this capacity,
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Speaker 1: I'm talking about that rumination, that doom and gloom storytelling,
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Speaker 1: that potentially that self loathing, that immersing ourselves in problems
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Speaker 1: that don't actually exist, problems that we think might arise
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Speaker 1: in the future, but in the day, and despite the
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Speaker 1: fact that those problems don't exist and we know through
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Speaker 1: research about ninety one or two percent of the time
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Speaker 1: never actually arise. Despite the fact that most of those
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Speaker 1: things won't happen in the future, we are trapped in
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Speaker 1: that negative rumination about future potential problems in the moment,
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Speaker 1: and despite the fact that those problems are not real.
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Speaker 1: The consequence of the rumination, the overthinking, the doom and gloom,
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Speaker 1: the pessimism, the consequences of that negative thinking are very real.
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Speaker 1: So literally, while there is no practical problem in the future.
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Speaker 1: We create a literal physiological problem in the now quite
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Speaker 1: often as as as a byproduct, I should say, of
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Speaker 1: what is happening in that operating center that lives between
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Speaker 1: our ears. So for me, I really believe a greater knowledge,
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Speaker 1: greater awareness, and greater understanding and conversation about this is
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Speaker 1: crucial because if we can and again this is not
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Speaker 1: going to enlighten the world, but this is just for me.
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Speaker 1: This is opening the door on a conversation that if
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Speaker 1: we can begin to realize and consider the fact that
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Speaker 1: our thinking has a consequence in our body, for better
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Speaker 1: or worse, and we can understand that my toxic thoughts
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Speaker 1: can lead to toxic outcomes with my physiology, then I
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Speaker 1: can start to at least bring that awareness and that
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Speaker 1: recognition into my life, into my choices. You know, when
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Speaker 1: I feel myself sitting down on a couch and ruminating
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Speaker 1: or overthinking, I can make a conscious decision to get
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Speaker 1: up off the couch and focus on something else. And
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Speaker 1: when I focus on something else, even if it's making
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Speaker 1: a cup of tea or making dinner, or if it's
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Speaker 1: putting on my runners and going for as I often
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Speaker 1: do I put on my runners. In fact, last night
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Speaker 1: I got home from the gym. Don't ask me why.
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Speaker 1: I felt kind of a bit blah, which I don't often,
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Speaker 1: but I felt a bit mentally blah, even though I'd
7:43
Speaker 1: been to the gym. But what I haven't done for
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Speaker 1: a couple of weeks is I haven't run. So I
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Speaker 1: put on my runners. I went and ran like a
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Speaker 1: crazy person for about two k's like ten minute quickish
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Speaker 1: for my sixty year old body. Run got back. I focused,
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Speaker 1: I shifted my focused on that thing that I was
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Speaker 1: are starting to go down that kind of negative pathway
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Speaker 1: on and I just got into my body. I got
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Speaker 1: into the run. I got back and not only had
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Speaker 1: I shifted my focus and what was happening in my mind,
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Speaker 1: which is a good thing, but it also shifted the
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Speaker 1: biochemistry of my brain. Now I was producing some dopamine.
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Speaker 1: Now I was producing some endorphins, and now I was
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Speaker 1: doing something good for my body. So let's talk about
8:30
Speaker 1: Let's talk about thinking. So thinking is the solution and
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Speaker 1: thinking is the problem, depending on where we're at on
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Speaker 1: the day. And as you've heard me talk many times
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Speaker 1: about the idea of thinking about how we think and
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Speaker 1: we call that metacognition. Yes, you've heard me say that
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Speaker 1: a thousand times. But I think it's really important to
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Speaker 1: bring our attention to what is happening in our mind,
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Speaker 1: good or bad, and to as much as we can
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Speaker 1: try to open the awareness door on what am I thinking?
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Speaker 1: Why do I think this way? Where did this kind
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Speaker 1: of thinking good or bad come from? Where do my
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Speaker 1: beliefs come from? Did I choose my beliefs, this negative belief,
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Speaker 1: this self limiting belief, this toxic kind of self talk
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Speaker 1: that I have? Where did all of this kind of
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Speaker 1: thinking come from? Can I change my thinking? How do
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Speaker 1: I change my thinking? And So if we know that
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Speaker 1: thinking can be the cause of sickness, and it can,
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Speaker 1: and I'll explain physiologically how, but if we know that
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Speaker 1: thinking can be the root of all kinds of illness
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Speaker 1: and physiological dysfunction and pain and suffering and reduced quality
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Speaker 1: of life, which it can, then it's in our interests
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Speaker 1: to really start to think about how we think and
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Speaker 1: how we might make ourselves sick or well. So thinking
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Speaker 1: happens NonStop, doesn't it. So A lot of people wheel
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Speaker 1: out this figure that we have about sixty or seventy
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Speaker 1: thousand thoughts a day, and the truth is will the
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Speaker 1: truth is, as I understand it, we don't know how
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Speaker 1: many thoughts we have, And I think that's I think
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Speaker 1: that's an exaggeration. There's been some research that was done
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Speaker 1: in Canada a few years ago where they watched where
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Speaker 1: they analyzed people's brains over an extended period of time
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Speaker 1: while they were doing things, focusing on things, and they
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Speaker 1: kind of ascertained that it's maybe closer to the ten
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Speaker 1: twelve thousand thoughts per day. But when you think about
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Speaker 1: thinking unintended like thinking happens because of us conscious thought.
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Speaker 1: Oh I am thinking about what I'm going to have
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Speaker 1: for dinner. I'm going to have some chicken and veggies
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Speaker 1: and rice wet. I'll get the chicken wear it or
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Speaker 1: get the veggies wet or get the rice. What am
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Speaker 1: I going to put with it? Am I going to
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Speaker 1: have a source? What am I going to How much
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Speaker 1: do I want? How am I going to Am I
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Speaker 1: going to use a wock? Am I going to use
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Speaker 1: how am I going to put? You know, conscious thought?
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Speaker 1: Now I'm hungry. I shouldn't have given that example conscious thought.
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Speaker 1: So thinking happens intentionally and thinking happens unconsciously, and that
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Speaker 1: is when we think about Like right now, I am
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Speaker 1: thinking about what I am saying to you, So my
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Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex is focusing on the words and making sense
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Speaker 1: and trying to build a level of connection. So I
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Speaker 1: am thinking critically, I am consciously forming my words to
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Speaker 1: build relationship, understanding, insight with you in this moment. But
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Speaker 1: also subconsciously, I know that I've kind of been talken
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Speaker 1: for about ten minutes. I know that I'm aware of
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Speaker 1: the temperature in the room. I'm subconsciously aware of the
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Speaker 1: light coming through the window up to my right, and
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Speaker 1: the trees that are kind of dancing in the wind. Right.
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Speaker 1: All of these things can coexist, But I can't focus
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Speaker 1: on two things at once. My mind can only my
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Speaker 1: conscious mind can only pay absolute specific attention to focus
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Speaker 1: on one thing at a time. And that's a hint,
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Speaker 1: isn't it. That's a hint right there, for being able
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Speaker 1: to redirect our thoughts or do a left turn with
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Speaker 1: our mind when we're starting to go down a particular
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Speaker 1: negative path of thought. That when I get up out
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Speaker 1: of the chair, as I spoke about before, and now
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Speaker 1: I now go and invest my self mind, body emotions
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Speaker 1: in a task or something different. Then I take myself
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Speaker 1: out of that place, or I get off that road
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Speaker 1: that I was heading down. So your mind like my mind,
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Speaker 1: and some of these are not new concepts for you,
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Speaker 1: but let's just just revisit it. Your mind, my mind,
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Speaker 1: our minds. They are the control rooms for our life.
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Speaker 1: My mind is my data processing censer. My mind is
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Speaker 1: the window through which I view and analyze and understand
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Speaker 1: and process the world around me. It's where I figure
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Speaker 1: out when I meet someone if I trust them or
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Speaker 1: don't trust them. And I'm doing all this in real
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Speaker 1: time and quickly, and often not even aware of it.
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Speaker 1: So the role of our mind is to make sense
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Speaker 1: of things. It is to decode and interpret and tell
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Speaker 1: stories about and give power and meaning and significance and
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Speaker 1: influence to the goings on of our world, in other words,
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Speaker 1: our physical world. So there's the stuff that's going on
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Speaker 1: around you, let me be more specific, the stuff that
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Speaker 1: you're aware of that's going on around you, and then
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Speaker 1: there's your story about it. So there's the thing that's happening,
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Speaker 1: and then there's your story. And interestingly, your story has
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Speaker 1: much more impact on your body and emotional system than
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Speaker 1: the actual thing. Like if something bad happens in front
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Speaker 1: of you, something scary happens in front of you, which
14:24
Speaker 1: we might broadly consider most of us would consider to
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Speaker 1: be scary, but you don't think it's scary, you think
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Speaker 1: it's amusing, then your physiological and emotional and psychological response
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Speaker 1: will be one of curiosity and amusement rather than one
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Speaker 1: of anxiety or panic. Right, because you weren't scared, the
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Speaker 1: ten other people next to you were scared. Their blood
14:51
Speaker 1: pressure went up, their heart rate went up, they started
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Speaker 1: producing adrenaline and cortisole, and they got stress, and their
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Speaker 1: body believed their story, and their story was this, this
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Speaker 1: is a problem. I am in trouble, I am in danger. You,
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Speaker 1: you standing right next to them, told yourself a different story,
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Speaker 1: and because of your different story that you believed you
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Speaker 1: had a different experience. Now, this is not a possibility,
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Speaker 1: this is a certainty. If you're not scared of something,
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Speaker 1: even if you should be, you're not going to have
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Speaker 1: a fear response. Even if you're in a situation where
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Speaker 1: logically the rest of us would go, what are you doing?
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Speaker 1: Get out of there? But you have no fear, then
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Speaker 1: you're in no hurry to get out of there. And
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Speaker 1: so this speaks to the fact that our mind, our
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Speaker 1: beliefs have a very real consequence in our body. Your mind,
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Speaker 1: your thoughts, they are on a personal level, they are
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Speaker 1: your reality creators. And when you're your mind believes something,
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Speaker 1: then your body believes that something. So careful what you believe,
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Speaker 1: because if your body believes it, then it's going to
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Speaker 1: respond according So your immune system, your nervous system, your
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Speaker 1: cardiovascular system, your muscular system, your endocrime system, your gut bio.
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Speaker 1: Did I say nervous system, Not sure, all the systems.
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Speaker 1: So careful what you believe. I think one of the
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Speaker 1: biggest challenges for us is to manage our mind. I
16:36
Speaker 1: think of all the things that we think about and
16:39
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, managing money, managing lifestyle, you know,
16:42
Speaker 1: looking after our body, all of that kind of practical
16:46
Speaker 1: life stuff, which and all of those things are important,
16:50
Speaker 1: but think about how many of those things are in
16:53
Speaker 1: some way dependent on or affected by what's happening in
16:59
Speaker 1: our mind. Like, if I can't manage my mind, I
17:04
Speaker 1: can't be great at making decisions. If I can't manage
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Speaker 1: my mind, then I'm not going to be a great
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Speaker 1: problem solver or conversationalist or conflict resolver or relationship builder
17:15
Speaker 1: or listener. If I can't manage my mind, I'm not
17:19
Speaker 1: going to be a great employee or boss or leader
17:21
Speaker 1: or manager or academic. If I can't manage my mind,
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Speaker 1: then I'm probably going to have some very real and
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Speaker 1: dire consequences in my body. And this is not something
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Speaker 1: to panic about. This is something to consider, you know.
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Speaker 1: So many Eastern philosophies talk about the notion of minding
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Speaker 1: your mind and the power of thought for good and bad,
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Speaker 1: and being able to control your mind, or perhaps maybe
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Speaker 1: a better perspective is to coh exist in harmony with
18:01
Speaker 1: your mind, because your mind is not you and you
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Speaker 1: are not it, but you have one, just like your
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Speaker 1: body is not you, and you are not your body,
18:09
Speaker 1: and you're not your thoughts your thoughts. Kind of there's
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Speaker 1: you and there's your thoughts, and while you might be
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Speaker 1: the creator and driver of those thoughts, they're still not you. There.
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Speaker 1: They're just constructs that can prove to be you know,
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Speaker 1: powerful or inert, for good or bad, depending on how
18:28
Speaker 1: much you believe those thoughts. Like you might have a
18:30
Speaker 1: thought like, ah, you know that guy over there doesn't
18:34
Speaker 1: like me at all, and you go, Then all of
18:36
Speaker 1: a sudden, you have awareness and you go, you know what,
18:39
Speaker 1: we haven't even spoken. It's like he kind of glanced
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Speaker 1: at me, and I'm being an idiot, and you realize
18:44
Speaker 1: you're just being an idiot, and you realize that that
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Speaker 1: guy probably actually has no opinion of you, So catastrophe averted.
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Speaker 1: On the other hand, you think the guy on the
18:54
Speaker 1: other side of the road kind of sideways glances at you,
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Speaker 1: and now you start to tell your self and story,
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Speaker 1: and that story gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and
19:02
Speaker 1: then in five minutes you're now in a state of
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Speaker 1: anxiety and panic because clearly it's going to come over
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Speaker 1: pretty soon and kill you right now. This is kind
19:10
Speaker 1: of funny and kind of silly, but it's kind of
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Speaker 1: common and for some people. You know, these these uncontrolled thoughts, unregulated,
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Speaker 1: disregulated thoughts lead to consequences that can be catastrophic in
19:31
Speaker 1: terms of you know, obviously physical health, but also mental
19:35
Speaker 1: and emotional health. So we know that thoughts create emotional responses,
19:41
Speaker 1: but we also know that emotions give rise to thought.
19:45
Speaker 1: Thoughts create emotions. So if I think I'm in trouble,
19:49
Speaker 1: the emotional response will be fear. And if, for example,
19:54
Speaker 1: I watch something and I'm watching a movie and an
19:58
Speaker 1: emotion rises and that is sadness, well that's going to
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Speaker 1: stimulate or that's going to influence how I think in
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Speaker 1: that moment. I might think, oh my god, life's unfair.
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Speaker 1: I might think, I might think something that takes me
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Speaker 1: down another negative path. So I'm talking here with emotions
20:20
Speaker 1: and thoughts about a bi directional relationship which creates a
20:26
Speaker 1: feedback loop with thoughts and emotions continuously influencing each other.
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Speaker 1: So the potential link between worry, negative thinking, fear, anxiety, overthinking, distress,
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Speaker 1: and physical disease it's been something that's been researched quite
20:47
Speaker 1: a lot, but not as much as a lot of
20:51
Speaker 1: other things, to be honest, But it's been researched in
20:54
Speaker 1: the space of you know, psychology and medicine and neuroscience.
20:59
Speaker 1: But to be honest, the interplay between mental and physical
21:03
Speaker 1: health is kind of complex and it involves like numerous biological, psychological,
21:09
Speaker 1: and sociological factors. I'm going to try and keep that,
21:15
Speaker 1: you know, as understandable as possible, all right, So let's
21:20
Speaker 1: start by looking at some of the biological mechanisms that
21:23
Speaker 1: are impacted by worry or in more general terms, negative thinking,
21:31
Speaker 1: fearful thinking, all kind of in the same bucket. So
21:36
Speaker 1: let's look at stress response and immune function. So chronic
21:41
Speaker 1: worry activates the body's stress response system in particular, I think,
21:47
Speaker 1: or are you ready? You don't need to remember this.
21:49
Speaker 1: There'll be no test, but a thing called the hypothalamic
21:52
Speaker 1: petuitary a dreamal axis or the HPA access, And we
21:58
Speaker 1: know that prolonged while we done. But I'm telling you,
22:01
Speaker 1: we know that prolonged activation of this axis, the HbA
22:05
Speaker 1: access leads to a sustained release of stress hormones like
22:09
Speaker 1: cortisol and adrenaline. By the way, we don't want cortisole
22:14
Speaker 1: floating around our system on a regular basis. I'll talk
22:18
Speaker 1: about that more later. We know that elevated levels of
22:23
Speaker 1: these hormones can suppress immune function, has a direct impact
22:28
Speaker 1: on your immune system. It can make the constant kind
22:33
Speaker 1: of elevated levels of these things, adrenaline cortisol can make
22:36
Speaker 1: your body more acceptible, susceptible to infections, disease, and slower healing. Additionally,
22:45
Speaker 1: this kind of overthinking, this negative thinking this, this chronic stress.
22:51
Speaker 1: Internal stress can lead to inflammation. Inflammation is a big
22:55
Speaker 1: risk factor for various diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders,
23:03
Speaker 1: and sadly, numerous cancers. So, to simplify what I just said,
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Speaker 1: chronic worry or chronic negative thoughts. Negative thinking absolutely correlates.
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Speaker 1: It might not we think it does, but absolutely correlates
23:22
Speaker 1: positively with a greater risk and incidents of a range
23:26
Speaker 1: of illnesses, diseases, dysfunction, and poor health outcomes. Oh, even
23:33
Speaker 1: more simply, there's a direct relationship between negative thinking and illness.
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Speaker 1: All right, So let's look at the nervous system. You
23:46
Speaker 1: know what that is, specifically the autonomic nervous system. Negative thinking,
23:50
Speaker 1: So worry, rumination, self loathing, I hate me, my life, shit,
23:55
Speaker 1: I'm no good, I'm an impluster, done a bit of
23:59
Speaker 1: that myself, that whole kind of doom and gloom storytelling,
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Speaker 1: that internal negative space that we create, that can also
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Speaker 1: affect the autonomic nervous system, which regulates all the involuntary
24:12
Speaker 1: bodily stuff, all the functions like heart rate, digestion, respiration,
24:18
Speaker 1: all that. And chronic anxiety, worry, overthinking, and fear based
24:23
Speaker 1: obsession often leads to an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system,
24:29
Speaker 1: favoring sympathetic over parasympathetic activity. That is your fight or
24:35
Speaker 1: flight's response, your fight or flight response, which you know
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Speaker 1: what that is, that panic, that oh my god, that
24:41
Speaker 1: ready to take action that switches on twenty thirty forty
24:44
Speaker 1: times a day, and that parasympathetic response. That fight or
24:48
Speaker 1: flight response is great when it's needed, like when there's
24:54
Speaker 1: a lion in your bloody office, or there's an intruder
24:57
Speaker 1: breaking into your house, or there's or you're in a
24:59
Speaker 1: fi fight, or there's an earthquake, or when there's something
25:04
Speaker 1: that requires you to get in that elevated state. It's awesome,
25:10
Speaker 1: but it's complete shit for your body and your health
25:14
Speaker 1: if you are turning on that fight or flight response
25:18
Speaker 1: twenty times a day and that rumination, that negative thinking,
25:22
Speaker 1: especially when we turn up the volume on that, that's
25:25
Speaker 1: exactly what we're doing. And so this imbalance, this overreaction,
25:31
Speaker 1: this over supply of specifically cortisol, can contribute to things
25:36
Speaker 1: like hype tension, high blood pressure, gastro intestinal disorders, you know,
25:43
Speaker 1: gut health stuff, and chronic pain. I found that interesting
25:48
Speaker 1: when I realized that worry, that self created psychological and
25:56
Speaker 1: emotional prisons that we build for ourselves that we live
26:00
Speaker 1: in actually can result in real, genuine increases in physical
26:05
Speaker 1: pain and also lead to cognitive impairments. So when we
26:12
Speaker 1: are consistently or regularly regularly creating a stress response or
26:20
Speaker 1: that putting ourselves in that state, that mental state, we
26:25
Speaker 1: can see impairment in memory, concentration, and decision making due
26:32
Speaker 1: to detrimental effects on the brain or areas specifically like
26:36
Speaker 1: hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. So also keep in mind that
26:42
Speaker 1: prolonged activation of the fight or flight response is linked
26:46
Speaker 1: to the development and exacerbation of mental health issues that
26:51
Speaker 1: are really you know what we're constantly talking about now,
26:54
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression and the like. So that you know
26:59
Speaker 1: when we are when we are ruminating, when we're overthinking,
27:02
Speaker 1: we are turning up, we are literally creating more anxiety ourselves.
27:09
Speaker 1: So anxiety is a bigger episode than this. But anxiety
27:12
Speaker 1: is the psychological, emotional, and physiological consequence of and sometimes
27:19
Speaker 1: genetic consequence of a bunch of variables. But what we
27:24
Speaker 1: do know is that we can, for one of a
27:28
Speaker 1: more science y term, we can turn up the volume
27:31
Speaker 1: on our depression and our anxiety by ruminating, by overthinking,
27:38
Speaker 1: by focusing on things that we can't change, by being
27:45
Speaker 1: the problem person not the solution person. This is not
27:49
Speaker 1: self loathing, this awareness. This is just awareness. So there's
27:54
Speaker 1: no criticism or judgment in that. Like, we've all had
27:57
Speaker 1: this experience where we think about something, we worry about
28:01
Speaker 1: something that doesn't turn out to be true. I mentioned
28:04
Speaker 1: this before. We worry about something potentially happening, and even
28:10
Speaker 1: though it's not happening, now we worry about it and
28:13
Speaker 1: a few minutes later, we are now stressed, we are
28:18
Speaker 1: now anxious. Our body is now in a fight or
28:22
Speaker 1: flight kind of state. And our body is in that
28:27
Speaker 1: state not because it's required by the situation, because right
28:31
Speaker 1: now the situation is fine, but our body is in
28:34
Speaker 1: that state as a byproduct of our thinking about what
28:38
Speaker 1: could happen. And again, just awareness. So that'll do for
28:45
Speaker 1: the minute. That'll do for the biological mechanisms for now.
28:49
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at some of the what
28:53
Speaker 1: do we call them. Let's take a look at I
28:56
Speaker 1: guess some of the psychological pathways that might lead to
29:00
Speaker 1: poor health outcome sickness, dysfunction, disease, you know, immune system suppression,
29:07
Speaker 1: and even worst case scenario, early death. So let's look
29:13
Speaker 1: at health behaviors. So people who experience high levels of
29:17
Speaker 1: negative thinking worry often engage in unhealthy behaviors in order
29:22
Speaker 1: to cope. Right, So we worry, we overthink, we're in
29:26
Speaker 1: that negative space. And then so which is again no
29:29
Speaker 1: criticism in this, just awareness. So one of the results
29:32
Speaker 1: of that for some people or many people in fact,
29:36
Speaker 1: is smoking, is drinking lots of booze, is numbing out
29:42
Speaker 1: with food, is recreational drugs, is physical inactivity, and so
29:48
Speaker 1: all of these things increase the risk of developing you know,
29:53
Speaker 1: chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, arthritis, cancer,
29:57
Speaker 1: and more generally obesity, which like it or not is
30:02
Speaker 1: not is a problem. It's not nothing. So it's not
30:08
Speaker 1: in this case, it's not directly the thinking that will
30:11
Speaker 1: make the person sick, So there's no straight line there.
30:15
Speaker 1: It's not directly their thinking that will make them sick,
30:17
Speaker 1: but rather the choices that they make as a result
30:21
Speaker 1: of their thinking, and then the subsequent physical, destructive habits
30:25
Speaker 1: and behaviors that they embrace, which of course are a
30:30
Speaker 1: byproduct of their choices slash thinking. So once again there
30:34
Speaker 1: is a correlation there. So in short, often negative thinking
30:40
Speaker 1: equals negative choices equals negative behaviors equals negative physical outcomes
30:49
Speaker 1: or simply poor health. So it's a it's a cycle,
30:56
Speaker 1: it's a chain of events, I guess, But that chain
30:59
Speaker 1: of events starts without thinking. Also another when we're looking
31:05
Speaker 1: under the banner of I guess bio logical mechanisms that
31:10
Speaker 1: are problematic. So I know a lot of you because
31:15
Speaker 1: I get a lot of messages, a lot of information
31:18
Speaker 1: through the comments and through DMS and all through also
31:22
Speaker 1: through emails. But shitty sleep, so poor sleep hygiene, poor
31:27
Speaker 1: sleep quality, sleep disturbances, so negative thinking, that toxic thinking,
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, anxiety, ruminations, all that stuff is commonly associated with,
31:39
Speaker 1: for one of better terms, shit sleep. And that can
31:43
Speaker 1: be you know, anything from kind of slightly disregulated sleep,
31:48
Speaker 1: not very good sleep quality right through to I can't
31:52
Speaker 1: fucking sleep in some now. So there's no surprise for
31:58
Speaker 1: me to tell you that inadequate sleeps been linked to
32:01
Speaker 1: a bunch of health issues, like you know, weakened immune system,
32:05
Speaker 1: metabolic disorders, increase susceptibility to chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes.
32:12
Speaker 1: You know, and when you think about it, like when
32:15
Speaker 1: our body doesn't fully rest and recover, I mean that's
32:18
Speaker 1: why we sleep. Our body needs downtime, Our body needs
32:22
Speaker 1: to go offline, our brain needs to switch off, you know.
32:26
Speaker 1: That is the time where all our hormones recharge, like
32:31
Speaker 1: our cells repair and recover. And it's almost like we're
32:35
Speaker 1: heading the reset button on us every night. But when
32:40
Speaker 1: our thinking, our negative thinking, results in poor sleep, then
32:46
Speaker 1: we're opening a fucking Pandora's box on not just being
32:52
Speaker 1: irritable and grumpy mentally and emotionally because we're not sleeping,
32:56
Speaker 1: but a potential myriad of physiological consequences. Again, it's not
33:01
Speaker 1: a direct correlation, like a straight line between thinking and sickness,
33:07
Speaker 1: but rather the sickness is a consequential effect of one's thinking.
33:13
Speaker 1: That is, negative thoughts leading to poor sleep, in turn
33:18
Speaker 1: leading to illness, in turn leading to a whole bunch
33:22
Speaker 1: of shit for you and me and our body. All right,
33:26
Speaker 1: So let's park the psychological pathways to physical illness for
33:31
Speaker 1: a moment and take a look at some social and
33:35
Speaker 1: environmental factors that might influence one's mental state and in
33:41
Speaker 1: turn physical states. So I've spoken many times on this
33:45
Speaker 1: show about the health benefits I guess, yea, the health
33:52
Speaker 1: benefits and the impact that things like feeling loved, feeling valued,
33:57
Speaker 1: being connected, being seen, being heard, being wanted, being part
34:02
Speaker 1: of a group, you know, feeling like people care about us.
34:07
Speaker 1: And I've also spoken about the numerous health risks of
34:10
Speaker 1: the opposite, you know, which is isolation, loneliness, social disconnection,
34:16
Speaker 1: and I guess in general terms, like being a person
34:19
Speaker 1: that feels unseen, unwanted, unloved, like you know, what's the point,
34:25
Speaker 1: and that you know, leads to a potential raft of
34:28
Speaker 1: you know, psychological, sociological, and emotional challenges. So we know
34:35
Speaker 1: that the presence or absence of social support and connection
34:40
Speaker 1: can significantly influence how a person thinks, for better or worse,
34:45
Speaker 1: and naturally that in a dialogue that thought, that way
34:49
Speaker 1: of thinking will have a very real impact, potentially will
34:54
Speaker 1: have a very real impact on their physical health. So
34:58
Speaker 1: the bottom line is strong social networks provide emotional support,
35:02
Speaker 1: practical help, and I guess a sense of belonging which
35:06
Speaker 1: can somewhat buffer against the negative effects of the thinking
35:11
Speaker 1: that comes with that isolation, that separation, that disconnection, that
35:17
Speaker 1: feeling unloved, unlanted, unneeded, all that stuff. You know, social
35:22
Speaker 1: isolation and loneliness can absolutely exacerbate the impact of worry
35:29
Speaker 1: on physical health and you know, increase the risks of
35:33
Speaker 1: all of those things we've been talking about so far. Alrighty,
35:37
Speaker 1: So let's have a look at a little bit of
35:40
Speaker 1: research that I dug up on. I've opened the door,
35:45
Speaker 1: but let's go a little bit deeper on some of
35:46
Speaker 1: the relationships that exist between thinking and sickness, some of
35:51
Speaker 1: the relationships that we absolutely know about. So let's start
35:54
Speaker 1: with cardiovascular disease. So, numerous studies have established a link
36:00
Speaker 1: between chronic anxiety, negative thinking, and an increased risk of
36:05
Speaker 1: cardiovascular disease. Anxiety disorders are associated with high rates of
36:11
Speaker 1: hype tension, a rhythmia, so heart going out of time,
36:16
Speaker 1: and coronary artery disease. This stress induced release of cortisol
36:21
Speaker 1: and adrenaline often leads to changes in heart rate and
36:25
Speaker 1: blood pressure and contributes to the development of cardiovascular problems. So,
36:31
Speaker 1: long story short, how we think what's happening in terms
36:36
Speaker 1: of our cognition and the way that we view the
36:39
Speaker 1: world and other people, and the way that we create
36:41
Speaker 1: problems or solutions can have a positive or negative effect
36:46
Speaker 1: on the way that our heart works. That's the dumb
36:48
Speaker 1: down version. And now think about if we open the
36:51
Speaker 1: door on the gastro intestinal stuff, like the gut biome stuff.
36:56
Speaker 1: It's been there's a lot, been a lot of talk
36:58
Speaker 1: lately and by lately the last five years between relationship.
37:02
Speaker 1: The connection maybe is better between the brain and the gut.
37:06
Speaker 1: In fact, some people think that, you know, the gut
37:09
Speaker 1: is the second brain. So we have the brain. Some
37:12
Speaker 1: people call the gut second brain. Some people call the
37:15
Speaker 1: heart the third brain. And it's probably fair to assume
37:18
Speaker 1: that the brain as we know it, the brain, brain,
37:20
Speaker 1: and the gut and the heart are all their own
37:24
Speaker 1: kind of intelligence. But anyway, so the connection between the
37:29
Speaker 1: brain and the gut, which is often called what's it
37:32
Speaker 1: called the gut brain access, it's right, that highlights the
37:36
Speaker 1: impact of worry and negative thinking on the gastro intestinal
37:41
Speaker 1: health of the individual. So we know that negative thinking
37:46
Speaker 1: can exacerbate kind of symptoms of irritable boo syndrome IBS,
37:53
Speaker 1: gastroesophage or reflux disease, gerd and lots of other gastro
38:00
Speaker 1: testinal this sort of So again, you know even on
38:05
Speaker 1: a gut level, that negative thinking has a hormonal response,
38:09
Speaker 1: which in terms has a gut biome consequence. So again,
38:15
Speaker 1: a non physical thing, a thought leading to a physical thing,
38:19
Speaker 1: an impacted gut biome. And as I mentioned before, you
38:24
Speaker 1: know the relationship between thinking and chronic pain. That's a
38:30
Speaker 1: really interesting one because we know that chronic overthinking, that
38:35
Speaker 1: negative thinking, that rumination, can contribute to the development and
38:39
Speaker 1: or exacerbation of, in other words, making worse chronic pain
38:43
Speaker 1: conditions like five ALGA and tension headaches. Many many times
38:48
Speaker 1: I've been with people who have thought themselves into a headache,
38:52
Speaker 1: They've worried themselves into a headache, they've created with a
38:57
Speaker 1: non physical thing I thought, they've created a real physical
39:00
Speaker 1: consequence in their body. And the constant activation of these
39:04
Speaker 1: stress responses it also leads to or it can lead
39:08
Speaker 1: to a heightened pain sense TOV and eventually perpetuate this
39:13
Speaker 1: kind of cycle of pain and distress, this two way
39:18
Speaker 1: kind of street, this interactive mechanism between these negative thoughts
39:23
Speaker 1: and this physical consequence in the body that we call pain.
39:29
Speaker 1: All right, So let's take a little bit of a
39:32
Speaker 1: breather and maybe summarize this so far, so the potential
39:35
Speaker 1: link between negative thinking and physical disease is one hundred
39:40
Speaker 1: percent supported by a growing body of evidence that indicates
39:46
Speaker 1: that our thoughts can have do have a profound effect
39:49
Speaker 1: on our physical health. Biological mechanisms, psychological pathways, social and
39:55
Speaker 1: other environmental factors can also play a role in media
39:59
Speaker 1: mediating this Relationationship and understanding the connections between mental and
40:04
Speaker 1: physical health is really important for you and I to
40:08
Speaker 1: be able to develop a comprehensive approach slash strategy for
40:13
Speaker 1: prevention and treatment and emphasizing the need for integrated care
40:18
Speaker 1: that addresses both psychological and physiological well being. So I
40:25
Speaker 1: might come back in the next day or three, and
40:30
Speaker 1: I just need to do a little bit more thinking
40:31
Speaker 1: about how I might articulate this. And while today I haven't,
40:36
Speaker 1: I haven't given you any solutions per se. What I've
40:42
Speaker 1: done and what I've tried to do is open the
40:44
Speaker 1: door on the conversation. And I mean, obviously, if we
40:49
Speaker 1: know what the problems are and then we can we
40:52
Speaker 1: can kind of figure out the solutions by virtue of
40:56
Speaker 1: you know, working backwards. So I know that if I
40:58
Speaker 1: eat crap, I gained way. So if I don't act crap,
41:01
Speaker 1: I might not. I know that if I sit on
41:03
Speaker 1: the couch and a couch and obsess, there's an anxiety
41:07
Speaker 1: kind of consequence. So maybe I shouldn't sit on the
41:09
Speaker 1: couch and obsess and so on. But I might do.
41:14
Speaker 1: In fact, I will do in the near future. I
41:17
Speaker 1: just need to do some planning in the middle of
41:19
Speaker 1: all of the other shit I've got going on. I
41:21
Speaker 1: will do another conversation around turning that negative thinking around
41:26
Speaker 1: and how we can create a better internal space to
41:30
Speaker 1: create or a better psychological and emotional space I guess
41:34
Speaker 1: to create better physiological outcomes. I might do that anyway.
41:40
Speaker 1: I hope that was interesting for you. Like I said,
41:43
Speaker 1: I'm not a guru in this space, just opening the door,
41:46
Speaker 1: figuring it out myself, and I thought I would give
41:48
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a snapshot, a little bit
41:50
Speaker 1: of a peek behind the Craig curtain, to see where
41:53
Speaker 1: my mind's at. I'm fascinated with this. I'm going to
41:56
Speaker 1: continue apart from my other research, I'm going to continue
42:00
Speaker 1: on this journey. I'm going to keep asking questions and
42:03
Speaker 1: turning over metaphoric rocks to see what's under them. Keep
42:06
Speaker 1: knocking on doors and opening doors, keep researching. But if
42:12
Speaker 1: you're not following me on or if you're not a
42:14
Speaker 1: member of our Facebook group which it's just called the
42:16
Speaker 1: You Project on Facebook You Project podcast, I think Facebook
42:23
Speaker 1: group jump in become part of that community. There's no
42:27
Speaker 1: books capture the genders, but we don't sell you anything.
42:30
Speaker 1: And maybe leave a comment on that page about this episode.
42:33
Speaker 1: And if you've got questions, thoughts, ideas or feedback, I'd
42:37
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. All right, all the best kids,