text stringlengths 0 1.05k |
|---|
• Surfing as a metaphor for navigating life's challenges and emotions |
• The problem of avoidance and procrastination in coping with difficult situations |
• How avoiding difficult tasks reinforces negative emotions and makes them harder to deal with later |
• The importance of gathering data through small, manageable actions to build confidence and skills |
• Distress tolerance as a strategy for learning to navigate challenging situations despite uncomfortable emotions |
• Mastery comes after consistent effort, but acknowledging current skill level is important |
• HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) can impede coping abilities and decision-making |
• Planning and front-loading can help navigate stressful situations |
• Grounding technique can calm emotional reactivity by focusing on present sensory data |
• Catastrophic thinking can lead to irrational and negative outcomes in anxious moments |
• The inner "two-year-old" within us that reacts impulsively to emotions |
• Strategies for managing anxiety and anger include exercise, naming one's feelings, and being in nature |
• "Name it to tame it": acknowledging and labeling one's emotions can help regain control |
• Exercise as a means of discharging and regulating emotions |
• The importance of brain plasticity and flexibility in managing emotions and thinking |
• Sublimation: replacing one emotion with another (e.g. anger with exercise) |
• Dopamine release during exercise and its role in mood regulation |
• The importance of living in the present and being mindful |
• Managing chaos and rigidity in mental health |
• Coping strategies as habits that can be developed and improved with practice |
• Using rewards to build positive feelings around skill acquisition |
• Shifting focus from outcome-based goals to effort-based goals |
• SMART goal setting |
• Focusing on effort rather than outcomes, and giving oneself credit for making a plan to try |
• Emphasizing the process of getting better, rather than just achieving results. |
• Adam Stacoviak's motivations for his job, including serving the community and helping people |
• The concept of tolerating negative emotions and not immediately reacting to them |
• Using a physical stimulus like holding ice to calm down and delay reaction |
• Understanding emotional states as a process that will come and go, and needing patience and time |
• Strategies for dealing with intense emotions, including taking a break and coming back to the issue later |
• The importance of communication in relationships, particularly for "pursuers" who tend to push for conversation |
• Channeling emotions into creative expression to process and release tension |
• Becoming one's own advocate in vulnerable situations |
• Breathing techniques as a means of relaxation and calming the nervous system |
• Visualization and guided imagery as tools for reprogramming neural responses to stress |
• Mind-trickery strategies, such as imagining scenarios or environments, to reframe perceptions and emotions |
• The importance of self-reflection and consideration for one's mental state as a "steering wheel" in life. |
• Coping with emotional charges and irrational thoughts requires practice and patience, like any new skill. |
• Writing down strategies and putting them in a visible place can aid in recalling them during moments of need. |
• Trying out new approaches, even if it feels silly or after the fact, is crucial to improving mental well-being. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Living up here in Western Washington, there are a number of activities that people like to spend their time doing, and one of them that my husband likes to do is actually surf. Have you ever been surfing? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Not that I can recall. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Well, surfing is an interesting thing, because I think it takes a lot of skill, and there's multiple facets to being able to learn how to do it. Some of it is timing, balance... So many systems involved that you have to really just practice over and over and over again. And just when you t... |
The problem is that sometimes the experiences that we have throughout life pummel us, they're unexpected and unwanted, and if you've ever -- not even surfed, but just been jumping the waves in the ocean, and you get hit hard, and either take in a bunch of water or get pummeled over the coral, it's really easy to freak ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Feelings are tough. Feelings are sometimes a part of your identity even. Very protective. Like, "Wait, this is how I feel. Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong." People are very strong about their feelings. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** They are, for sure. Well, emotions are powerful. I would say emotions, at the most fundamental level, are energy. So they have to go somewhere. I would offer that we all have somewhat adaptive strategies for dealing with our feelings, and some more maladaptive, or ones that don't work very... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! We can put procrastination, avoidance... Both of those in the same thing. The problem with that as coping is that it actually reinforces itself. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** How do you mean? |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** What I mean by that is that when I avoid that thing that feels overwhelming, heavy or hard, guess what I feel when I don't have to do it? I feel relieved. I'm like "Phew! I did not have to deal with that, and now I feel better and I can just go on with my day." |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[04:09\] The problem is that I now didn't do that thing that was hard, heavy, overwhelming or scary, and so then I'm going to -- when that thing comes up again, do you think it's going to be any lighter than it was the first time? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** It's probably gonna be heavier. So what you're saying is that you get relief from this scenario, but maybe the burden of it truly doesn't really go away yet. It's still there, it's just sort of delayed. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. You actually are participating in a bind... Because what gives you the relief is actually what contributes to more of the problem. So here I don't wanna do a paper, or there's a project that's super-overwhelming and I don't know what to do, how to fix it... So I don't. I just leave ... |
If I think that the project is hard or that I can't do it, and then I don't do it, guess what I'm telling myself by avoiding it? "I can't." Because I don't have any data. I had no direct experience. So I show up to a game, ready to play; I'm like "Oh gosh, I don't know if I'm gonna win." Can you imagine if we played sp... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[laughs\] We're like "Oh, there's no game today. Sorry." |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that would be unfortunate. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right?! But that's what we do all the time in saying "I'm going to avoid this thing that's way too big, hard or heavy for me to navigate... So I'm going to avoid it." However, if I'm like "You know what, I'm actually just gonna start small." So instead of trying to complete the task, what ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Because you know that was hard for you, and you did it anyway. So if we could shift the lens of how we look at emotions to really being this sort of "skilled and unskilled", and that we all have propensities as based on what we've practiced... So some of the things, like maybe even in the ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. You see that a lot. You see people excel in their career, and suck in their health or suck in their marriage... Something is getting the better part of them, and they actually will lean in the areas where they're successful. That's why you sometimes see people really lean into their career, b... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. So imagine that actually what you're gonna do is practice what we call "distress tolerance." It's distressing to me to feel ill-equipped to do this activity, be it health-related, work-related, relational-related... And so now that's going to bring up negative emotions. But I'm gonn... |
I mean, once upon a time you weren't as skilled as you are today in your line of work, right? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[08:14\] Yeah. Yesterday I sucked. Today I'm better. \[laughter\] No, I'm just kidding. There definitely is, because I've been podcasting since 2006, so there's definitely a record of all of my bad and all of my good, or my attempts at being good, or better, at what I do. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. And so how did you get better? When you had those bad days, did you throw in the towel and you're like "I'm good." |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I show up every day. That's how I got better. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Regardless, right? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. Like, if today is gonna suck, "Oh, well. Let's just get through it." You're gonna have good days and you're gonna have bad days, but you've gotta show up; you've gotta get that time in. The age-old thought is that mastery comes after 10,000 hours of doing something. Well, I've gotta get my 10,... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right. There's so many things in life wherein we start out at novice. And some people are like "Well, no, if I'm way over here, I'm a master or an expert in this lane, then I should think that I would be an expert or a master over here. But I'm not." So it's really actually being willing t... |
End of preview. Expand in Data Studio
2019 Brain Science Transcripts
Complete transcripts from the 2019 episodes of the Brain Science podcast.
Generated from this GitHub repository.
- Downloads last month
- 20