Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Phone Anxiety, Oxytocin and the Choice To Take The Call

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Phone Anxiety, Oxytocin and the Choice To Take The Call · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Curly here and welcome to this week's
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Mojo Monday. So just a bit of a story. My
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: son has a friend who likes to call him like
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: instead of texting or snapping. And I remember the first
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: time that it happened. He must have been I don't know,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: around maybe thirteen years old, and I actually heard him
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: talking on the phone, and I was really surprised. And
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: then I was surprised about the fact that I was
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: surprised because there really shouldn't have been anything strange about it.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Here was just my son using a phone to speak
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to his friend, which is exactly what phones were made for.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: But in our world today it's actually an unusual thing
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to hear young people talking on the phone. A text
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: or a snap has become kind of the normal thing
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to do. And so I thought about this, and I thought, well,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: how often do we text instead of calling? So let
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: me ask you this. If your mobile rings and you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: look at the screen, you see who it is, and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: then you let it ring out, So why maybe you're
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: busy and a lot of the time that is the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: honest case. I mean, we have these phones with us
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, and we're doing other things. We
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: don't have time to have a conversation, so that's fine,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: but there's another side to it as well. If we're
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: really honest with each other, sometimes we can see exactly
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: who it is and you just actually simply don't want
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to talk. Sometimes the thought that crosses your mind is, well,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: why didn't this person just text me? And sometimes if
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you're the one making the call, there can be these
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: little pain of nerves that the thought of pressing that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: green icon and perhaps a little hope that it does
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: go to voicemail so that you can deal with it
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in texting instead. And there's actually a label for this,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: it's hold. If I can pronounce this properly, telephuondor phobia
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: or telephobia, that's an easier It's a word people use
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to describe the feeling. It's actually not like a diagnosis.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: It's not in the diagnostic manual. It's just a label
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: rather than a diagnosis. And it really is a fear
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of the phone itself. It's the discomfort of speaking to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: somebody in real time. Maybe it's saying the wrong thing
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: with no chance to edit at all. It's becoming more common,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and especially in our young people and I found this
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four UK survey that close to a quarter
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of adults under thirty five said they never answer their
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: voice calls, and more than a third of the youngest
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: groups they said they would rather receive a voice message
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: than a call. And there was a study of university
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: students found that more than forty percent felt some anxiety
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: about phone calls. So this is very real, real, and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: it's very common, and it's most concentrated in the generation
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that is growing up right now. And the reason texts
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: wins is around control. So when you're typing, you get
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to think and rethink and fix it before anyone sees it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: A live call gives you none of that. It kind
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of dilutes the form of contact. And we've accepted it
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: as an equal swap for the real thing, when it
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: actually isn't one, because we carry now our device that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: always offers a way out. Like the people who feel
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: most anxious about talking are the ones who avoid it
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: most simply because they can. And the research on this
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: is clear people with more social anxiety prefer texts precisely
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: because it removes that social fear of talking in real time.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And the trouble is that avoiding the very thing that
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: you're anxious about is what keeps the anxiety burning. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: for a young person, it also means that that skill
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: of talking and connecting and you know, being able to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: think on the spot, it never gets practice and it's
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: something that they need to practice, and it matters for
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a young person with a developing brain. But let's go
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: back to the busy reason. So we don't answer our
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: phone because we're too busy, and it's probably the reason
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: most of us will give, and it's and it's usually
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: true we are busy, But being busy doesn't take the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: choice away. It kind of just it hides it. We
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: still decide what we do with our time, like minute
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: by minute, moment by moment, even on the busiest days.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So the more honest question in that moment that the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: phone lights up is not due I have time? Is
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: this worth a few minutes of my time? So for
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: me personally, the answer is usually yes, I do have
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: time for this, even when my mind might say no,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: don't answer a few minutes of hearing a friend or
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: someone you love is rarely time wasted. You get to
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: decide in that instant moment, and it's always better to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: respond than react. So reacting is letting it ring out
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: on autopilot, because that's the habit that you've got into
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the phone rings. It's like, no, I can't take it.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Responding is pausing for a second, asking that question and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: choosing whether to pick up the phone. And that small
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: pause is where that connection either happens or it doesn't.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And look, that might seem really obvious to you, but
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: there's actually a physiological reason why picking up the phone
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: is often the best choice. So there's a study where
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: researchers took a group of girls and put them through
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a stressful situation. So they had to do a public
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: speech or they had to do some mental mass in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: front of strangers, which would certainly give me a bit
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of a stress response, and so it reliably send their
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: stress hormones up. And then the girls were comforted by
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: their mothers in a few ways, so some in person,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: some by phone, some by text messages, and then some
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: not at all. And the girls who heard their mother's voice,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: whether in person or on the phone, showed a rise
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in oxytocin, the hormone of bonding and calm, and a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: drop in cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: girls who were comforted by text showed no rise in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: oxytocin at all, and their cortusole stayed high just as
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: much as the girls who had no comfort from their
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: mothers whatsoever. So a warm, loving text message from their
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: own mum. I don't know if there were emojis involved,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: but according to this research, physiologically it did nothing. And
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: what the research has concluded is that it was the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: sound of the voice doing the work, not at the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: actual words. So it was the tone, the familiarity, the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: fact that it was unmistakably her. So that connection, it
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: turns out, has to be heard and it isn't only
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the voice. So in another study, women were told to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: expect a mild electric shock while their brain was being scanned.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know why anyone would want to volunteer for
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that one, but they did. When they held the hand
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of their husband, the threat response across the brain dropped,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and it dropped the most for women in the happiest relationships,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and another person present and trusted physically turns down the
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: volume of our stress. So this is what connection is for.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: It's part of how we regulate and we're really built
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to borrow each other's calmness. So if we put these
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: two things together, hearing a voice settles our stress, and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: yet our young people who are more anxious are the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: ones most reliably avoiding voices in favor of text messages.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: So the people whose bodies would benefit most from being
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: heard and answered in real time are the ones that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: are getting least of it. And because the phone always
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: lets them retreat back into texts, the avoidance feeds itself,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and for a developing young brain that is learning through
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: repetition and direct experience how to handle the discomfort of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: real time connection, even avoiding a call is a developmental void.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So then what's happening is they're missing out on that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: neural network development and the very physiology we've just described.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The oxytocin those feel good hormones, the settling of the quartersole,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the calm is the thing that they're opting out of
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: at an age when they need it the most. So
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: what do we do with this? So texting, obviously is
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a brilliant tool. Nobody's suggesting we give it up. The
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: point is we've let it replace biological connection, and our
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: nervous systems are affected. So text is a level of
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: disconnect we've learned to call normal. But what we need
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: more than ever is meaningful connection. So hearing a voice
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: is what can settle us. Then we want more voices
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: in whatever form a person can can manage. And this
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: is where there's a genuinely useful first step. So a
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: friend of mine recently started sending me voice messages instead
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of texts, and I noticed the difference straight away, like
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I could hear her, like I could hear the warmth
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: in her voice, and she was laughing, and she you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the intonation that she was using. She was able to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: express herself. A voice message carries the one ingredient. The
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: research says, that does the regulating and that's the sound
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of a familiar person, and it does it without the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: fear of a live call, because there's no pressure to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: respond in that moment. For anyone who finds picking up
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the phone daunting, and especially for a young person, that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: is actually a real rung in that ladder. So send
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a voice message and then when it feels easy, then
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: you make the call, and then when you can, you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: can actually be in the room. So I have started
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: doing this occasionally when I saw the research that showed
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that hearing someone's voice can actually release oxytocin. I do
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: send my friends a voice message, especially if they're going
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: through a hard time, and I will just say I'm
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: sending you an audio message because I know that hearing
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: my voice may release a bit of oxytocin, and I thought,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that's maybe what you need. So there's always another purpose,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I guess, for sending a mege to a friend. So
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the cost of all of this avoidance is really a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: lot greater than a few missed calls. We're slowly opting
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: out of one of the oldest and most reliable ways
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: we have of calming ourselves down and staying connected to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: each other. At that very moment that the world is
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: asking a lot of our young people, it's not just
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: our young people as well. It's like there's adults that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: really struggle with talking on the phone as well. We
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: regulate through connection, and when we stop hearing each other,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: we lose it. So this week, consider letting someone hear
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: your voice and let yourself hear theirs. So when the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: phone rings, ask that question and then consider picking up
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: send the voice instead of the text. So when my
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: friends started to send me voice messages, I really felt
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: more connected to her, and it was the inspiration for
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: this episode. And of course the other choice you have
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: is to call a friend instead of messaging them if
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you can make the time. You know, when deciding to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: pick up or not to pick up, respond instead of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: reacting to that habit of leaving it, you know, take
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: a deep breath and really think about it. Is this
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: worth a few minutes of my time? It might feel
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: like a really small thing in that moment, but your
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: body knows it isn't. Have a great week, everyone, I'll
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: catch you next week. Sea