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Your Brain Is Addicted to Stress (And Companies Know It) · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

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  The thing where I find myself going to step at the next state as well is feeling
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  this like need to succeed and this need constantly engage. Social media is a
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  terrible thing too because it'll constantly encourage you to go for that next
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  dopamine rush. Having a cell phone next to the bed literally encourages me to check
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  every time I see a little light flicker on the telephone to read the alert.
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  We have terrible lifestyles right now in the United States. There's a ton of
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  substances that we're consuming on a consistent basis whether through the air or
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  through the food or through the water. That can make it easier to go into that
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  sympathetic state on accident. I want to actually touch on. I'm using that as an
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  example of one of the things that keeps my nervous system high in
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  fire. But there's so many other things like literally like what are some of
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  the things that give me four or five things that you say that keep our nervous
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  systems up in this sympathetic state. I'd say the biggest thing is trauma and
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  drama. I would say that actually likely fits into both. And the trauma piece
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  can actually last for a very very long time after the drama ends. And anything
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  that reminds you even close of that. Get you right back there. One of the other
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  things that I think a lot of people don't really do a lot of thinking about is
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  not having good social hygiene. I think it's actually a big thing who you're
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  surrounding yourself with. Primarily if you have people in your life even if
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  they're not when lose or lose lose people. But if you have people that are even
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  when when but for whatever reason it's constantly edging on your trauma or
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  drama. It's going to cause problems and you're going to end up having scenarios
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  where even it's not their fault. It's just a little still not something you can
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  work with. At least not until you go and do the reframing. And you go and bring
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  yourself and bring yourself through that trauma and understand why you're
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  feeling this way. I think another big thing is we have terrible lifestyles right
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  now. In the United States there's a ton of substances that we're consuming on a
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  consistent basis whether through the air or through the food or through the
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  water. That we really shouldn't be. I think that's very well known. And that can
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  actually that can make it easier to go into that sympathetic state on accident.
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  Because your body is going into panic mode. It's like it's the panic
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  button. And whatever puts your body into panic mode gets into a sympathetic
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  state. And once it's in panic mode it's really hard to get it out without some
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  sort of intervention. I would say that the thing that where I find myself going
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  into sympathetic state as well is feeling this like need to succeed. And this need
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  to constantly engage. Social media is a terrible thing too because it'll constantly
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  encourage you to go for that next dopamine rush. It'll constantly encourage you
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  to be in that quick reactant switch state, which is your fight or flight state.
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  Like social media does that to you over time. One of the things I what I was
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  trying to what I was getting at there. And I mean you you've gone into a lot deeper
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  things than I was even going to go to. And because what I was going to say is
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  what are the things that keep us in our sympathetic nervous system? Cell phone
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  alerts. 100%. Yeah. No, it's having the cell phone next to the bed is not just an
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  EMF thing. Yeah. But having the cell phone next to the bed literally encourages me
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  to check every time I see a little light flicker on the telephone to read the
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  alert. Like someone sent you an Instagram message. And I'm like, well, not do
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  do I need to check it? Because you're going to get anxious. What you
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  happen to get anxious about their spot. Is this something important? Is it
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  something that I really need to take a look at right now? And in the brain. My
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  background is clinical psychology. And I've just said that a bunch and but the
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  you know, and I always look at that the brain doesn't like a an open an open
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  loop. It wants everything closed. It wants everything closed. And I want to
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  bring everything to fruition. And if there's anything that makes me think
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  there's an open loop. I need to go close it. And something as little as and
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  you notice most notifications just tell you there is a notification. They
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  don't tell you what the notification is. Because I want you to open the app.
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  Because I want you to open the app. And it's like, so I see a, you know, John
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  Hacker sent you a, you know, liked your post or whatever. And I'm like, what
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  post do you like? And your brain starts that cycle all over again. Which again,
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  doesn't allow me to completely shut down and rest. And it's like, and I think
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  that's actually half the hygiene of keeping the phone in the room. I mean, it is
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  literally keeping. But nowadays, like people's phones are hooked to, I mean,
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  you can't even watch a TV program because you got your phone linked to your smart
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  TV and then your smart TV even shows you the notifications. And but I'm never
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  going to do that on my smart TV ever, ever, never, never. But it's the phone
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  notifications do it. It's the 24 hour access that people have to your lives. It's
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  it is the, the, the, now we've got the commercials that play even in the middle
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  of our streaming services that it's worth paying the extra three dollars a month
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  to not have the commercial. It's an interruption. And again, it can, it can actually put
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  you into that state. I mean, this is what I was saying before, like we have a terrible hygiene
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  environment right now for sympathetic activation. And it gets all over the place. And because
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  something like activation sells, if someone goes into fighter flight mode and they see something,
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  and that gives them a little bit of introvert rush because they're heart beating a little bit.
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  And that in turn is going to make you be more willing to remember the product
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  and eventually buy the product. So sympathetic activation is all over the place.
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  And it's highly incentivized for companies to use it as a methodology. It's kind of similar
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  to how sex sells. But in this case, it's fighter flight sales because you know, a lot of companies
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  don't be associated with, you know, the whole sex thing. And, and I mean, it's, it, it is kind
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  of crazy to be honest with you. How bad it's gotten. We have some of the highest anxiety rates
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  that we've ever had. And I'm not even going to say just that. The stress is the highest is
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  ever been. And I would really say stress resilience is the lowest it has ever been.
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  If you go back even 10 years and you talk to folks or 10, 20, 30 years, it's very clear that
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  they lived in a world that was very different from what we live in today. And I grew up in this
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  world, by the way, I'm a younger guy. So I, this is most of what you won't have been experiencing.
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  But it's very clear that when you remove these type of stimuli, you're able to have more time
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  to bring up hair sympathetic activity and strengthen that system so that when you need to go
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  into sympathetic, you can do it right. But with all these stimuli in this constant overwhelm,
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  which is I really think what it is, you never get a chance to strengthen that pair of sympathetic
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  system. You never get a chance to train your inner laboratory. And then we get so surprised that
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  most people's inner laboratories are barking at everything. Well, that's no surprise to me.
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  Well, I, I, I, I'll go into traffic is busier than it's ever been in road rage and everything we
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  see is you, you call a customer service line nowadays and you get barked at by the person
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  on the telephone. It's like, I, I'm just calling to ask you for help on something like you're
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  supposed to be the friendly person, like, you know, just we are where we're at this heightened
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  level of awareness all the time. And I think for most people, there is a, there's a complete
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  disconnect on, I don't even think they know how to bring it down. And in some cases, they don't
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  even know that you can bring it down. And, and I think that that manifests differently for
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  everybody. I've, I've, I'll, I'll say this like she's probably going to watch this episode. But
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  I have an aunt that I love dearly, um, who literally has nothing like if she is in a zero stress
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  situation, I say that she will find a way to be stressed out about it. And it's because here,
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  and, and I'll say this, and I mean, this genuinely because the, the endorphin rush that the dopamine
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  hits, as you mentioned, and this is the whole we use the word gamification because that sounds much
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  kinder than dopamine addiction. Yeah. Which is what it is. No, it definitely is. It is a dopamine
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  addiction that, you know, every time I, I push a button, something chimes and tells me I want,
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  like, I just keep pushing the button, right? It's the slot machine type thing at the casinos.
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  And the reality is is like that dopamine hit is addictive. Yes. And people get addicted to
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  the dopamine. And I don't get dopamine hits in the parasympathetic state. And so you, it's,
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  it's, it's simple. I would point it as simple cells, simple cells, because I mean, it's sympathetic
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  state cells. If you're in sympathetic state, you're going to get that dopamine more, hit more
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  often because, oh gosh, you finally did it. You did the goal. You would defy our flight. You succeeded.
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  Hit. And it's it. And they bring you back to that sympathetic state to do it again. And
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  it's a terrible practice that we have. So I go there to say that the sympathetic nervous
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  system is addictive. Yes. I mean, being in that survival mode is addictive. And it's the,
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  and for some people like someone like my aunt, who just lives worried, like, and that to me,
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  like, that's weird to me. My mom was the same way. Like she was nervous about everything
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  regardless of what was going on. And, but that, that nervous system state is addictive.
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  And a lot of that is the dopamine rush, right? A lot of that is that same type of thing. But
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  I don't think, and, and some of it is, what do I want to say? Like, they're probably low-level
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  cases of dopamine addiction. But then we've got the people who are the extreme, you know,
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  that the bungee jumping parachuting crowd who are the thrill seekers, which is the same thing.
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  It is. It is. And it's massively curious. I would say it's not only
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  sympathy addiction or sympathetic addiction. That's a problem here. It's also that once your
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  nervous system learns that a state will continue your survival, it likes to adapt to that state.
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  So once you're being forced into a state by trauma or drama, typically, I like using that,
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  because it's usually one of those two things. It's trauma or drama that does it. Once you're
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  forcing that state, if your body says, okay, this is the only way we can survive now. And hey,
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  I've been doing this for the last month because we've had such a long period of trauma and drama.
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  It might say, okay, well, this is clearly better. Let's continue doing this. And then it'll find
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  other reasons in create trauma and drama. And this is personally, this is my fan theory
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  on how type three, type four, so I'll call them type five, so lose, lose, lose. How they're built.
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  It is, they've gone, I feel sad for people that get into the state because it's a terrible state
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  to live in. I wouldn't, I was in a constant anxiety state for most of my childhood. I had terrible
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  OCD growing up. It all will skilled me very frankly. And it's terrible not having control of your
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  mind. And the whole thing, everything that drives me is liberating human consciousness wherever I
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  can, because I don't want anyone else to ever experience that. It's, that's what keeps me going.
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  But it's crazy because every, all the system is set up to make sure that you can't do that.
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  It is set up to constantly put you into a synthetic state because if you're super anxious,
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  you're more likely to watch the DV, you're more likely to watch the news, you're more likely to care
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  about politics. Oh, it's bleeds. You're more likely to buy things, you're more likely to buy
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  products, you're more likely to engage in our consumerized economy. And you're going to make
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  some people more money. And even if that money is only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a
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  percent, it doesn't matter because it's cumulative. Because if they can do that to you and they can
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  do that to three million people, that's significant revenue. And they'll continue doing that until the
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  day that they're forced to stop.