Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 340: Flourishing During Stress with Dr. Nathaniel Thom

Transcript

Episode 340: Flourishing During Stress with Dr. Nathaniel Thom · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  You.
• 0:03
  Welcome to The Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by amylose.
• 0:08
  Really excited to be here for this conversation today with Doctor Nate Tome, director of the neuroscience program at Wheaton College.
• 0:16
  I knew you long before you were the director of anything, though. So hopefully we'll get to some of those stories today. But but, Nate, thank you for taking some time to join us today. Yeah, honestly drew it.
• 0:28
  It's a pleasure to be here. I was delighted when you reached out, and I'm glad to reconnect and, get a chance to kind of talk about how our work overlaps.
• 0:37
  awesome. Well, just for the benefit of our listeners, I do want to start with kind of helping frame up, how do we know each other.
• 0:44
  Right. And so you're in now, you're doing these awesome things in academia and publishing research and leading students. But, long before you were doing those things, we met, back in Athens, Georgia. We were both in graduate school. I think we probably met, about 20 years ago now. It would have been about maybe 2006 ish.
• 1:06
  Is that sound right? Yep, that sounds right. Can I say go dogs? Even though you've got your Tennessee colors on and I've got my week in college. I do, I'm not sure why I'm wearing the orange shirt today, but it felt right for whatever reason. Yeah.
• 1:20
  Yeah. So we met almost 20 years ago. You were, pursuing your PhD in exercise psych, and I was, there doing kind of that hybrid program that I did in counseling and sports psych.
• 1:31
  And so we and I think we first met around, kind of around triathlon. Correct? Yep. I think that's right. So there was, brand new triathlon club at Georgia, and I had just finished, a pretty intense season of triathlon training at the University of Wisconsin. They actually had a triathlon class there that that I took.
• 1:53
  And then the next year was a teaching assistant for. And so when I saw the the advertisement for this new triathlon club, I thought, oh, I'll see what's going on there, see if I can help out. And yeah, I think, I think that's where we connected initially. Yeah. And I just remember at that stage of the game, like your friendship was, was valuable to me so much on a personal level.
• 2:17
  But then also in the triathlon stuff, I just, I was getting into it, but I had no clue what I was doing. And you knew everything there was to know about triathlon. So, I just I remember pinging you with question after question about everything from how to how to, like, improve my stroke in the pool to nutrition.
• 2:34
  Yeah. You were a wealth of of knowledge on all things triathlon, for sure. Yeah, well, we were maybe opposite there. I was slow, but I knew a lot. And you were fast and you didn't know anything. I did not know anything. That is absolutely true.
• 2:48
  Well, so. So why don't we start there, like, talk a little bit about when you were, you know, undergrad at Madison and kind of clarify your path of what you wanted to pursue and graduate wise in terms of education, how did that come together of figuring out what you wanted to go study?
• 3:05
  yeah, that's a great question. I'll I'll try and be brief about it. So I, I started in microbiology and immunology and, and really was fascinated by the immune system. And I worked in the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Wisconsin for a while, two and a half, three years as a student, and always found myself asking different questions.
• 3:29
  So the our lab was, was trying to figure out how can we cure cancer. And my mind was constantly going to how can we prevent this? And that eventually led me to coursework in neuroscience and psychology and the connection between brain and body, on the academic side. And then on the personal side, I, I had been a pretty active athlete in high school, but was not a division one athlete.
• 3:57
  So a lot of a lot of that part of my life had had gone away as an undergrad, and it started to come back and become a pretty prominent part of my life. Like I mentioned, I took that triathlon class, did a number of triathlons, culminating in Ironman Wisconsin, the inaugural Ironman Wisconsin. And I could just sense, you know, being active changed me.
• 4:21
  It changed me as a person. And I wanted to know more about that. And so after I graduated from Wisconsin, I stuck around and, and, continue to take courses and found this crazy class called exercise psychology. And just loved it. Ended up it was all about brain body connection and how that promotes health. And I knew at that time, I've got to get more of this.
• 4:48
  I want to study this more. At the time, it was of of well, you remember there were only probably, you know, a handful of folks doing that type of work around the country. Yes. And the University of Georgia, there was, there was a couple guys there doing what I felt like was cutting edge research on the effects of exercise, on brain health.
• 5:09
  So that that led me to Georgia. And kind of the rest is history. I spent, you know, six years studying that relationship between brain body health and how exercise can, can promote a healthy brain. And let me interject this for the benefit of our listeners as well, because Nate's a humble guy at that time. Georgia was without question like the place to be like it was if people that wanted to pursue graduate education in this field, that's where you wanted to go.
• 5:44
  He had a love that I'm about to say this Rod Dishman and Patrick O'Connor were two of the biggest names in exercise, like at that time, both doing research at Georgia. So, you know, it was a it was a big deal that they said, yeah, sure. Come on, come, come study with us. And and so while there, I know that you, you looked it into a number of different things in terms of supporting projects and, you know, working on grants.
• 6:10
  But I guess it would have been around that time that you really began to kind of, narrow down on on stress. Is that accurate of what you really want to look into? Can you talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. So really it was, I don't know, maybe not broader. It was, it was a little bit more about, well, stress is the right way to think about it.
• 6:30
  So how do we how do we think about the fact that people who are active tend to get depressed less, or tend to be less anxious or tend to sleep better? What what's the underlying mechanism there? How how do they and where I maybe zoomed in was how do they manage their emotions well? And if they can manage their emotions well, can that change their mood?
• 6:55
  So at the time we were still and we still are kind of exploring that that continuum between emotions and mood. You know, we know a lot about emotions and how they arise. We know less about how moods arise. And so I was trying to kind of, study that relationship and how exercise might alter the underlying neurobiological processes that, that lead to better brain health.
• 7:22
  So broadly speaking, that's what those are. The questions that you all were pursuing and trying to understand, you know, exactly. We we had at the time, we had a lot of evidence, that, you know, if you're active, you're less likely to get depressed, you're less likely to be anxious, you're probably going to sleep better, etc., etc..
• 7:41
  But we just didn't really understand why we didn't understand the mechanism, and that was pretty fascinating for me. So yeah, you enjoyed the work there, worked hard. I mean, I'm sure there were days when, while working for some of the crew down there, you maybe you didn't want to be at the epicenter of exercise. I gosh, yeah, I remember I remember that one summer, although it wasn't long, you pulled me in to do some data analysis stuff in the lab, and, like, I think I still, like I don't work in Excel a whole lot, but I think that summer, like, burned me out on Excel.
• 8:15
  And when I see Excel now, I'm like, oh, gosh, you know, but you all were producing really, really interesting work, which really was a great springboard for you to move to the next phase on your fellowship. Correct? Yeah, yeah. So I ended up I did a lot of animal work as an undergrad. And then early in graduate school, ended up transitioning to doing human neuroimaging.
• 8:39
  And along the way, met a bunch of folks in the military and was just really impressed with them in terms of leadership and character and and also in terms of the research that they were doing. And so through some of the connections that I made that that eventually led to a postdoc with the Navy, I don't know that you and I have ever talked about this, but I actually worked pretty hard to get into the Navy, into the Medical Service Corps.
• 9:09
  I think I do remember this at least a little bit. Yeah, yeah, that door didn't, didn't open, which in hindsight, actually, I'm grateful for. But through those connections, through that process, I ended up in a civilian contractor role, with the Navy in Southern California and talk about. And you were there for four years, is that correct?
• 9:29
  Yep. Yep. I was there for or what were you doing while there? Night. Yeah. That, the that work was so rewarding. True. So basically, I was, I was embedded with the Navy Seals and Reconnaissance Marines while they were doing their training, their pre-deployment training. So the way that I frame it out, is we were trying to figure out what does right look like.
• 9:55
  So, you know, we were studying the best of the best tip of the spear, trying to figure out what made them tick. It's like a, you know, psychologically, neuro, biologically. And then can we can we figure out the nature nurture question? Right. Where they born that way. Is that the training that got them that way? You know, the punch line is it's it's probably a mix of both.
• 10:18
  And then, you know, what is trainable? Can we can we train other folks to perform at their highest level as well? You know, the the Department of Defense puts a lot of money into these guys. And so they, they, they want to understand any edge they can get in terms of enhancing performance. So that that was that was a really rich time for me scientifically.
• 10:45
  I, I've always been drawn to research that has direct application and, yeah, the DoD is very good about that.
• 10:55
  Okay. We got to stick with this for a second because this is super interesting to me as well. And I know a lot of our listeners. So I'm curious, as you dove deep into that specific population of high level elite military operators, naval operators, what were some of the most noteworthy things that you learned?
• 11:16
  Yeah, yeah, that's a big question, right. I think probably because I lack it, one of the things that really stood out to me was how flexible they are. So, you know, mere mere mortals like me, when I get into a stressful situation, I'm the, you know, most likely I'm going to be an active Cooper. I feel like I, you know, I can probably surmount whatever issue is facing me.
• 11:42
  And so I'm going to, you know, survey the scene, figure out if I have the resources to move forward and then, you know, move forward with a combination of of experience and intuition to, to try and achieve whatever outcome I have. But especially after my postdoc, I realized I kind of have 1 or 2 tools in my toolbox, and I use them for every problem I face.
• 12:12
  And I'm sure, you know, you worked in the in the clinic for a while. Maybe you still are, you know, doing clinical stuff. I'm sure you see this all the time. People, people develop their tried and true coping habits and coping skills, and they're going to come back to them no matter what. Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes they have less than 1 or 2 actually.
• 12:31
  Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I honestly I feel blessed that I have 1 or 2 that tend to work well for me. But but these guys again, you know, nature nurture, they, they are able to be really flexible with their approach. So they're able to survey themselves. So that was part of the work that we did.
• 12:57
  Investigate. It's called your internal septic system, your sixth sense. It's kind of your your sense of how your body is doing. Homeostatic. Right. So they, they can they're very in tune with what's going on with their body and kind of what their bodily resources are. They combine that with what's going on externally. And then they're really good at choosing the best path forward, in a flexible way.
• 13:23
  So where is I? I'm probably going to choose 1 or 2 ways to move forward. They're going to they're going to try one way. And if it doesn't work, they're pretty adept at trying different ways until they figure out something that works. And I'm not very good at that. So that that stuck out to me.
• 13:41
  Yeah.
• 13:41
  So in that in in that description, I hear a number of things. I hear some level of self-awareness. And they're, they're, they excel when, when they need to kind of dial into themselves here themselves. They have a strong internal barometer of not just what I'm thinking, but what I'm feeling, whether it be physiologically or whatever it might be, and then effectively integrating all of that and then consciously choosing am I, am I saying that correctly?
• 14:10
  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I mean, just two really simple examples. If you if you have a known objective, the way that you would progress through your decision making there is ready aim, fire. Right. So I know my objective, I can I can zone in on my objective, I can aim, I can shoot and then I get feedback.
• 14:35
  But there are times when you have an unknown objective. And so they're they'll switch into, a different way of thinking about things that the way they talk about it is shoot, move, communicate. So if the objective isn't known, if you don't necessarily know where you're headed, then maybe you just try something. You shoot, you move, and you communicate.
• 14:58
  And you readjust that, you know, I'm a ready, aim, fire kind of guy. But as I've aged, I definitely move in and out of situations where the objective is known and the objective isn't known. And I'm still not very good at just just try something out and see how it works. And they're they're very good at that because of, like you said, understanding their body and their bodily resources and then understanding what's going on in the external environment.
• 15:28
  And that's something we explored. You know, we we studied the Olympic athletes, we studied adventure racers, we studied the Seals, the the Marines, they sort of all have that in common, this flexibility. And it's related to their neurobiology.
• 15:45
  Okay. So a follow up on that. I'm curious. You know when you think about decision making and there's always an element of incorporating whether you call it information or you call it data, whatever it is.
• 16:00
  But as you make your best attempt to kind of clarify the picture of, hey, maybe I've got I've got 40% of the data on this one, or I've got 60% of, you know, in my attempt to clarify the picture, I've always felt like one of the places Seals Excel is they don't need nearly as much clarity as the rest of us normal people.
• 16:19
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  Is that accurate? Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's where they shift. So I want a relatively clear picture so that I can do. Ready. Aim. Fire! They are much more readily available and willing to move forward under ambiguous circumstances. Yeah. And it's related to that flexibility.
• 16:44
  What were some of the characteristics or traits that you found to be less trainable than others?
• 16:50
  that's a great question. So, I mean, we definitely came across some guys who who didn't have that ability to be flexible. And because of the high stress environments that they're in, that can become difficult. Right? So even just the initial training for them is very intense. It's very rigorous. You know, it's physically exhausting.
• 17:14
  You're basically physically depleted. And so you're you're relying on, brain, and the brain gets into patterns. If you're, you know, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, you're drinking lots of salt water during your training. Your brain is is going to tend to be pretty rigid. And so that that's something that can be difficult to train.
• 17:38
  You know, so I we saw right. We saw some guys make it a certain way through the training and get a point where the lack of flexibility became apparent. And so they would have to cycle back through certain aspects of the training if in the end, they they get them all there or almost all of them there, but that the flexibility was the thing that struck me the most.
• 18:01
  And it's probably one of the ones that is pretty challenging to teach as well. And for those that did have this flexibility, were you all finding specific? Whether it be I don't know what kind of imaging you were using, but were you finding actual differences you could put your fingers on and their brains? Yeah, yeah. So, you have a region in your brain called your insula, which if I was to kind of drill a hole right straight in through here, there's there's a division between, kind of, frontal, parietal and temporal.
• 18:38
  There's a big feature there, and you can kind of pull it apart. And right underneath there is your insula. It's a clam shaped region. And it it is highly implicated in the ability to perform well under stressful conditions. And it's because of what it does. So in the, in the rear part, the posterior part, it basically takes a snapshot of your entire body.
• 19:04
  And it's, it's measuring or attending to, you know, things like pH balance, carbon dioxide, oxygen, blood pressure, sort of all of your internal homeostatic states. It's constantly taking a picture of that and asking itself, how am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing? So it does that over and over again. We found differences among elites and between elites in that region.
• 19:34
  So they're they're good at turning that region on and turning it off depending on the circumstances. Now again, the question becomes where they all born that way, you know, the training make them that way. And I you know, I think those questions are still out. But certainly that that was one region where we found differences. Were those regions of the brain, were they larger and but a size wise.
• 20:01
  Yeah. So we we never published any of the structural data. It was all about activity during different types of tasks. So really it was, you know, you know, is the insula more or less active, compared to controls. And so a lot of times it would depend on the conditions. It would depend on what we were asking them to do.
• 20:24
  That is is fascinating stuff. Yeah. It was no wonder. No wonder you hung it out from hung out there for four years. Yeah. It was it was really rewarding work. You know, a lot of, a lot of the work that we did, you know, within months would be integrated into their training. And I, you know, in most academic work, you might publish a handful of papers and then in 10 or 15 years, it might get applied.
• 20:51
  Whereas this, this was within months, which was really rewarding.
• 20:55
  When I asked what you did while there, I thought you were going to say you surfed. Although I do think, although I do think you did some of that right. I tried, I tried, I was not I got up a few times, but I never really found the knack for it better at triathlon than surfing.
• 21:11
  I would be true for me as well.
• 21:13
  Okay, so four great years, working with a super elite, intriguing population, and then I know decided that you felt like your calling was to get back into academia. Which then took you to where you are currently at Wheaton College, correct? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I, I really missed the classroom.
• 21:34
  I mean, I, I loved the work that I did with the military and then we also worked with industry as well. Very rewarding. But I'm I'm kind of a coach and a teacher at heart. And, found myself being continually, you know, drawn back to that type of environment. My wife Sarah, went to Wheaton College. I'm from the Midwest.
• 21:57
  So when the opportunity presented itself to, to move to the Chicagoland area, we felt like this will be a great place for us. It'll be a great place to raise a family. And I can get back in the classroom, at a at a, you know, a place where, I guess I would say some of the brightest Christian minds are, which is is a pretty stimulating environment for me.
• 22:23
  Awesome. And Nate, I guess in your time there, which is over a decade now, you have you done a number of different things. You're running a lab. Is is it fair to say that broadly, much of your work is focused on, continuing to try to understand the application of stress and how we combat it effectively from a psychological standpoint?
• 22:48
  Is that, on track? Yeah, yeah. So I've branched out as well. I've had a few projects over the last, I don't know, 3 to 5 years that I have are still related to brain health. And how do we how do we keep our brains healthy? But I've moved a little bit away from the stress research.
• 23:08
  But, yeah, it was something I did initially when I first got to Wheaton.
• 23:12
  I want to talk a little bit about? One of the courses that you have taught? Because, you know, I didn't take it, obviously. And I don't plan to enroll. But the title of it to me is really, really intriguing.
• 23:24
  And I think that it, almost certainly is of interest to a lot of our listeners. And that is, stress and flourishing. Stress and flourishing, because I think it's many people I know, aren't. Yeah. On the one hand, they're experiencing stress. However, they aren't necessarily flourishing. So, before we dive into the course, can we can we first clarify, like what is stress?
• 23:53
  Because, I mean, we've all dealt with it. We all deal with it with consistency. But I want to hear from an expert, you know, what is it truly? When we say stress and what's going on inside of us and why does this happen? So we'd love your perspective on all things of clarifying stress. Yeah. Well, you know, we spent a good 75 years trying to define this term.
• 24:17
  So I'm not sure I can do it in a few minutes here, but I like, so Richard Lazarus is probably one of the most well known names in, in, stress research. And I kind of liked his definition. The heart of it is, you know, any time you face a challenge and you're not really sure if you have the resources to handle the challenge, you are feeling stressed.
• 24:43
  You know, some people feel like that's a little bit too broad of a definition, to be honest. I end up leading towards an even broader definition. You know, I, I feel like, yeah. And anytime your body is, is responding homeostatic to something, you're under stress. So in that realm I can pull in good stress as well.
• 25:07
  Right. So you and I both have a love of exercise, but anytime we go and work out, we tend to feel like this is a challenge that we can surmount. So under Lazarus's definition, he probably wouldn't include exercise as a stressor. But I would, there can be both negative or distress and then positive or you stress.
• 25:32
  So I have a pretty big umbrella definition of it.
• 25:36
  And so when you think about specifically distress, and when that, when the, when the trigger for that take shape. And now inside of me as a human, my brain and my body are beginning to respond, can you walk us through the things that are happening inside of humans as the stress levels increase?
• 25:58
  Sure. Yeah. I mean, a little bit of it depends on how you decide to cope. Right? So if you're going to go the passive route, if you're going to freeze, then you know, your your body is responding differently than if you are going to try and actively respond to the stressor. The, you know, fight or flight. But then also freeze is is going to be one, one choice to make.
• 26:22
  But if you end up in fight or flight, all of the changes that are occurring in your body are for you to either run away or attack and defend yourself. So you're, you know, your cells, are going to mobilize and utilize energy stores. You're going to shut down any long term projects, right? So your immune system, actually, initially you're going to have a little bump up in immune function, but then quickly you have a drop in immune function because if you, you know, the system is designed to run away from or fight a bear, for example, you know, your muscles need fuel, your heart needs fuel.
• 27:04
  You need to supply oxygen to your muscles. Really? Well, and that's about it. So you're going to take your immune system offline. You're going to take reproduction offline. You're going to take digestion offline. And really your your whole body is just preparing to, to run away or to fight.
• 27:22
  And as we think about what's going on inside of our body, do you think that's a common reason that people.
• 27:29
  Because sometimes I think in its most extreme form stress can be very triggering to panic in people. And I've always wondered if maybe part of that is because they're just, they're under, they're confused about what's happening to them as they feel these things. No, I think you're spot on. So that it's funny you mentioned that. So the lab that I worked in in San Diego at UCSD had multiple different populations that we worked with.
• 27:56
  One of the groups was elite performers who they sense everything that's going on in themselves and interpret it well or appropriately. But then other folks feel that racing heart, you know, their deep breathing, their pupils constrict like they can feel their response to stress and they misinterpret it. And it can lead. It can lead to fear and panic, and other other sort of mood issues, like that.
• 28:28
  So, Nate, as we think about the kind of variability of how people handle that is, what do we know about like our certain people predisposed to handle the the stressful scenarios better than others, like do? Is there such thing as kind of a set point that makes you better positioned versus maybe a set point that makes you more vulnerable?
• 28:52
  Yeah, yeah. And that to circle back, that's kind of the heart of the class. So when most people hear stress and flourishing, those two terms don't go together. But I but I think what, what we know now is you have if you want to flourish, you have to face stress. You know, stress inoculation training is this whole other area of research that that I'm familiar with.
• 29:18
  I haven't published there. But, you know, the idea is you need to expose yourself to varying levels and varying types of stressors so that you can adapt to those stressors and and respond to them better. The next time. So I think if I was going to say, I don't know if there's really a set point or or anything necessarily that that is inborn, so to speak.
• 29:45
  Although I do think, we probably there probably some personality characteristics that lend themselves better or worse to, to at least extreme stress.
• 29:55
  a lot of it is about, you know, over the course of your life, have you been exposed to stressors? And were you able to cope well with them? And if you weren't, do you process that and learn from it?
• 30:09
  And, and, you know, try and take a different approach the next time.
• 30:12
  So let's, let's stick with that. And I want to I'm going to ask you to maybe kind of discuss a, a little bit of a contrast here and in the and this is, this might kind of pull on some of the stress and flourishing class or it might not, but, you know, a term that we use or have used on our podcast in the past is a person's attempt to design their life a certain way.
• 30:32
  And I think we're all doing that, whether it's a conscious thing that we're doing or not. But we have objectives, whether they're stated or unstated, and we're designing our lives accordingly. So I'm curious, for someone who is managing stress reasonably well, maybe even flourishing when it comes to stress, how is that person designing their life? Like what?
• 30:58
  What is he? What is he or she doing with consistency that's facilitating that? Yeah, yeah. So, to be honest, part of it is realizing that you can only design so much. Okay. So I definitely went through a season of life, and I think lots of people do where, you know, you almost think you can hack your life into, you know, perfection, you know, ultimate efficiency, ultimate performance.
• 31:26
  We're not built like that. So, you know what? Maybe the first lesson to learn is you can only hack your life so far. And I think once you realize that and become a little bit more flexible about it, then you're you can you end up doing even better, so to speak. But the way I mean, okay, let me interject one thing real quick is, is is what you're referring to.
• 31:52
  There is the way that plays out. Is that the person who is over indexing on design, design, design, hack, hack then goes so far with that that they become rigid and that when things inevitably pop up that they didn't account for, they just don't handle it well. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So if you're if you're so scheduled and and so dialed in to your rhythm, in your routine, how do you respond to sickness?
• 32:23
  How do you respond to an injury? How do you respond to the inevitable challenges that are going to come your way? You know, you've got to have margin for that. You've got to have room for that. And then, you know, you also have to have wisdom to know, okay, yes, I have this setback. I need to continue to push or yes, I have this setback.
• 32:46
  I've got to pause for a little bit, rest for a little bit and and reevaluate what I'm doing.
• 32:52
  So and this even relates back to the seals that you were talking about earlier. But now we're talking about more of the a general population is flexibility. The key trait that is we think about people who seem to be managing stress.
• 33:07
  Well would you say that's the key driver of that. Yeah it's one of them for sure. You know you don't you want to have principles, you want to have values. You want to have goals, right? You don't want to be so flexible that you're right. You know, you don't have any direction. But yeah, for really high performers or people that are under, you know, relatively significant stress, often times a contributing factor to that can be a lack of flexibility.
• 33:38
  So the ability to say, here's where I want to go and here's the path to help me get there. But I can't be so rigid. I like that word that I can't handle any sort of detours that, that that's just going to tend to multiply the negative effects of stress.
• 33:58
  Okay. Neat. So let me, let me put a scenario out there for us to talk about.
• 34:01
  And that is a lot of the listeners of our podcast are in what I would call, heavy outcome based professions. There's a lot of pressure. It's a metric driven industry that they're in. I mean, to get even more concrete, it's not uncommon for, sales oriented industry for these people to literally like they wake up every morning and the first email that hits their inbox is some form of a scoreboard.
• 34:34
  And that, you know, they immediately are presented with data that shows them exactly where they stand, you know, and it's it becomes a chase toward closing a strong month, closing a strong quarter, whatever it might be. So, you know, I've painted the picture there, hopefully of like, high stress, high stakes on a in a chronic way. What would you put on the table and say, these are your short list actions that you want to absolutely be sure you're doing your best to uphold in an effort to flourish?
• 35:07
  Yeah, that's a great question. And I think I'm glad I'm not in one of those professions that, but you need you know, you've got to you got to keep your brain in your body healthy. And you know where that field is expanding, but I still think we have the best evidence, really, for three things. Ten years ago, I probably would have put exercise at the top of that list.
• 35:34
  Now it's probably in the middle or the bottom again of a short list. Sleep is huge. So if you're not sleeping well, if that is eventually going to catch up with you. So good sleep hygiene, I would probably put that at the top of the list. Nutrition has bumped up considerably for me, so the saying that you are what you eat is actually true.
• 36:01
  You know, your body is made up of what you eat. There are foods that are going to help your brain function optimally and foods that that are going to hinder that. Now both sleep and nutrition take time for you to feel those effects. So you and I both know behaviorally that can be tough if you don't, if you don't, if you don't have an immediate feedback loop for whatever behavior you are engaging with, you're going to tend to leave it behind.
• 36:33
  So what I tend to tell people is, you know, if you can do it for three days, you can do it for three weeks. If you can do it for three weeks, you can do it for three months. And if you can have good nutrition and sleep habits for three months, you are going to notice considerable differences in the way that you perform.
• 36:51
  But again, on the flexibility piece, sometimes you're going to have a bad night, right? I mean, you know, we have devices well rings. Now I was going to say watches, but you can just wear a ring that's going to give you all sorts of metrics about how you slept last night. You got to take that into context. There are going to be a whole host of factors that affect your sleep.
• 37:14
  So, you know, don't don't turn how you slept into another scoreboard. Right? You definitely don't want to do that, but you want to be paying attention to it across weeks. But then the, you know, the the bread and butter, the one you and I studied would be exercise. And now you get quicker feedback. I mean, we everybody knows it, right?
• 37:37
  You feel pretty dang good after a workout. You know, you start to, to do that on a consistent and regular basis, and now you are implementing changes in your brain, that are going to be very beneficial for you in terms of, thinking clearly and performing well. So be those three things. You know, I had a mentor that said, you know, we don't have big glutes to sit on them.
• 38:03
  We have been going to use them to move. And so you got to get up, you got to be active. You got to move. And then if you can dial in your sleep hygiene and your nutrition, you're going to set yourself up really quite well to have right now. Now your body, is in is positioned really well to perform well when you need it to.
• 38:27
  So from a brain health standpoint, sleep is the top of that pyramid currently for you, right? Yeah. I mean, experts are, you know, going to disagree on what you would put at the top. But, the more I read about sleep, I mean, it, it, it it's the canary in the coal mine. If you're not sleeping well, troubles are probably going to be headed down your way in the next month or two.
• 38:54
  Yeah, well, and I think even although I'm not nearly as familiar with, the research on this as you are, just intuitively, if I, if I think about sleep versus exercise, you know, if you begin to kind of get into your day following a poor night of sleep, your functioning is going to be negatively impacted much more. Whether or not you worked out that morning know, I mean, ideally you'd like to have them both, but if you had to have one or the other, you'd rather sleep well.
• 39:22
  Yeah. And so there's a perfect example too. Right. So if we, if we've got, you know, seven mile tempo run on the schedule for tomorrow, but we have a terrible night's sleep. Let's maybe just go for a long walk with our spouse and the dog. There is a time to push, and and maybe you need that tempo run.
• 39:42
  But again, that's where that that insula comes into play. It is. It is gauging whether or not your body is actually ready to do what you're asking it to do. Yeah. And, you know, I'm you and I performed at a relatively high level in triathlons when we were in graduate school, but 90% of the time we just went out and did the workout anyway.
• 40:05
  Yeah. And I think I have learned over time there were some times where I probably pushed too hard and was on the verge of injury or burnout, and, and actually ended up not performing at my highest level because I push too hard. I lacked flexibility, I didn't recognize, oh, yeah, my my diet was terrible. Yesterday I had a, you know, I didn't sleep.
• 40:29
  Well, I need to I need to shift and do something different tomorrow.
• 40:34
  Okay. I know we need to move toward the finish line here in a second, but there is at least one more question. I want to get in here. And that is one of the more common things I hear when talking about stress with folks is I'll hear people say something like this, I need to get rid of all of this stress I'm carrying around, or I've got I've got to offload all of this stress.
• 40:59
  And, you know, it's really what they're doing. They're they're kind of like setting up this binary construct idea of like, either you are or you aren't, which is not at all how we want people thinking about stress. So can you talk a little bit about how do we want people to understand what stress truly is and how it operates in their life?
• 41:20
  Yeah, yeah, I think that's really common. And and usually I try and crack some sort of joke. Right. Humor. Humor is a great, resilience enhancing technique. You're always stressed out. Life is, and so you, you hit a fork in the road where you get to decide, well, how am I going to handle it? How am I going to how am I going to approach this?
• 41:42
  Am I going to view it as as a negative thing that I need to shed or get rid of that I have not seen that work. Well, unless you are just I was about to say unless you are just incredibly wealthy and you can sort of check out of, of real life. But even there that I think issues of meaning and purpose start to creep in.
• 42:04
  And that creates stress. So, you know, do you view it as a negative thing to be avoided or do you view it as a potential opportunity for growth? So I'm forgetting her name right now, but there's a really well known scientist who has this brought in and build hypothesis. Oh yeah. And the this isn't Kelly. Kelly. Kelly McGonigal.
• 42:25
  Is that who might be right? I think it is. I think I think she's out on the East Coast near you. I want to say unsee or do one of those places. But the idea is if your initial framework can be this is an opportunity for me, then you trigger all sorts of brain and physiological responses that that generate creativity, that allow you to think and respond, with both, you know, intuition and experience.
• 42:56
  Right? We just see much better outcomes if you approach and perceive stress as an opportunity to grow instead of something to be avoided because you can't, it's just not feasible. I mean, I think what you're saying right there, that is it that's the key is it's what is my mindset in my general stance or positioning on when when stress begins to elevate in my life.
• 43:23
  And it's all I always talk about how you must think about that more in the form of a continuum, and a lot less in terms of kind of this binary on off, right, or, you know, yes or no type thing. Yeah, yeah. And, and I don't want to minimize what people are feeling. I feel it too. We all do.
• 43:40
  I'm the chair of a big department at a pretty good school. I've got four young kids. Right? I mean, I, there are days when I think I don't know how I'm going to manage all of this. And, and thankfully, with some time and some wisdom, I've realized what I don't necessarily need to manage all of it.
• 43:59
  I can pick and choose and be wise about the things that I can accomplish for today. But still trying to view it as that, that opportunity for growth. I think that really is key. And I think that's it. Right. So like, we are at our best as humans when we are in a cyclical way, you know, climbing mountains and then resting some and then climbing more and resting like we're at our best when we're accomplishing things and doing things, not when we're walking in just pastures.
• 44:28
  Right. So, so if it's if it's just in an ongoing, chronic way, you know, it's zero elevation and zero resistance, like, like you said earlier, that's when we begin to like purpose. Yep, yep. And that that is the ultimate stressor. Right. So if you don't have any purpose or meaning in your life, that that becomes a very difficult place to be.
• 44:52
  The challenge is, you know, we've anybody that's, that's done any, any hiking realizes, you know, what false peaks can feel like. Right. So you feel that you got something ahead. It's going to take you a few hours to get there. You're thinking you're going to be at the top and have this beautiful view, and then you get there and you realize, oh, man, that was a false peak.
• 45:13
  But again, so is that an opportunity for growth? Do you sit down on a rock and and get a snack and fuel up and maybe rest a little bit and then take on that next peak? Or do you focus on the fact that it was a false peak? And that's a great example that you can train that.
• 45:32
  You know, that's sort of classic cognitive behavioral therapy type stuff.
• 45:36
  Oh, man. I knew this was going to be a fun conversation. And it and it has without question. It's so, I think for me personally, just neat to hear, you talk about your, your work and your, your wisdom and expertise in these areas.
• 45:54
  It's especially cool that I, you know, I had a front row seat when you were kind of putting the pieces together, educationally speaking, like figuring all this out. And I hear you are zoom ahead, you know, 15 years later and, you're doing it. So it's super gratifying to hear you, man. It's awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I would echo that.
• 46:12
  I mean, I as I reflect back on, you know, the people in the professionals that that sort of helped me along the way. Your, your name rises to the top for sure. Well, that's kind of you, my friend. Really. Cool. So okay. Well, as we kind of come to a close, I just want to challenge our listeners. There's been so much that Nate has shared here in the way of, you know, how do we how do we need to think about the way stress operates in our lives?
• 46:41
  To what degree do we have the ability to to take action and, you know, make some decisions about how we're managing it. So there's a lot to take away. Would really challenge everybody to find what that thing or things is for you and begin to implement it into your life. That that's the key, right? Information is fantastic.
• 47:01
  But the key is really, can we do something effective with it? Okay. Any final thoughts you want to share before we sign off? Nate? No, I just I really appreciate the opportunity. And I love what you're doing out there, helping people try and perform at their best. Keep up the good work, too. Awesome. Thanks so much.