Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose ... Healing through Mind-Body Connection with Dr. Sula Windgassen

Transcript

I Choose ... Healing through Mind-Body Connection with Dr. Sula Windgassen · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to I Choose Me, the podcast about choices. Today we're
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: talking about stress and the way it affects our bodies.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: My guest today, Doctor Sula wind Gassen, is a health
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: psychologist who works with people suffering from chronic pain, bowel
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and pelvic issues. Her book, It's All in Your Body
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: helps find solutions in a world that often dismisses these
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: symptoms as all in your head. We're going to talk
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: today about why your expectations of rest may be making
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: rest more stressful, and why being dismissed by your doctor
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: actually harms you physically, why emotional suppression leaves a real
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: mark on your body. This conversation changed how I think
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: about stress and what it really means to choose yourself,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: even in especially in your most stressed out moments. Welcome
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: doctor Sula win Gason. Hello, thank you for joining me.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: We have a lot of questions about your book. I can't.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to jump in because so many of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: us have, for one reason or another, been told that
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: it's all in our head, that we're you know, making
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it up. So that is so frustrating. First of all,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: can you help us react to that? I mean, what
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: can we say when someone says that or doesn't seem
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to be listening to us.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's such a big problem. It's especially
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: a problem for women, right. Women are much more likely
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: to be told it's all in the head than men. Unfortunately.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: It was really funny. Actually, we had my parents in
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: law and we were talking about the difficulties in healthcare,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: me and my mother in law and how chronically dismissed
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: that she'd been, And then my father in law piped
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: up saying, I've never.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Had a single problem. Y girl, that'll be the gender.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: But it's so difficult.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: And I suppose one of the things that we need
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: to know first of all, is it's not just you.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I think when we get dismissed as it's all in
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: your head, we internalize that so easily, as there's something
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: about me that makes me not believable, or there's something
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: I'm doing wrong. So if I try harder, or if
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I change something about myself, or if I was fundamentally different,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: then I'd be deserving of being believed. And I think
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: when we know this isn't a you problem, this is
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: a them problem and a system's problem. That then helps
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: us at least to not turn inwards on ourselves. And
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I think that's just a fundamental beginning.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's so easy to say, start doubting yourself
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: when you're sort of told that it's you know, you're
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: making things up. You say, stress is not just one thing,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: but three, So please explain that to me, because I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: feel like stress is just like one big giant monster.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this really relates as well to this. It's
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: all in your head, it's you know, it's all something
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: that you're doing. So I think when we understand that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: stress isn't one thing, it's three, it helps us deal
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: with that nuance a little better so it doesn't feel
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: so personally attacking. So when I break stress down into three,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about a stressor so something that stresses us out.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So that might be the bills.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: The finances, the dog puking on the carpet, you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: health things, things beyond our control. And those are things
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: that are happening, you know, to us, some of which
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: we might have a degree of control over, a lot
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: of which we don't. And so that's saying, manage your
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: stress or you need to manage your stress better. A
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: lot of us automate. We will think you're telling me
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I need to manage my stresses, and I've got no control.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Otherwise I wouldn't be in this situation.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So I think when.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: We understand stresses are one kind of stress, then secondarily
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: there's stress, the stress that we experience. So when the
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: stresses are happening, we're having a stressed experience.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: That's physiological and it's also psychological, but the two aren't
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: always joined up. So I can feel psychologically stressed, but
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: my body can be fairly or right underneath the bonnet,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: and vice versa. I can feel psychologically fine, I'm not
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: feeling like I'm stressed particularly, but my body can be
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: activating like mad to try and help me meet the demands.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: A lot of us have normalized stress in our lives,
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: so you know, our body's peddling without us really realizing
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: all the time the time. So that's the second type
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: of stress, and that's the stress I think you know
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: we experience, but we sometimes aren't super conscient. And then
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: there's the stress response, right, How we then react to
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: our stress, and we will have so many different responses
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: to our stress. We'll have different responses based on whether
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: we're conscious that we're stressed or not, of course, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: then we'll have particular kinds of responses to feeling stressed
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: and the degree of stress. So if I'm stressed to
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: a degree, I might be like, right, I need to
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: take myself for a walk, and that's very helpful. But
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: there can be this threshold over which we're like, I
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: can't do anything. You know, we're paralyzed, or we're you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: flapping about, or our brain's going like mad, and then that.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Gets really difficult.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: But when we understand these are three separate entities, they
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: all are related, but they're not exactly the same thing.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So when we're.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Feeling a sense of over responsibility for stress, there's only
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: one component there that we have influence over, and that's
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: tricky because it's also dependent on the first two.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so first it's the thing stressed about. The second
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: one is how you respond to the stress.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, how your natural response to that stress.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And then the third one is your mind body connection
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to the stress.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: So maybe the other way around. The first one the
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: stressful thing, right, second one our natural kind of response
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: to the stress, and then The third one I would
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: say is like our reaction to that response.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Ah, okay, when someone says manage your stress, it stresses
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: me out. Like when you know everyone's talking about you
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: have to reduce your stress level and it's so bad
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: for your health. How do you How do you not
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: get stressed out about having stress?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I mean it's natural, right. I think it would be
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: really great if we generally as a group of humans
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: recognize that before we give advice to people that are
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: experiencing something difficult, we just hear them and ask securious
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: questions and the snear because it is one of the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: most natural things to then start feeling overwhelmed when you're
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: already stressed and that capacity and having a lot of
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: demands on you, and then someone tells you need to
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: do something else, especially if that's something is about the
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: things that you're already stressed about. So, I mean, one
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: thing that I often talk about with my clients is
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: recognizing that emotional increase that you feel when you're feeling
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: more overwhelmed, checking in with your body. You know, what's
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: that response there, what's it telling you? It's probably just
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: telling you that that was a really crappy thing to
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: receive in this moment and again not internalize that that's
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: not because you're doing something wrong. And it doesn't have
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: to be in that moment, but and it doesn't have
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: to be with everybody, but with some people, especially those
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: that are close to you in your life. I think
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: it's helpful to have a conversation to say, you know,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: when I'm very stressed and overwhelmed, there are some things
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: that are supportive to me in those moments, and none
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: of them involved telling me to manage this.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: That's not helping.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Guys.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks, thanks for trying. But I mean, it's another hard
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: thing because we're told to get rest at the hardest
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: times in our lives, like when you have a new baby,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: everybody says you need to get your rest. When you
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: get a new job, they say you need to rest up.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: You know, when you're in college and you know you
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: have all these new responsibilities, it's all can stress you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: out even more. How do expectations of rest get in
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the way of us really resting. How can we you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: rest more restoratively physically.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: The first thing is that there are different types of rest,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: and we don't always know which rest we need, So
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it's a skill we can develop. And the skill develops
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: first by recognized and actually what's happening physiologically in our
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: body as well as how we're feeling emotionally. So in
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: my book, it's all in your body. I've got this
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: thing called the nervous system barometer, which is like a sphere,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: and it's got three different areas activated, deactivated, and somewhere
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: that's equilibrium or content, and all these colors join each other.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: But when you're in activated mode, it's kind of red
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: and it gives way to deep blue, and as you
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: go around it's green. And intuitively, you can sense my
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: nervous system, my body is in one of these states
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: or somewhere near them, right. And the more you practice
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: checking in to be like, right, my heart's going a
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: little bit faster, my breathings at my chest, my brain
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: is racing super quick, So you recognize that physiological state,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and then it also allows you to check in with
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: your emotional state. Then you're able to start assessing what
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: do I need in this moment? And I think sometimes
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: we are blocked to find the right thing because we've
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: got again this homogeneous idea of rest, rest is sit still,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: don't do anything. But if your body's super activated, that's
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: going to feel so hard and inaccessible. Maybe in that
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: moment you actually need to walk it up, or you
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: need to or you need to do something with movement, and.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: That will be restorative for you.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: So we can get physical rest through deactivating and activating
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: depending on what our needs are.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And we can also get psychological.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Rest not throughly zoning out and switching off, but through
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: different types of stimulation. Right that might be doing a puzzle,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: or it might be speaking.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: To something else other than what it is that you're
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: stressed up. One thing we talk about all the time
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: on my podcast is that we all deserve to choose ourselves,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and sometimes that can start with something as simple as
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: getting dressed in the morning. That is exactly why I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: created Me by Jenny Garth with QVC. It is a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: collection designed to help women feel confident, comfortable, and effortlessly
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: stylish at every stage of life. So if you're ready
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: to make getting dressed easier and ready to refresh your wardrobe,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: head over to QVC dot com and explore Me by
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Jenny Garth. Check out our newest collection and styling tips
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: by following us on Instagram at me by Jenny Garth.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I'll see you there. You know you talked about busy people.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: High achievers are often sort of not tuned in with
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: their bodies. How can we learn to tune in with
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: our bodies when our schedules are packed and we have
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of responsibility on our shoulders? Like, what's an
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: easy way to check in with your body?
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: The easiest way.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: You can pick which one you prefer, but the easiest
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: way is to check in with your breath or check
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: in with your heart and turn in physically towards one
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: of those either or it can be both and get
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: in a sense of what's happening. And what I will
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: say is for people that are really checked out of
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: their body to begin with, you might not really notice
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: very much. Don't be put off. Just bear with it
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: and keep going back repetitively, not in a particular moment,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: but pick three instances check back in, and what you're
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: really looking for is what can I physically feel, even
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: if it's just in the area where your heart is
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: or where you feel like you should feel your breath.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: And the more you build up that physical sensation and
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: connection with those areas those bodily functions, the more you're
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: building up something called interceptive awareness, which is essentially bodily awareness.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: A lot of us associate being aware of our bodies
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: with this hypervigilant awareness where we feel not particularly calm.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: We feel like, oh god, I don't like that, or
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: what's happening here? Or oh my gosh, I need to
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: on edge exactly on edge, whereas this interceptive awareness is
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: an observational, calm and gentle awareness of what's happening.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Just the gentleness is so important, being gentle with yourself.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about the mind body connection and how
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: misunderstood that can be, and how impactful it is for
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: us to have that connection with our mind and body,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: so we can slow it all down when we need
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to and check in. You know, my best friend Adele,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: she often says, you know, just take a breath and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: check in with yourself and ask yourself, what do I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: need right now?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Such wisdom in that, and I think a lot of
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: us are tuned out in being able to answer that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: But even just giving yourself the opportunity right like Adele says,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: take a breath.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Taking the time we forget. We forget because we're like,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: we're stressed and we have things to do, and you know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: but it's so important and it really does sort of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: just like ease the pressure. It does a little bit.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make you less responsible or less of an
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: achiever or you know. It's really vital to just getting
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: through all of your to do list but also still
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: taking care of your self, both physically and mentally.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And I think it's will people are worried if I
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: do that, then I won't do what I need to do,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: or I'll find out things that I don't want to
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: find out. And so you know, my gentle invite for
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: experimentation is if you're just agreeing with yourself, it's just
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: going to take twenty seconds just to turn in and
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: see what I notice, see what happens, and you'll be
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised the more you do it.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is nice because you do start to develop
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: like this sort of inner relationship with the deep you yes,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and then sort of like develop this like care for it,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: you know, you know what I mean. Yes, if you're
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: just firing through your day and not checking in with
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: yourself ever, it's kind of almost like abandoning yourself in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: your business moments.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good way of thinking about it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: What are some myths about nervous system regulation that need
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to be just thrown out debunked. How can how can
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I regulate my nervous system or like unactivate after an activation?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that relates to one of the myths,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: which is that we should always be striving for calm
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: nervous system, right, that if we're ever activated, that's a
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: bad thing, that's harmful. Actually, a healthy nervous system is
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: one that can activate, can meet the demands for us,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: but can settle back down again. So the first thing
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: is we really want to make sure that we're not
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: fearful of those natural activations. That's healthy, that's our nervous
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: system doing what it needs to do. What is useful, though,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: as we've been discussing, is recognizing when that activation stays
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: on for too long, when we're not having an adequate
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: opportunity to recalibrate, come back to some kind of equilibrium
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: and restore. And I guess this comes back to frequent
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: little check ins make it more possible, right for us
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: to be able to find opportunities to recalibrate. And the
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: great thing is we generally don't need massive overhauls. The
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: more frequently we check in in little ways, the less
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: we really need to do to help us recalibrate. It
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: might be a little breath, It might be just taking
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: a ten minute stroll. It could be just sitting looking
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: at at the skies for five minutes. These are not
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: things that are going to derail your day, but actually
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: probably enhance them and help you do what you need
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so hard to remember in your stressful moments,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and when there's so much going on, it's so hard
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to remember take that little time for yourself. Oh man,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: does it help.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: It? Does?
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You talk about an unrelenting mindset and that can definitely
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: harm your health. How do we know if we have
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: an unrelenting mindset? And how do we change it?
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Most people who have unrelenting let's call them high standards
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: or expectations, right, don't necessarily acknowledge or know that they
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: do because it's just their normal. It's like, well, of
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: course I would iron the bed sheets, and oh.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: My god, iron the bed sheets just made me laugh,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Like who does that? If you are ironing? Your bed sheets.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It's time to stop.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: It's time to stop. But you know, I use that
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: as an example because I remember working with someone in
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: particulate years and years and years ago, and I was like,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: oh wow, it never occurred to me that anybody would
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: die in their bed sheets, But it never occurred to
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: this person that they wouldn't because that's, you know, what
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: they were raised with, and they'd always done it and
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: it was adding significantly, as you can imagine, to their
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: day to day chowlad.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: So we.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Don't tend to know that we have them, and so
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: then it can be really hard to interrupt them. So
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: the best way that we can identify if we do,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: is spotting an action the impact. So you can spot
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: those moments where you're feeling overwhelmed or overburdened, or those
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: moments where your mind's super busy and it feels like
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: there's just so much to do. Your brain automatically might
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: identify it's because I've got, like, however, many different things
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: on my plate, and it's those things that are causing
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: this degree of overwhelm and burden. And if you jot
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: down it could be all of them, it could be
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: a sample of them, and then ask yourself the question,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: what is the degree of expectation I have of myself
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: to meet this task or meet this demand? You know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: if there was a spectrum here where this was one
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: hundred percent and this was zero percent, where am I
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: expecting myself to fall? And you'll probably find that you're
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: expecting yourself to fall somewhere like eighty ninety percent across.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Most of those tasks. And that really is what.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: These unrelenting high standards are. It's not feeling like it's
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: okay to compromise your standards.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Or push something, push something to another day, you know, like, yeah,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I think I like that idea of making a list
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: of like all the things that you tackle in a day,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: on things that you're responsible for and things that you
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: want to get done, and then you know, just kind
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of crossing out some maybe or moving some to another
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: day that's not as busy. I know I have to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: do that sometimes because I am an overachiever. Definitely. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: have a relentless mind, so I have to kind of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: harness it sometimes and in order to take care of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: myself better, I have to kind of prioritize and you know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: really think about what can wait, what needs my immediate attention. Yeah,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of talk about cortisol levels, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody's talking about like high cortisol is the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: cause of all ills. You can't sleep high cart cortisol,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: You will have belly fat, high cortisol, swollen feet, et cetera.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Everything is blamed on high cortisol. Can it be monitored
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and what should we do or what should we know
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in order to like think about, you know, decreasing that
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: level because you know a certain amount of cortisol is
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: good for us.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Well, there's there's a couple of things. It can
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: be monitored through blood tests and I think sealabrity tests
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: as well, or through selbrity test for sure. The thing
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: is our cordstal levels vary so much. They vary throughout
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: the day. We get a spike in the morning to
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: help us wake up. That's normal, it's healthy. We'll all
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: have a different baseline and it will of course vary
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: based on what's going on. So to really understand our
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: cortinal levels, we'd need a cross section at distent times,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: you know, across the week, across the month, and then
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: we could see how's this varying.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I wish there was like a yeah, I wish there
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: was like a monitor you could wear that would just
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: tell you maybe my ring, the oral ring, can it
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: monitor in my cortisol, Maybe we should put a request
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for that. Well.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: The other thing, well, there's two things. Actually.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: The other thing is actually what the research shows is
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: it's not always about high cortisol. It's sometimes when we're
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: so chronically stressed, it's about low cortisol. Because cortisol is
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: it's known as the stress hormone, it tends to be
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: secreted when a pathway called the hypothalamic petuitary adrenal access
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: has been activated, so that there is this ongoing secretion,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: of course, all to allow us to keep activated, keep
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: meeting the demands and this constant drip, drip drip.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: But as that has.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Been going on for a long time, if you're chronically stressed, actually,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: as you can imagine, those reserves can get depleted and
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: we're less able to secrete quite so much.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: So a lot of the time.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: When people are chronically stressed, it's not necessarily that they
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: would show high cortisol levels, but they would have low
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: quartersole levels and their big health complications with that. So,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: as with all of these things we we like to
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: point in to particular biomarkers, but it's not one silver bullet,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: and it's not a high level or a low level.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: It's you know, it's often somewhere in between that we're
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: aiming for. But a good marker of our physiological kind
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: of response to stress is heart rate variability. That shows
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: us how kind of flexible and reactive are our nervous
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: system is. And generally speaking, although again there's variations on this,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: a high heart rate variability indicates a more flexible nervous system.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: And speaking of that little notifier, I've actually been I've
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: co founded an app which sinks with Apple Watch, which
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: then learns your baseline, So it learns your baseline of
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: activation to various different things, and it can let you
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: know when you're settled, when you're activated, or when you're
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: you're rising, and then when you're coming back down, and
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: it just gives you little prompts, like we were talking
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: throughout the day, to check in and then you know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: notice what's coming up. Even if you're not aiming to regulate,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: you're just recognizing your body in these different states.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Right and just sort of developing that sort of connection again,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: back to the mind body connection. It's so important. It's
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: so so important. I think I have become a professional
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: compartmentalizer just based on my work over the years. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: you know, something's going on in my personal life, but
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I have to put that in a box and set
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: it aside and not think about it so I can
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: address what I have to address in that moment. But
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I know that suppressing our emotions is not exactly great
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: for us, and you know, I think that it can
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: cause physical impact as well. I mean, how can we
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: kind of spot the tendency in ourselves Because I definitely
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I've used it as a skill, honestly, Like I kind
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of am proud of it, because sometimes you have to
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: just stop this racing emotion, put it aside, and deal
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: with what's at hand. Yeah, what do you recommend?
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just to acknowledge it is a skill,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and I don't think it's always a bad thing.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: We do need to.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Be able to compartmentalize. I think the biggest differentiator when
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: it comes to, you know, putting emotions to one side
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: versus suppressing is our acknowledgment that they're there and that
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: they deserve coming back to at some point and That
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: doesn't always have to be in a big, you know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: processing moment. That can just be when time's pass a
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: little bit and you're feeling more regulated, or actually situations
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: have changed, you can turn back towards it and see
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: how's this feeling now. But one of the difficulties is
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of us use emotional suppression and we don't
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: realize we're doing it because we're not choosing it. It's
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: happening automatically. I call it like a brain shortcut, a
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: rise in emotional activity activation, and then this handy little
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: brain shortcuts like no, we're not feeling that, and you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: you might reach your phone, or you might have a drink,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: or you might be like, right, I'm going to do
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: more work, or you know, they can be really functional
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: things that we're doing. It's not always things that are dysfunctional.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: And then it's really hard to spot. And the other
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: thing is then it's really hard to argue with because
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: you're like, well, I got loads of work done, so
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: why wouldn't I use that, you know, as a way
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: to regulate my.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Difficult feelings.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: So the first thing is to know that emotional suppression
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: it does have a price, It does impact on our
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: physiology if we use it long term and we don't
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: have other ways of being with difficult emotions. So in
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: the book as well, I talk about this study of
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: nurses and they wrote diary entries, and these diary entries
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: were coded for their emotional coping. Nurses that were more
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: prone to emotional suppression had reduced diversity and they've got microbiome,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: so they got's literally changed based on how they were
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: responding to their emotions. And that's just one way, you know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: emotional suppression might impact our body and we know, yeah exactly,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: and that's the yeah, that impacts our immune system, that
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: impacts potentially our hormones so much so it really it
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: doesn't serve us long term, and it it might feel
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: like those health outcomes are so remote, But it also
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: has these silent ways of impacting on our relationships as well.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: We're not saying what we really feel, we're feeling disconnected.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: That can build a drift. It has an impact on
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: as well, how much you trust yourself. You know, we
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: were talking about not wanting to turn within a lot
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: of time, it's because you've been hiding so much baggage
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: back there. It's like, no, I don't want to go
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: any that right.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: So bottom line, I love talking about this because it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: just like the way I've lived my life. Always feel
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: your feelings, you know. And if you can't feel them
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: in that moment you're under a deadline, or you're on
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: live TV, or your whatever it is, you're you're driving
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the car, taking care of your kids, you put it aside,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: but come back to it later. Give yourself that time
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that you allow yourself to go back to your feelings.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned an app before, what's the name of it?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: And the app is called Samarra, so it's see m
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: I a samir.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, beautiful, We'll look for that. So good to be
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: reminded that our stress and how it affects our bodies
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: is not all in our head, doctor Sulawyin Gassen's book
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: is It's All in your Body, a practical roadmap to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: healing through mind body connection. It's available everywhere. Now, before
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I let you go though, doctor Sula and Gassen, what
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: was your last I Choose me moment?
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: My last I Choose me moment was?
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I Mean, I have them pretty frequently, but I suppose
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: the big notable one was I decided I was going
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: back to therapy myself to deal with some stresses which
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: actually might be surprised, is quite a struggle for therapists, Okay,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: we feel like we should be doing it ourselves.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So everybody needs help from time to time, and recognizing
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that it is really important it is well. I just
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: thank you for your time today. I appreciate you so much.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Hope everybody loves all these tips and pick up the book,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you guys, it's it can only help, It can only help.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: This has been great. Thank you so much, doctor Sula