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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Tuning Into Sound Therapy With Laura Widney [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What's up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note. Science is increasingly giving us more information about how sound frequencies can not only change our mental state but change how we feel physically too. As you're about to hear, after seeing how sound frequencies were helping her wellness clients reduce things like stress and anxiety, Laura Whitney set out to find a way to make sound therapy more accessible. She has done that by creating an app called Soaak that provides sound therapy on the go. She's here with me to talk about how sound affects us and how we can use it as a daily wellness practice. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:44] PF: Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show with me. [00:00:47] LW: Yes. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and talk with you. [00:00:50] PF: I love what you're talking about today because it's sound and all the ways that it affects us. To kick it off, I want to know your story. How did you get so interested in this topic? [00:01:01] LW: I was a hair stylist for the first part of my life. For the first 16 years of my life, I did it professionally, and I own different salons. So through a series of events, I had a really good friend of mine that was a naturopathic doctor. Me and her talked for years about natural wellness. What I did in the kind of beauty industry was I’m basically like an honorary therapist, where I listened to my clients all day. I just really had such a heart for helping people. I felt like I was helping people in what I was doing because when you look good, you feel good. So there was a component to that in what I did. But after years of really kind of wanting to make a change in my life, I went towards the holistic wellness profession. I sold my salons, and I kind of dove off a cliff, so to speak, and went into this holistic health. That's when I really started studying everything I could get my hands on, as far as energy medicine and holistic modalities, everything from IV therapy, to body work, to chiropractic, just everything. Everything that helps heal the body I really dug in. So I opened a wellness clinic, and I had that for about five years. That was really where Soaak was born because we did frequency therapy in clinic. So that was one of my favorite modalities was that sound vibration therapy because it's non-invasive. It works really good. With our Soaak app, it's now inexpensive versus the clinic. Anytime you go into any holistic wellness, you're going to spend some money. It's expensive, and it's not covered by insurance. So that was why I just loved frequency therapy. I loved sound therapy. It changed my life in so many ways, which I can get into some stories later. But that's really kind of how I got into what I'm doing now and creating my company called Soaak is from my experience with my wellness clinic. Having frequency therapy and sound therapy is one of the modalities in the clinic. [00:03:01] PF: Break that down for the listeners a little bit because when we talk about sound and frequencies, we know what music is, but we might not necessarily associate sound and sound frequencies. Can you really explain what it is we're talking about? [00:03:13] LW: Yes, okay. So the frequency specifically are specific megahertz. It's a sound, and so there's a lot of different frequency generators that generate the actual sound of the frequency. So there are trillions and trillions of frequencies in the world and in the universe, and we are all made up of a frequency. So your individual human being has its own blueprint, its own signature blueprint frequency. It's different from everybody else's. Not one person has the same frequency. We are made up of a composition of frequencies, basically, but everything has a unique frequency. So a healthy heart has its unique frequency. Skin has a unique frequency, hair. Even a cancer cell has a specific frequency. Royal Rife years ago actually was able to identify all of the different frequencies in which actual megahertz paired with what thing in our body and what physical thing. So when you play a frequency, you can play a specific megahertz, and it resonates that thing on your body. So what we did in our clinic was we actually made frequency compositions. So you can go online and Google 432 hertz, for example, or 528 hertz. Well, that is one specific frequency that's a megahertz. So it's 432 hertz. We would take those frequencies, and we would layer them with other frequencies. We did a lot of clinical trials, research stuff in our clinic that helped us identify, let's say, if you're having issues with your digestive system. It could be from a lot of things, and so one specific megahertz isn't necessarily going to fix everything. So we would identify, okay, what is wrong with the digestive system. Could it be something you ate? Could it be an allergic reaction? Could it be lack of sleep? Could it be stress? Could it be the vagal nerve, all of these things? So then we created these frequency compositions that are layered with all these specific megahertz to address that one area of the body. Everything in the universe is a frequency. My voice is a frequency. Our thoughts are omitting a frequency. We are all just reverberating these frequencies from the inside out. So it's very similar to music, where you hear a country song, for example. It puts you in a certain mood. Like it just changes what you're thinking about. It changes the way you feel inside, your emotions. You can just start crying. Then you put on your favorite gym workout playlist, and that's a completely different emotion that it stirs up in you right at the moment. Music is like a perfect example of kind of how frequencies affect you, but nobody really thinks of it like that because it's just music. Music is like a universal language. When you think about actual Soaak frequencies or megahertz, they're kind of doing the same thing. They are tuning your body to a certain frequency. So they're helping your cells, talking to your cells, and helping them oscillate at a certain frequency for optimal health. [00:06:12] PF: Are those frequencies paired with a certain type of music? Or how is it – I've seen it done different ways. How exactly do you do that? [00:06:20] LW: So we actually do all of the above. On our app, we have different listening options. So you can do the raw frequency, which is just that raw. You'll hear it when you go on the app. It's a raw frequency. Some of them are really pleasant, really relaxing. Some frequencies are pretty high-pitched, a little less palatable. So because of that, we paired them with music, which is guitar. Then we also have another option, which is nature sounds. So even our nature sounds like rain or thunder, stuff like that, and the guitar, we tune those sounds also to a certain frequency that kind of matches the frequency, that underlying frequency that it's with. We have lots of different options because everybody's different, and I get tired of listening to just the raw frequencies. Sometimes, I just want to listen to some music. Sometimes, I want to hear the rain with the nature sounds. So we have lots of options. [00:07:10] PF: Yes. I think it's really important to point out that there is just a ton of science that supports what this does. A few years ago, when I started doing some stories on this, people were like, “You're crazy,” because there was not as much research out there. Now, people really come to understand like frequencies, how they affect us, and also things like our digital world. How does that affect us? Okay, it's going to be like a two-part question because I want to talk about how this is affecting us and then how we can kind of counter that through using sound frequency. [00:07:43] LW: Yes. Again, I'll go back to the statement that everything is frequency. It is so much more popular now. You're hearing about 5G and standing close to a microwave and all of these things that were kind of they've always been a thing. But now, they're becoming a lot more popular for people to talk about. People understand it and realize, okay, yes, this invisible force that is going on around us all the time is actually affecting our emotional health, our physical health, our mental health. We get bombarded on a daily basis with frequencies of all kinds. You're driving and you hear a horn honk. That frequency alone can stress you out and make your cortisol rush through the body and really kind of negatively affect you. It's the same with standing close to the microwave when you're microwaving your food or anything like that. Everything affects us. So with sound frequencies and also with positive thoughts, because you'll know later when we talk about the Soaak app, we have positive affirmations. So we truly believe that mindset is everything. When you get your mindset into this positive state to where you're not ruminating on these negative thoughts, that is creating basically a frequency around you that is solid and peaceful. It actually – I believe it's like a shield where when you are in a good state of mind, all of this negativity, whether it's 5G or your kids screaming at you, whenever it is, it kind of bounces off you because you are in a good state, and you are holding your peace. You are holding that frequency tight and strong. [00:09:23] PF: In some cases now, I think people are so attuned to having that digital impact in their life to being surrounded by these frequencies that they either don't realize that they feel bad because of it. Or they don't associate the way they feel with the frequencies they're around. [00:09:40] LW: Yes. I think that's probably the second one is probably most of our issues. We just don't realize what's happening. We just don't realize what's going on. We get very used to things. The technology that happens around us is kind of a gradual thing. When I was 16, I had a flip phone. We didn't have a smartphone. We played outside a lot as most kids did back then. Then gradually, now years later, it's like, man, I am literally either with my computer or my phone or my iPad or at my TV. Or I am sitting next to devices all day long. It's kind of a gradual thing. Now, it's just that's life. So it's something to be aware of but also not to be scared of. [00:10:25] PF: But I see using frequencies sort of like house cleaning because it's like you collect all this garbage in your body through all the digital interactions, through all the electric frequencies that we're collecting. How does that kind of cleanse the palate as it works? [00:10:40] LW: So I always like to explain it like we're Velcro, and all the frequencies that are happening during the day, we're just like walking through them constantly, and they're sticking on us. The less protected you are and the less your guard is down, the more that things can kind of latch onto you and kind of get into your system. So we are energy, and our energy just piles on different things, different energies from other people. It can really Velcro to us. Unless you really take the time to peel off those layers, whether it's through therapy or going outside and grounding or taking a run, whatever it is that helps you clear your head and clear your emotions, if you don't do those things, then it's just layers upon layers every day. After a decade, you're going to be feeling really sick. You're going to be really depressed or whatever it is that your ailment is. With the frequencies, I always say when you listen to the frequencies, and you can equate this to like music too, your favorite song. When you listen to it within a couple minutes, you can feel. You can literally feel almost the chemical response that happens inside your body to make your dopamine or whatever go up and make you happy. You feel the difference. So that's how the frequencies work. They actually are talking to your cells, and they're telling yourselves, “Hey.” Your cells are kind of going crazy and a little chaotic because your energy is a little out of balance. The frequencies are like a tuning fork to your cell. So they're telling your cell, “Okay, oscillate properly. Oscillate properly.” So your cells listen and then attune to whatever the frequency is that they're hearing. That's how the frequencies help balance the energy system and balance the body. When that happens, it's basically like dissipates or makes that negative chaotic energy disappear. It just dissipates, and it's like you can take a big deep breath. You feel like you've just taken a big deep breath, and you feel lighter afterwards. It's really crazy, but it really helps with any emotional kind of heaviness. It just makes you feel like you just drank a big glass of water and have been out in the sunshine for a couple minutes. That's kind of what it feels like after you do it. [00:12:45] PF: Yes. You had so much experience of treating clients in your wellness center. What would you see in terms of how long it takes for that to take effect, and then how long does that last? Because that's what people want to know too. It's like is this something I am going to walk out and then it's like, “Oh, I'm right back to my old self.”? [00:13:04] LW: Yes. Energy is subtle. Any kind of modality that works with energy, energy medicine, really even massage, even physical things, it's working with the subtle energy body. So specifically, frequency therapy, you want to continue to retrain your energy to oscillate properly. So you want to do it every day if you can, and that that was one reason why. That was the main reason why we digitized the frequency therapy in clinic. That's where Soaak was really born is because people needed to come. We recommended two to three times a week because that was the practical amount of time I could get people in the clinic. It was $50 a session in clinic. That’s two to three times a week, 600; 800 dollars a month. I mean, that's a lot. But that's what was necessary. Me personally and all my staff, we did every day because we had the equipment there, and we were able to. That was what really made a difference. That's why we created Soaak because I think everybody should do it every day, if possible, and because that's what really makes it stick. But as far as how long it takes to help, within minutes of listening to some of the frequencies, you can feel it. There are some things that I have heard people say, “I have listened to this weeks and weeks and not really felt anything. But after listening to it a month, everything changed.” I really feel like we are like an onion. You peel back layers of an onion, and you don't really even feel or know you're doing anything. But you're doing a lot. Then by the time you've finally get to that one piece that's like, “Oh, man. That is what shifted it all,” it shifts at all, and then you feel better. I always tell people do it as much as you can and be as consistent as you can with it. But also have good daily habits around the frequencies. So when you're listening to the frequency, drink a big glass of water. Make sure you are super hydrated. Make sure you are either saying your mindful intentions. Or if you have time and can close your eyes and sit down, meditate while you're doing it. Make it a habitual thing every single day, where you're also layering other really good habits with it because when you do that, man, I guarantee that you're going to feel so much better every day. Over time, you're going to change big things in your life. [00:15:26] PF: Yes. It's kind of like exercise where you can start out and just do something really, really gradual. Then before it, it's become such a part of your daily routines that you can't really keep going without it. [00:15:38] LW: That's exactly right. [00:15:40] PF: Let's talk about some of the things that you've seen it do for anxiety and depression because those are two of the biggest things that we hear about across the board but then also at Live Happy. We get a lot of requests for information on that. That's always the biggest demand. What can sound frequencies do to help with anxiety and depression? Not only in adults but let's talk about children too. [00:16:00 ] LW: Yes. So that's such a huge thing that we see testimonials from people using the frequencies is really dissipating that feeling, that heaviness feeling that you get from anxiety and depression. Anxiety can come from a lot of different things. This is where my background in my wellness clinic really comes in handy because I've not only studied how energy works and what's happening to your energy when you're anxious or depressed but also the physical body. So a lot of times, anxiety can come from a food allergy. It can come from lack of sleep. It can come from a hormonal imbalance. Same with depression, it can come from pathogens in the gut or in the brain. So there's a lot of physical reasons why you have these things. It can also come from real trauma, emotional turmoil at home, and stuff like that as well. So it's not just one thing that causes it. So that's why our frequency compositions are so powerful because we took all of that into consideration when we made the anti-anxiety frequency or when we made the depression frequency because it's addressing a lot. There's a lot going on. There's places in you that get stuck and that get pent up that need to be released. So that's what sound frequencies do, again, is they help release kind of that stagnant stuck energy in that spot, and it helps your cells to oscillate properly. That's when you feel kind of that flood of relief. Or I keep saying it just dissipates, but that feeling of anxious, anxious. You're clinching your fist, and you listen to the frequencies, and you kind of just let it go, where it just kind of goes away for a second. Then that's when it's so important to get that mindset in there as well to really help yourself make it stick. You're saying, “Okay, I'm going to have a great day. No obstacle is going to stress me out today.” Really get your mind right to where you just are in a completely different thought process after that. [00:17:59] PF: Yes. Can you address how a parent could use this? Because a child – we see so much anxiety with children. The stories I've heard are just absolutely heartbreak, especially post-pandemic, and parents don't know how to help their children with anxiety. Now, a child's not necessarily going to slap some headphones on and listen to some sound frequencies. How can they do this? How can parents integrate that into their children's getting ready for school, driving to school routine? [00:18:25] LW: Love it. The cool thing about kids and even pets is they are so much more susceptible to the good energy. They just kind of receive it. They don't have any like mental blocks of like, “Oh, what is this? This isn't going to work.” [00:18:39] PF: “I'm not sure this is working.” [00:18:41] LW: Yes. They don't have that mind barrier that adults do once we get older and get our own opinion. So it seems to really work well. We've seen it with pets too. Again, you can play it through your cell phone. You don't even have to have headphones. You can just play it right through the speaker on your phone. [00:18:58] PF: I think what you're doing is just incredible, and you've referenced the app. Can you talk about how you took all this learning, all this knowledge that you had for it and then turned it into something that was so accessible through an app? [00:19:10] LW: Really the biggest barrier that I kept seeing was time and money. That's kind of the case with everything. So I kept saying, okay, how can I make this more accessible to people and more affordable? Because the essence of the treatment was really inexpensive. So I kept telling my team. I'm like, “We need to digitize this. We need to get this in an app where people can do it 24/7.” The other issue was if we have somebody with severe depression or chronic anxiety, they could come in for a treatment and do great. But what happens at midnight when something triggers them, and they're having an anxiety attack or a panic attack or deep depression? That was when they needed the frequency the most is right in that moment or if they couldn't sleep. We have a sleep frequency. So I kept telling my team, “We have to digitize this.” We got with some developers, and we were able to create an app and put all of our frequencies online. So we took the top 30 frequencies that worked the best in clinic and that we got the best reviews and testimonies. We put those on our Soaak app. So that's how the Soaak app came to be and why it's available now. [00:20:17] PF: That's incredible. I know that we're going to give our listeners a free trial to it. I know it's a company for you, but it's so much more. For you, it's a mission. I'm just impressed with how you've just kept elevating what you're doing and making it more accessible to more people. So what is it ultimately that you hope to see? As you look down the road, what do you hope that everyone starts learning about sound frequencies and how it will change the world? [00:20:42] LW: Yes. I love that. Thank you for that question. I love answering this question. The sound frequencies are amazing, and I hope everybody tries them, and I hope it gives everyone relief in the moment they need it. Because I feel like when you have an accumulation of things that happen to you that set you back, after weeks or months or years of that happening, you're just in a funk. It’s really hard to get out of that. So with Soaak, I'm hoping that people don't get in that funk. I'm hoping that they can hold their peace and hold their joy and hold on to the positive things in their life through daily mindful intentions and through daily uplifting sounds and frequencies. [00:21:23] PF: Laura, you're doing wonderful things. I'm so excited that you had time to sit down and talk with me. I thank you for everything that you're putting out. I'm really excited to share this with our listeners and let them experience it for themselves. [00:21:35] LW: Thank you for having me. This has been awesome. You've been so fun to talk to. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:42] PF: That was Laura Widney of Soaak Technologies, talking about how we can use sound to improve our mental and physical well-being. If you'd like to learn more about Laura, get a free trial of her app, or follow her on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Finding Happiness in Hard Times with Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher [INTRODUCTION]   [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 440 of Live Happy Now. In difficult times, sometimes we're left wondering if it's selfish to focus on pursuing happiness. But this week's guest is here to explain why right now is more important than ever. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with Matt Derrenbacher, Solo Rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Columbia, Missouri. In the face of violence and uncertainty in the Middle East that have affected many of us here in the US, Matt sat down to talk with me about the importance of seeking happiness in hard times and what we can do when we're not sure what to say. He also gives us some great tips for managing the anxiety and overwhelm that accompany uncertain times. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:51] PF: Matt, thanks for being with me here today. [0:00:54] MD: Thanks for having me. [0:00:55] PF: We needed to have a conversation because I reached out. I know you've been doing a lot of interviews. And I've seen you in the newspaper. You're doing some radio, some TV. This is just a really difficult time. There's horrific violence going on in the Middle East. We have the conflict in Ukraine continuing. I wanted to know from your perspective, how do you start the conversation with people who are struggling with all the things that are going on right now? [0:01:22] MD: Thank you. That's a very important question. A lot of times, the conversations already started with so much access to information through social media, through news, through conversations, it's something that – especially with things going on in the Middle East right now for the Jewish community in particular, we think of like three degrees of separation. But for a lot of communities, it's one degree of separation. Someone knows someone or has family members. One of our charter members, one of the founding members of our congregation, his daughter and son-in-law were killed a little under two weeks ago. For a lot of people, the intensity of all of the conflicts across the globe, there's already an internal dialogue going on. For me approaching these conversations, it's trying to discover where each person is at in that internal dialogue and picking it up from there. [0:02:23] PF: And that's a great way to approach it. Because sometimes we as individuals don't even know what to say. It's like I find myself stammering a lot right now. I don't know what to say. Because we can't make sense of everything that's going on. Instead of trying to make sense of it, what path should we be taking instead? [0:02:44] MD: The path that myself and my congregation have been going on is the path of peace and holding space. Last week, we held a vigil. And it wasn't a vigil for one particular group or another. It was a vigil to remember those who were killed and to hold space for a hope for peace. In approaching these conversations, our society and social media has gotten so fractured, so fractured where it's you have to pick one side or the other. And there's not a lot of room in the middle for growth, for learning, for healing. And I think that's an important thing to remember is that middle space where the real conversations are being had is where the greatest amount of healing can happen. And that's where compassion is found, right? On both ends of whatever spectrum you may fall in for whatever issue it may be, there's this sort of tendency to pretend like compassion is a finite resource where we can only use – [0:03:49] PF: I'm not going to spend it on that. Yeah. [0:03:53] MD: I can only spend it on the group that I care about. And we miss the entirety of the human experience, right? That there are lots of people facing a lot of loss right now. And to hold compassion, and to hold space and to hope for peace and healing, that's where we ourselves can begin to heal and figure out where we really fall interacting with any of these big issues. [0:04:16] PF: And where do you have people start with that? Because finding compassion can be difficult when you're outraged, when there's so much chatter around you that is venomous. As you said, it's one side or the other. These are no longer human humans. They're parts of a group. And so, where do you start looking for that compassion and toning down the noise? [0:04:37] MD: I think the best thing we can do is take a step back. Because when we're on social media constantly, it is unfiltered information, right? And so, anyone with any sort of perspective or agenda can put something out there that will upset someone. And that misinformation will continue to grow and to spread and cause more anger and more violence. And by taking a step back and recognizing the humanity of each one of the situations, we can hope for better conversations. Honestly, just better conversations where we can recognize the pain that everyone is feeling. [0:05:17] PF: But how do we talk with someone who has very strong feelings that don't include compassion? That don't include the humanity aspect of it? [0:05:26] MD: That's the hard part, right? I mean, I will say, even being a part of a community that has been deeply affected by the events going on, especially in the Middle East. I mean, Shabbat and Simchat Torah, one of our supposed to be happiest holidays where we're celebrating finishing the completion of a Torah cycle, it was the deadliest 24/48 hours for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. With that, there's deep pain, there's deep mourning, but there's also a lot of deep anger too. Speaking from my own context, my own community, it can be really easy to jump to that place of anger, of betrayal and being able to take a step back from some of that and to just wade through the feelings. Wade through the feelings of loss, of betrayal, of pain. And to really sit with that and then to recognize that we have community. That we have one another. And that we can support one another. During our vigil at Thursday night, I was talking about the holiness of the oneness of community, right? Regardless of where an individual sits on any particular issue, coming together as a community can sort of help soften those edges. [0:06:45] PF: And I think you bring up a really good point about people having to sort through their feelings. We're not asking or saying that people should deny the anger, and the outrage and all the other feelings, the sense of betrayal that comes with that. I think you do have to wade through all those before you can reach that sense of compassion. And you're kind of the guidance that they get. How do you navigate people through those emotions? Because we know that if you don't feel those emotions, if you don't deal with them, they will come back at another time and it won't be convenient. [0:07:21] MD: Right. [0:07:21] PF: How do we do that? How do we walk through some of these feelings that people are having right now? [0:07:26] MD: Right. Well, and it only won't be convenient, but they can also intensify over time too, right? And then they can be misdirected. A lot of times when we push those emotions down and then they start to come out, they come out at people who we don't necessarily want them to come out towards or in situations we're not particularly upset about. By really leaning into those feelings, leaning into the anger, the pain, the mourning, the loss and being able to transform those into sort of conduits for fighting for a better future, I think that's how we can really honor those feelings. In the Jewish Community, memory is one of the strongest things. And one of our greatest values is Tikkun olam, which is to repair the world. And so, at the end of every service, we list off the names of those in our lives who have died in this season and years past and we say Zichrona Livrocho, may their memory be a blessing and a guiding light along our journeys. So that we continue to fight for a better future in their honor. [0:08:35] PF: That's really powerful. And someone doesn't have to be part of the Jewish community to participate and to be part of these rituals and start understanding. And how does that help them heal? Even if we're not of the Jewish faith, how does that help us heal when we can participate in something like that? [0:08:55] MD: Oh, absolutely. A lot of Jewish values can be boiled down to universal values, right? And so, I speak from my own context as a rabbi. And so, I use a lot of the language that is familiar to me. But taking a step outside of that, the idea of memory. Cultures around the world, religious traditions around the world plays a very heavy focus on memory, right? Memory is how we learn from the past. It's how we bring the joys, the pain, the complications, everything that life has to offer, all of those past experiences. If we allow them to be honored in a beautiful way, then they can help us to grow into better people. Into the people that our ancestors would be proud of. And then we can then hope that the future generations will look back at us and say, "Hey, they did a really good job laying a foundation for us." [0:09:46] PF: I like that. I like that a lot. How do you help people with the uncertainty right now? Life is always uncertain. It is filled with uncertainty. And we've learned that very well through the last three years. And now things are very tumultuous, very disrupted. What techniques or what practices do you encourage to help people deal with the uncertainty? Because uncertainty breeds anxiety. And then we know that can take you all kinds of places. How do people deal with what's going on right now? [0:10:17] MD: Someone who is both generally anxious and Jewish, I've learned to really lean into and love questions and certainty. Uncertainty can be very scary. It can be very daunting. There can be a lot attached to it. But it can also be an opportunity, right? If there's uncertainty then we can create a new direction. If things are going terribly wrong and we see no way forward, well, then maybe all we have to do is turn right or turn left and a new opportunity opens for us. I think the biggest thing that I can say is just learn to be friends with uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't have to be scary. It can be an opportunity. It can be an invitation. I would say be friends with uncertainty and be okay with taking a step back. I know I have to – even though in the position I'm in people, expect me to know what's going on and when so I can have an informed opinion about whatever. Taking a step back is very important, right? Because it's the cliche of the oxygen mask in the airplane, right? You got to put yours on. Take care of yourself; mind, body, spirit. And then you can walk with someone else in that conversation that you're having. And whoever you're speaking with, you may not agree, you may not even get along that well, but you're doing the work together. And that's the important thing is that connection, that community building. It's not about agreeing. It's about growing together. [0:11:52] PF: Yeah. And I do want to get more into the idea of community here in a moment, but I also want to say that not everyone understands the people who do feel a sense of loss. Some of us are more removed from it than others. And we're at different spaces and different places. If we are one of those people that feels removed from it, what are some things that we need to be keeping in mind as we talk to other people? [0:12:19] MD: I'd say one of the biggest things that we can do actually is to reach out to other people. Think about those in your life who this may be affecting and just say, "Hey, how are you doing?" Because chances are, regardless of how they're affected, the level of loss, the degrees of separation from loss, there is that uncertainty, right? And so, in order to become friends with that uncertainty, we need to know that we're supported. [0:12:45] PF: That's right. [0:12:46] MD: One of the greatest things we can do is just be there for one another and questions. I would say one of the most meaningful parts of this whole experience has been people that are not affiliated with the community or are pretty far removed from the situation, reaching out and saying, "Hey, I know there's a lot going on. I don't quite understand it. But are you okay?" And that means the world. And that's where those connections and those opportunities for education and just beautiful growth can happen. [0:13:22] PF: I love that. Because that is one challenge. Even for myself, it's like I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't always know what to say. I'm at a loss for words. And so, being able to – I love that. Just asking if someone's okay. Just checking in. [0:13:38] MD: Mm-hmm. Yeah. A lot of times, if we don't know what to say, we can ask a question or we can just be. Just letting someone know, "Hey, I know there's a lot going on right now. I'm here for you if you need anything." That's it. [0:13:51] PF: I love that. I love that. And so, one thing that – at Live Happy, obviously our mission is always about our well-being, living a happy life. And for some people right now, it can seem selfish. It can seem counterintuitive to be prioritizing our own happiness right now. Because it's a very difficult time. Can you talk about why it's important for us – no matter what is going on in the world, it's important for us to still be pursuing our own well-being and pursuing our own happiness. [0:14:20] MD: Pursuing our own happiness and our own well-being is sort of the key to the better future that we're hoping for, right? If we aren't taking care of ourselves, then we're going further and further down whatever rabbit hole we're already in. We're feeling worse about ourselves. We're feeling worse about the situation. And so, being able to take that step back to take care of ourselves and recognizing that honoring ourselves is actually honoring the situation. Because then we can approach it from a more positive viewpoint, right? We can ask tough questions. Have meaningful conversations. And we can have that growth happen within ourselves. And that sort of becomes contagious, right? If someone sees, "Hey, okay. Maybe there is a little bit of hope in this really terrible, horrific situation." Well, then we can use that to drive towards that better future together. [0:15:13] PF: I like that. Because you are always – you are a ray of sunshine wrapped around a rainbow. I mean, you are. You're just always, always happy. And what are some things that you do to keep yourself positive and hopeful throughout everything that's going on? And you've got kind of double pressure because you've got whatever is going on with you. And then you also have people who are depending on you to inform them, to enlighten them, to encourage them. What are your practices? And how do you stay so dang cheery? [0:15:48] MD: No. I appreciate that a lot actually. I think I stay positive because life is more fun that way. And I know that's a very, very weird thing to say in a conversation like this. But we need to hold things in tension, right? We need to recognize that the human experience is very messy, it's very complex, where we can experience the greatest joys in life and we can witness the greatest horrors in life. I think the greatest example that I can think of – sorry. It's coming from a specifically Jewish context. But at the end of a Jewish wedding, there's the smashing of the glass, right? And so, we break the glass. Everyone shouts mazel tov, which means congratulations. And it's a moment of recognition of the complicated nature of life, right? It's this beautiful moment where two souls are coming together. They're embarking on a new committed life together. And we break the glass to recognize that there is suffering in the world. That our world is incomplete. At this very beautiful, joyous moment, we break the glass to recognize that there's still work to be done in our world. And both things can be true at the exact same time. I choose to face the complexities of the world with joy in my heart. Because otherwise it would be completely overwhelming, right? [0:17:21] PF: Yeah. I love that. [0:17:24] MD: Thanks. [0:17:25] PF: How do you do that? How do you maintain that in the face of negativity? In the face of overwhelm? What are some of your go-to practices that help you do that? [0:17:36] MD: For me, it's all about connection. I find joy in connection. In like deep and meaningful connection, right? Whether it's with a person. Whether it's with one of our furry friends. Whether it's with nature in general, right? Sometimes being alone in nature going for a walk to clear the head, get the body moving, get the spirit engaged with the organic, natural world, it can be a very, very moving experience, right? A lot of people say like, "I found God outside. I found God in the breeze. I discovered my spirituality when I was out in the forest." Things like that. And then I experience incredible connection anytime I give one of my doggies a hug. [0:18:24] PF: Exactly. And all this is scientifically proven. Being in nature has incredible scientifically shown benefits. Same thing with petting a dog, hugging a dog, looking at a dog. I mean, pet. I'm not being exclusive. I'm not dogist. [0:18:39] MD: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I am a little bit. I'm very team dog. But I appreciate all the beautiful critters on the earth. Well, and with other people too, right? I really do find something so sacred about just being in community with one another. Whether it's friends. Whether it's family. Whether it's a wider group of people that just want to come together to be. I find each one of those very sacred in their own way. Connection with people. Connection with animals. Connection with the natural world. I really rely on those connections. Because there's beauty in connection. [0:19:22] PF: And we need it. As humans, we need that. We crave that and we thrive on it. That's really important. And I did want to ask you about something else, and that is obviously news coverage. We have news coverage everywhere we turn. And if we try to get away from the – I think some people still watch it on TV. But it's like our phone is constantly going off. Everything in our computer is coming at us. Can we talk about the difference between staying informed and being consumed by the news? Because what's going on is horrific. And the images are haunting and you cannot unsee that if you watch that. What kind of advice is there? Some people feel like if I don't watch this, it kind of reminds me of 9/11 where people felt they needed to be glued to it. It's like I've got to watch this tragedy unfold because I'm part of it. That's also very dangerous to our psyche. Tell us how you approach that. [0:20:20] MD: Yeah. It can get – I really like the way you phrased that. It can get very dangerous very quickly, right? And there is a very fine line, especially with all of our access to information and misinformation. There's a very fine line between staying informed and being consumed. Staying informed means that we interact with what's going on. We consume news where we are the ones doing the consuming, right? We, as the individual or the community have the agency on what we consume rather than it consuming us. Because when all of the information and misinformation come together and consume us, then we're reacting to a reaction to a reaction, right? It's not even – there's so many degrees of separation that it becomes just easy to be fueled by anger and to feel disillusioned and to not know what to do. And at that point, we are consumed. If we're able to take a step back and reclaim our agency as individuals consuming the news and consuming what's going on, then we are approaching the situations intentionally. We're approaching them thoughtfully. And we have more capacity to approach them with compassion. [0:21:43] PF: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because one thing that I've stopped doing is watching live news. I do not watch live images. I do not watch video images. Because those are generally intended to be – grab your attention. And they're often very explicit. And so, that is one way that I kind of shelter myself from the atrocity of the news is to I choose to consume it by text and read only about the news. That way, I can kind of control what's coming into my head and I don't have images that I then have to live with and try to figure out where I'm going to place them now that they're stuck in my head. [0:22:23] MD: Yeah. Well, and that's the hard part about algorithms, right? On one hand, if you only follow cute animal accounts, it's going to keep pumping out cute animals, right? You're going to see a pig rolling in the mud and you're going to laugh and you're going to feel great. Or the algorithm can go the other way too. If you interact with particularly political material or any sort of content that is related around a specific viewpoint on, a conflict on something that's going on in the world, then it's going to keep pushing that. And then we're going to start reacting emotionally in ways that we wouldn't normally do, right? [0:23:05] PF: And I think the danger of that too is we start seeing the world through that lens. Because if that's all we're being fed – to your point, if we think it's just the world is full of cute little barnyard animals rolling around, the world's a wonderful place. But if it's just this constant stream of bad news and horrific pictures, the world feels unsafe. We're going to angry. We're going to be anxious and overwhelmed. [0:23:30] MD: Well, and it perpetuates violence, right? Generally, when anything happens with Israel, synagogues get targeted. Whether it's bomb threats. Or in Tunisia a couple of days ago, there was a synagogue that was burned because of events that are happening related to the Middle East. And the same thing can be said for the Muslim community too, right? If something happens, Islamophobia skyrockets, anti-Semitism skyrockets, things related to Israel sometimes. And it can be a very, very difficult thing to mediate because we have complete access to information and misinformation. And that leads to anger. And that leads to more cycles of violence. And I think reclaiming our agency as individuals who consume the news rather than are consumed by the news can help us break those cycles. And then we can lean into community. We can lean into hope and peacemaking rather than anger, and violence and destruction. [0:24:35] PF: I love that. Matt, you are always insightful, always wonderful to talk to. I really appreciate you sitting down with me and talking about this. It is a hard time, but it's also important to keep in mind that we can keep pursuing our happiness during this time. And we can keep reaching out to others and kind of be that light that other people need to see. [0:24:56] MD: Mm-hmm. And I appreciate you creating the space so that we can have these conversations and we can push out the noise for just a little while and remember the core of humanity at the heart of all of this. [0:25:08] PF: Yeah. It's still intact. [0:25:10] MD: Absolutely. [OUTRO] [0:25:16] PF: That was Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher, talking about finding happiness in hard times. If you'd like to learn more about Matt or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Overcoming Unhappiness at Work With Greg Kettner [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 439 of Live Happy Now. If you aren't loving your life at work, you're not alone. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with Greg Kettner, Founder of the organization WorkHappy and an expert in workplace well-being. New research shows that workers are the unhappiest they've been in years, and Greg's here to talk with me about why we're becoming less happy on the job, what it means to our mental health, and what we can do to make things better. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:35] PF: Hey, Greg. Thanks for coming back. [00:00:38] GK: Hey, Paula. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you. It's been a couple months. But, yes, life is good. It's always good to see your face. [00:00:44] PF: That's so awesome. Well, so new study is out and the first thing I thought – okay, two things popped in my mind when I read it. First was like, “Man, that's really sad.” The other one was like, “I need to talk to Greg about this.” [00:00:56] GK: Well, good. [00:00:58] PF: As you know, that's what I did. I reached out, and I wanted to talk to you because this study, it's telling us that workers are the unhappiest that they've been in three years. Then when you trace that back and it's like three years ago, we were in a pandemic, and we were all pretty miserable. So when we say we're less happy than we were then, that's a sad state of things. I guess for starters, before we talk about the why, does that kind of line up with what you're seeing in the work that you do? [00:01:25] GK: Yes. I think we all went in hunkered down, and it was brand new, right? Nobody knew what to do. Are we working from home? How do we work from home, right? I mean, remember Skype. I mean – [00:01:37] PF: Who had Skype anyway? What? [00:01:40] GK: Now, Zoom is a verb, right? [00:01:42] PF: That's it. [00:01:43] GK: So now, we've learned how to go through it. But now, people are struggling with I have to bring my employees back to the office. Or employees are like, “I don't want to go back. I enjoy working on my pajamas and getting my work done.” So it is. I'm finding the same thing that people are just like, “I want to do meaningful and purposeful work and do something that's going to mean something, not just a paycheck anymore.” [00:02:09] PF: So do you think that's a big part of what's driving this dissatisfaction? Because I noticed in the study, they talked about it's not like the ups and downs that we used to have with work where it's like, “I'm really mad at my boss.” It’s just a complete apathy and disinterest. [00:02:24] GK: Yes. I think also, too, people have kind of had more time and even me personally, right? I got a phone call two weeks in the pandemic, and my boss was like, “We've taken away your job. You're no longer essential.” [00:02:38] PF: Which is everybody wants to hear that. I'm nonessential. [00:02:42] GK: I go, “If I'm going down, I'm going down.” So I'm like, “Well, I think you're nonessential, right? [00:02:47] PF: I'm not nonessential. You are. [00:02:50] GK: He felt that he could save money by eliminating my position, and I was mad. I was like no fault of my own. I had increased sales. I had done everything that he’d ask, and here I was. But looking back three years, I took the lemons and made lemonade and transitioned like a lot of people did. Now, I'm helping people. How do we work happy, whether we are back in the office or working remote? It is a struggle for a lot of people. [00:03:18] PF: Yes. Do you think there are people who feel like they might have missed that window to reinvent themselves, and they've now – instead of doing as you did, you were kind of forced into a situation where you had to make a change, and you created basically your dream job. I know other people have done similar things. Do you think people who didn't take that opportunity are feeling depressed and trapped in their old jobs? [00:03:44] GK: Yes. For sure, right? Because they look back and going, “Well, Greg's doing it. Paula's doing it? Why am I not, right?” You missed the boat. Some of it is the older workforce, they were getting towards retirement. They didn't know how to pivot, right? I mean, I'm on the older end, too, right? Whereas my daughter who's 18 would show me how to use Zoom, right? So I have that advantage. But I think that is a lot of people like, “Well, I guess I missed my boat. I've got 5 to 10 years left. Let's just keep our head down and keep grinding.” That's no way to work. [00:04:18] PF: How dangerous is that for us to stay in that kind of a work mode? Because work constitutes such a huge part of our day. Then whether we're unhappy or happy, it affects how we go into that night, which then sets up the following day. So for us to stay in a mode where it's like, “I'll just suck it up and hate what I do,” what does that do to us? [00:04:42] GK: Well, it brings us down. It's not good for our mental health, right? You get in that spiral and in the mindset. There's ways to deal with that depression, right? I mean, a lot of people who work really hard, they turn to the bottle. I've done that before myself, and that's one way to get rid of like, “Uh, my job sucks.” But the other way is want to take the other approach and do meditation or get a hobby or increase your friends, right? One of the biggest predictabilities of happy people at work are the friends that they have, right? If you have one or two good friends at work, life is much better because you have those people to confide with. You can go to lunch with them. You can talk about your problems or your successes, that kind of thing. Yes. If you don't do something, it's a long 5 to 10 years if you're miserable at work. [00:05:33] PF: Yes. Those friendships at work are everything. I know, especially in my 20s and 30s, that's where my friend group came from. I'm still friends with people in my very first newspaper job. We were little hooligans, and we're still friends and basically because we know where all the bodies are buried. But blackmail can be a great bonding experience. But that is. We had such great times. We had such a great friendship. Even though we were getting paid dirt, and we didn't like the kind of stories we’re were having to write, we had a great time. That changes that whole experience. [00:06:11] GK: Yes. The happiest I've ever been at work were jobs where I did have good friends, where we loved what we did, and it necessarily wasn't money. Because I've had jobs that have paid more money but I wasn't happy. I was just reading a study a couple of weeks ago where people now would rather felt like their voices heard, that they matter, a pat on the back, congratulations. Those kinds of things versus a $10,000 raise. [00:06:37] PF: Which is stunning because we used to really think about the money, and that was our measure of success. What changed? What has changed that mindset a little bit? [00:06:45] GK: I just think we came to a realization during the pandemic that anything can happen to us, right? I know that as horrible as it was, I tended or tried to stay on the positive side, and I did well. But there were days of overwhelm and whatnot. But just being in the mindset of I'm here to serve. I'm here to help other people. It's just amazing how much better we feel. Then that leads, obviously, as you know, into our personal lives, into our families, into our spouses, into our kids, right? If we come home from work and we're all grumpy, well, then your family's going to be grumpy. Our friends are going to be grumpy. It spirals. [00:07:22] PF: Now, what practices do you use or do you recommend? Because I think you don't come home from work grumpy anymore. But what do you recommend when someone – when you have a bad day, it is hard to detach from that, to disengage and reset yourself. Do you have any tips that you offer people of if you're in a situation, you don't like your job? You're trying to get out of it, but you're not there yet. How can they do that? How can they do that little reset before they walk in the door and bring down the entire house? [00:07:49] GK: Yes. No. I think it's whether meeting someone after work or going and doing something. I like to golf. So if I have a bad day and when I pick Becky up, and she's like, “Ooh, do you need to go golfing tonight,” right? I mean, you can – but golfing, to me, I usually go by myself, just because I like the solace of it but just doing stuff like that. But in the morning, it's a routine, right? I get up and I exercise and I like to exercise before I do my meditation and my breathing because it gets me in the right frame of mind, right? It gets the endorphins going. So I'm feeling better already. Another thing is I don't check my phone until eight o'clock, until I start working, or my email. Whatever it is, right? Because you can spend hours, and I'm just as guilty of it. Now, I'm keeping my phone in the office. When I go to bed, I got an Alexa that wakes me up in the morning but not the doom scrolling, right? But it's doing little things. I have ADHD, so I'm all over the map. But I never thought I would be able to meditate, and I started out. I went to YouTube, and there was a three-minute meditation. Man, that first one was so long. [00:09:00] PF: Yes, the longest three minutes of your life. [00:09:04] GK: Right? I know I was nowhere near meditation because meditation is trying to get your mind to think of nothing. But now, I'm up to 20 minutes every morning. [00:09:12] PF: Oh, wow. That’s incredible. So it's a practice, right? But if we do the right things and then we have to do brief. Some people, it's journaling. Some people, it's going for a walk. Some people, it's just listening. Now that I'm married, I've learned how to listen instead of fix things, and that's so much better, whether I'm the one who's listening or Becky is the one who's listening, when I've had a rough day as well, too, right? It's that release valve. It's like a pressure cooker. Take the lid off for a bit, talk about it, and you're just like, “Ooh, okay.” The rest of the evening is going to go better. [00:09:43] PF: That's terrific. So what about people who are still working at home? Because I know there are some really interesting findings from Gallup about remote employees, and that's getting a lot of attention right now. Basically, it's saying that remote workers are feeling very disconnected from their workplace, from their mission, and the purpose. That brings up, too, what you were talking about having your friend at work. If you're not going to work and you're working remotely, even if you have banter on Slack or something like that, it's not the same. So you don't have that connection. So I want to talk about how you can deal with that. Then it's like why is – since remote working, we're looking at that as being this next big thing. How are we going to get through this feeling of disconnection? [00:10:25] GK: Yes. Well, I've certainly felt that, right? I'm an extrovert. So I sit in my room all day, in my office here. My wife is inverted, and she's going into the bank and working, right? So she has all the people, I don't, and our personalities are completely different. So what I've been doing twice a week, I will set up lunches or coffees with a friend, right? Even if it's just a half hour, I go talk to them, get out of the house. But I also – I set my phone for 45 minutes. Every 45 minutes, it goes off, and I get up, and I go outside, and I walk for 15 minutes or change laundry or whatever it is. But when we're at our desk – and you know this well, too. You work from home a lot as well. We're sitting here sedentary, and that's not good for our health or mental health, so whether it's getting up and going and seeing a friend. The other thing is be more intentional about getting together. My brother is a psychologist. He just wrote an article about how men are feeling more lonely even than women are, right? Because women are really good at connecting. Guys are good at getting together, watching football, and drinking beer. But being more intentional, right? Maybe it's have a couple buddies over and cook burgers with them if it's during the summer and spend time because we are humans. I know AI is taking over everything. Legitimately, there's reason for concern. But AI is never going to replace a hug or a conversation or a laugh or a pat on the back, right? So we still need to do those things. If we're working from home, try and have that outlet, those two or three friends that you can get out once a week or a couple times a week and be social again. [00:12:07] PF: Then what do you do if you're remote working and you don't really feel connected with anyone on your work team? Again, how do you start creating connections at work when you're not at work? [00:12:20] GK: Yes. That's tough. Again, I just have to go back to be more intentional. Maybe even reach out outside of work. Maybe it's a phone call or a coffee or get together. I've had really good success with connecting with people. As you know, I started the group on The HumorLab on Facebook. I came up with it one night at the beginning of the pandemic, and it's been really helpful for me because people reach out saying, “Thank you so much. I work at home all day long, but I checked The HumorLab, and there's no political stuff.” It's HR-friendly. It's PG-13 because I wanted my kid to see it and my mom. But now, there's over 40,000 people sharing their sense of humor. So it's a think tank. When we laugh together, it creates bonds. [00:13:07] PF: Well, that brings up a great point because that is one thing I've done in remote workspaces. I've got a company that I work with, and we use a Slack channel, too, for all our communication. Of course, we've got like the random channel and the humor channel. That is a great way. There's a pets channel, so people put pictures of their pets. So that is a really good way to kind of like, one, show your personality and be able to share that with people. Through doing that, I found people in that group that I know I connect with. Like I can see, okay, I have a similar sense of humor. I can – that person didn't turn me into HR, so I guess I can connect with him or whatever it is. But that is. As you bring that up, that really is a great tool to be able to use remotely to connect through humor because talk about what a great connector humor can be, especially in the workplace. [00:13:57] GK: Yes. It’s great, right? It takes [inaudible 00:13:59]. It releases the endorphins. A powerful example for our family, my stepdaughter lost her dad to suicide 5 years ago. Two days before, we had gone and seen a Brian Regan concert about 45 minutes from here. She loves Brian Regan, and through my connections, we were able to do a backstage meet and greet with him and stuff. So we found out two days later that her stepdad had passed away. It was, obviously, very traumatic for all of us. I remember distinctly about two weeks after, we were sitting around the dinner table, and Rachel started crying, and then Becky started crying, and then I started crying. My default is to humor. When I feel awkward or emotional, I'm like, “Okay, I need to laugh.” So I said, “You know what? Time out. We're going to go sit down.” We put on Brian Regan. Within 10 minutes, we're all laughing. It didn't get rid of the pain, but it got us through this, and it bonded us, right? So time to time, all the time, we pull up Brian Regan. It takes us back, and it makes us laugh, and it created a bond between me and my stepdaughter that I may not have had had we not gone to that show. [00:15:04] PF: That's terrific. Yes. Humor is – it can just really be such a powerful bonding tool. I know a lot of times in the office, it might be dark humor. Maybe what you've done is you've banded together against the evil overlords that are commanding our workplace. But that really is a great tool for helping it. [00:15:23] GK: Yes, yes. Well, the saying is laughter is the best medicine. Unless you have diarrhea, then probably not. It’s probably not your best choice. [00:15:34] PF: I love that. So who's responsible for turning this whole work dissatisfaction thing around? Does it have to come from leaders? Is it – what do we as workers do? Where do we start? Because, obviously, if you read a recent Newsweek article about hybrid working, it's a mess. If you read the study that you and I are talking about, it's a mess. The study that Gallup just had their findings about remote employees, it's like nobody's happy. It doesn't matter whether they're in the office, working at home, or doing a combination. The research would indicate that nobody is happy at work, except maybe you and me. [00:16:09] GK: Yes. [00:16:10] PF: So where do we start turning that big ship around before it becomes the Titanic? [00:16:14] GK: Well, happiness is an inside job, right? I can do things that make you happy. We can get on the phone. We're smiling. We're having a good time. But if you were in a bad mood or if I was in a bad mood, I can't go, “Hey, Paula. Snap out of it,” right? That's a choice that we have to make ourselves. I think it can go from top and bottom. Obviously, it's easier. If you have a manager that is happy-go-lucky and in the right frame of mind, it disseminates through everybody. But it can boil up as well, too. I've had jobs where I did not appreciate my manager. But what I did was connected really well with my teammates, and we would laugh and have fun. We go out for lunch. We do different things. So we became a bond and a team. Even though our manager wasn't the most – he was prickly. Let's put it that way. [00:17:03 PF: That’s nice. [00:17:03] GK: Right? So we were still able to work happy because we knew that it came from within. Whatever he did, yes, it was part of the job. But when he went home, we didn't worry about it. Just because somebody else isn't happy, it doesn't mean that I have to be unhappy and fall in their footsteps. [00:17:20] PF: That's a huge skill to develop, to be able to leave it like that, to say that is their thing, and I don't have to take it home with me. What are some tools that you can give us to be able to implement that kind of thinking? Because it's just human nature to be like, “Man, he was on my butt all day about this. I'm mad at him.” Then all night, it's like, “I should have said this, and why doesn't this happen to him?” Just it eats and eats and eats away from you. So how do you do that, where you kind of say, “No, his deal, not mine. I'm going on. I'm going to be happy.” [00:17:52] GK: Yes. I think it's a learned trait over time. I, obviously, wasn't born that way, and it took me a long time to figure it out. But another thing that we can do, even if you don't like your boss, try taking them out for lunch or her or whatever. Showing kindness, right? Maybe they've got something going on in their life, and it's coming down at work, right? Maybe he's not happy with his marriage, or his kids aren't in school, whatever that might be, that dynamic, right? But if you try and reach out, and you have to, obviously, be careful what you do, especially in this day and age with often politics. But maybe it's having a conversation or saying, “Hey, I had an idea. Why don't the whole team go out and watch a comedy show one night, right?” So everybody's paying for their own ticket, their own drinks or whatever. But, again, you're all sitting around the same kind of table, and you're having fun. Most people, when you're out, and you want to have fun and be friendly and converse, most people, I don't know what the right word is, but will lean into that, right? You're not going to have a manager go to a comedy club with you and just sit there with his arm crossed and be grumpy. If he is – [00:19:00] PF: Hopefully not. [00:19:00] GK: It means you got to call him out, right? [00:19:03] PF: Exactly, yes. [00:19:04] GK: It's doing those things, right? If he's not or they're not leading the way they should be, maybe we can level up and say, “Hey, this is how it is to be happy,” and maybe they'll take notice. Some people won't. At that point, at some point, you need to say, “Is this worth my health? Is this worth my family time?” But I always caution people, if you are starting to look for another job, don't quit. It's always easier to find a job when you have a job, right? [00:19:31] PF: Yes, yes. We talked earlier. I think before we had started recording, we were talking about people not having a sense of purpose and how much that affected work. I want you to talk a little bit about that, and then how we can use that drive to find purpose, to start something on the side that may or may not turn into our business, may or not turn into our next endeavor. But before we talk about how to leverage it, talk about how important it is to feel that your job has meaning. [00:19:59] GK: It's very important. It's night and day. It has been for me. One of the best corporate jobs that I ever had, I was working in the National Hockey League selling tickets. I grew up in Canada. See Gretzky's jersey behind me. It was a fun job. It was a high-stress job. But there were times where it was fun, but it wasn't my purpose because I've always been a happy-go-lucky, and I love making people happy, right? So my purpose is to help other people be happy like I am, right? So if you can find a job that matches your purpose. Not everybody's going to do that, but maybe your purpose is service. But if you're a computer programmer, how are you going to service people writing code? If your purpose is serving others, maybe it's finding a group that you can go volunteer. We have a group here in town. Every fourth Sunday, it's a bunch of dudes. We get together, and we cook dinner at the Christian Aid Center for homeless people. It's giving people purpose because there's older guys who are retired. Some guys bring their kids. It’s showing them that serving other people can be your purpose. So work doesn't necessarily have to align with your purpose. If it doesn't, find an avenue that you can still share your purpose because for the first time over the last three years, first time in my life, I've been chasing my passion versus chasing the paycheck. It’s made a huge difference on my mental health. It's made a big difference in my marriage, my relationship with my kid, and with my friends. [00:21:29] PF: Yes. If someone says, “That sounds incredible, but I don't know what my purpose is,” where do we start? Because that happens, too. You lose – one, your purpose can change throughout your lifetime. [00:21:40] GK: Oh, absolutely. [00:21:41] PF: Then, two, it's like you realize you're so locked down into your job and your routine and your pressures and obligations that you're not even sure what your purpose is. So where do you start when you're at that point? Because once you find that, that can override a lot of your dissatisfaction. Even if you just figure out, wow, this is my purpose, and this is what I can do, you've made this huge leap in mindset. So where do you start discovering that? [00:22:10] GK: Simon Sinek. I'm a huge fan, right? Simon Sinek, I got his book and went through the workbook, Find Your Why, which is really great. But I think also, too, is be more selfish, right? Because how can I serve other people if I'm not taking care of myself? So what do I need, whether it's meditation or listening to podcasts, reading books, talking with people like you? That gets me in the right frame of mind, and that's my purpose. So not 100% of what I do lines up with my purpose. But when I did find it, I can now – that's my North Star, and everything is starting to line and go towards that. But take some time and do some self-discovery, whether it's journaling or like I said. I mean, another person I started following during the pandemic was Jay Shetty, right? He took three years out and became a monk to learn how to serve other people. [00:23:03] PF: That’s such an incredible story. [00:23:05] GK: Yes. Now, his purpose is to make education go viral. Who would ever thought of that? [00:23:10] PF: So in doing that, you talk about journaling. Is it really a case of sitting down and just writing about what do I want to do, asking yourself the questions? Or where do you go with that? Where do you start discovering what you're – [00:23:21] GK: Well, when I read the book or either read it or listened to it on Audible, the Find Your Why, I went through that process and took my time. But now, I still journal, and the journaling that really helps me is when I get frustrated, right? A deal goes sideways or a friend or my wife or my kid, and something's not aligned. I will just sit down and just start writing. It is amazing how much of that crap you can get out of your head by putting pen to paper. Sometimes, when I'm stressed out, I would just start writing. I was like, “Whoa.” I never realized how much that was affecting me, right? It's almost like going to a therapist, but it's just you in a room. But it's amazing, whether it's 5 or 10 minutes a day. But journaling has really helped me as well, too. [00:24:08] PF: I think it's surprising what your higher self will tell you, instruct – you realize. You look back and you read it and you realize, “Oh, I already had this answer. I just wasn't asking myself that question.” It comes out, and it starts developing some clarity. That is also effective for dealing with a frustrating work situation, beyond finding your purpose. But just how am I going to manage it? That is a great way to handle those conflicts and pressures at work. [00:24:36] GK: Yes. Whether you're in the office or at home, if you have a disagreement with your boss or somebody at work, you sit down and journal and write about it for 5 or 10 minutes. It's way more productive than having an argument or saying something that you're going to regret, right? Because you can say whatever you want in your journal. You can tell your boss where to go and how to get there and how fast. If you did that face to face, you're looking for another job very quickly. [00:25:04] PF: When you're journaling, you might be, “That is really funny, and I'm actually going to use that on him when he does fire me.” So you always keep those nuggets. [00:25:14] GK: Yes, exactly. [00:25:16] PF: So with everything that's going on and all the things, you're seeing all the things we're reading, the things we've been talking about. Do you still have hope for the workplace that we can turn this into a happy work world? [00:25:28] GK: I do. I'm an extreme Optimist. I know we can do it. It's going to take a lot of work. But it's a lot easier to work happy than to work sad, right? [00:25:38] PF: True, true. [00:25:39] GK: When we're in a good mood. I mean, anybody, if you're in a good mood, life is great. Things are good. I'm going on vacation, all those kinds of things. But we can. It's just a matter of figuring out what works for us, what works for our companies. Some companies, they need to have people back in the office. Some people are okay with – I had an issue with my bank the other day, and I called in. This guy was in the call center, but he was in his house, 150 miles away from the bank. So there are jobs that you can do that. If that's what you want, if you want to stay at home, maybe take the next three months and come up with a plan on finding a job, something that you like to do, and that is remote because there's a job for everybody out there now. [00:26:22] PF: I love it. I love it. I'm going to come for yours. [00:26:25] GK: Okay. Well, and you do the same thing with the podcast. It's great. I listen to it when I'm on the road. I'm like, “Oh, Paula. Thank you. You made me happy today.” [00:26:37] PF: Yes. You'll shoot me a text sometimes, and that just makes my day whenever you do that. [00:26:40] GK: Yes, right? The one I remember I was driving, I think, from Vancouver to Seattle. It was about some gal who was a teacher, and now she's helping parents who are having kids at home, and they're teaching their kids, right? She's got the toolbox and everything else. So it's being creative. We're no longer stuck to a nine-to-five job. We can do what we want. I mean, look at all the people on Etsy that are doing what they love, right? Turn your passion into profit. [00:27:08] PF: Yes. I love it. I love it. There are so many resources out there for people now of like how to do that. It’s not like you're walking blindly anymore. So there's a lot of ways to do it. I love it. I hope that people feel encouraged to start looking at not just thinking I'm going to quit my job but that positive inside of it. Like that dissatisfaction is actually about finding your purpose, and finding what does make you happy, and being able to live a purposeful life, and get paid for it. [00:27:37] GK: Absolutely. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:43] PF: That was Greg Kettner, talking about happiness at work. If you'd like to learn more about Greg, check out his podcast, or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Tap Out Anxiety With Brad Yates [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 438 of Live Happy Now. Do you ever wish you had a secret weapon to help calm your mind and body during stressful times? Well, this week's guest says you do. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I am talking with Brad Yates, an expert in emotional freedom tapping or EFT. Tapping, as it's commonly called, combines the principles of acupuncture and positive psychology to help people overcome fears, relieve stress, and just enjoy greater well-being. Today, Brad author of the best-selling children's book The Wizard's Wish and co-author of the book Freedom at Your Fingertips is going to explain how tapping works, why it works, and how we can all get started. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:49] PF: Brad, thanks for being with me here today. [00:00:51] BY: Oh, my pleasure, Paula. I'm very happy to be here. [00:00:53] PF: This is a great topic. I was excited when I was approached about having you on the show because tapping is something that I've studied, I've used in my own practice for many, many years. I think before we dive into why it's so awesome, I'm going to have you explain what it is. [00:01:11] BY: So tapping, other than the tap dancing and all these other ways that we can use tapping to be happy, this is a process based on acupuncture. So for thousands of years in Chinese medicine, they've said there's a flow of energy through the body along pathways that are called meridians. When the energy is flowing naturally, we experience our natural state of health and well-being physically and emotionally. When that energy gets stuck, we don't feel so good. When we don't feel good, we don't think as clearly. We don't make the best choices. There's all kinds of unfortunate consequences for that. So in traditional Chinese medicine, the doctor would stick needles in these key points around the body to stimulate that healthy flow of energy. What we're doing is just using our fingertips to tap those same points. It downregulates stress in a very profound way. It's the simplest, quickest way that I know to reduce stress. [00:02:07] PF: Yes. It was the nineties when someone introduced me to it, and he was telling me about it. He was a musician, so I thought, “Well, you're just high because there is absolutely no way that this works.” So then he's like, “I swear, Paula. Just try this. Try this.” I was really amazed at how it could calm me in stressful situations. It's not woo-woo. There is science and research behind it. Can you talk about that for a little bit? [00:02:34] BY: Yes, absolutely. It's wonderful that we have this growing body of research validating this process. Some of my friends who were doing this, Dr. Dawson Church and Dr. Peta Stapleton, are two of the leading researchers. Dawson did a study with cortisol levels. So when we are experiencing stress, this part of our brain called the amygdala that looks for threats and puts us into fight or flight, and we start pumping cortisol through our body. So they did a test where they measured people's cortisol levels. It was a double-blind study. They had a control group. They had somebody just deep breathing or something like that and then the third group doing tapping. When the researchers were testing the cortisol levels before and after, it said that the cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 24%. They said that's not possible, threw it out, and recalibrated the machines, ran it again. It's like, “Oh, no. That's actually what's happened,” and different tests have replicated that showing. Because it's one thing for us to tap and say, “Yes, I think I feel better.” Sometimes, we profoundly feel better. Sometimes, we may not notice it. It may be very subtle, but there are biological markers that we can measure like our cortisol levels. My friend, Dr. Peta Stapleton, has done FMRI studies where we can see the parts of the brain that light up and the different activity in different situations. Then after tapping, how that brain activity is calmed down. So, yes, there's hundreds of studies now in peer-reviewed journals. They've mashed it up against CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is sort of the gold standard of therapy. It has performed showing results quicker, longer lasting. One study that was done, the people running the study who were CBT people said, “Well, you can say that the tapping was not inferior to CBT.” [00:04:40] PF: Spoken like a true researcher, right? So we know what it's doing. We can see the results. Have they been able to explain why it's so effective? [00:04:52] BY: Yes. There are a number of theories as to why it is. Obviously, the original theory that was when tapping was first discovered. Well, it had been discovered many, many years ago. But the way that we do it now by a psychologist named Dr. Roger Callahan back around 1980 or so was just based on acupuncture. So saying, okay, well, this – it's the meridian system. Either it's stuck or it's flowing, and the tapping stimulates that healthy flow. We can look at it in terms of there's a phenomenon when we're tapping on these key points. It's called piezoelectricity. It sends a bioelectrical signal to the brain that calms down that part of our brain, the amygdala and the limbic system, that is reacting to circumstances or what we believe the circumstances might be. That's the great thing is it doesn't tap away justified fear or stress. It's not like if we're being chased by a bear. It's like, “Well, this is really uncomfortable feeling. I'm going to tap, and I'm going to calm myself down.” [00:05:59] PF: Much better. Yes. [00:06:00] BY: “And I'm going to be so relaxed as I get eaten.” That's one of the things is when we hang on to fear and anxiety, it's because part of our brain says we need this. If I don't feel this fear, I'll be stupid. I'll make bad choices. The funny thing is it's just not true. [00:06:21] PF: We sometimes make a habit out of feeling fearful or feeling anxious, and it's not something we do consciously. But I know that has happened in my own life, where just certain situations will trigger it. Then you just never seem to be untriggered. So how can tapping help get out of a chronic situation like that? [00:06:42] BY: Yes. We've learned to behave in that way, and we do what works. So if we see a dog, as a child, dogs scared us. We avoided dogs because we felt that fear. At a young age, we say, “Well, that worked. I didn't get attacked by that dog because I ran away. So, obviously, having this response when I see a dog works for me.” It's obviously not the only way to respond to a dog or keep yourself safe, but it's what I found happened. So now, I may be triggered with that fear anytime I see that. So the mind is always identifying, associating, responding. We see something, and we go, “What does this remind me of? Is this something I've experienced before? Or does it look similar to something I've experienced before? How did I respond to that in the past such that I survived?” We go through this pattern without even being consciously aware of it. Ninety to 95 percent of our behavior is unconscious. We're doing things before, which is necessary as human beings because we have to learn how to do certain things and make it unconscious. Otherwise, everything would take forever. As we're growing up, we don't sit there and go, “Okay. Well, this is really helpful. Well, this is less helpful, so I'm not going to remember this.” We don't know to do that. When we're learning how to walk, how to talk, how to think, we're just taking it all in, and we're not able to be critical about some of that. So we just take that all in. So we're constantly just behaving on autopilot. When we become aware of that, and we start tapping, and I totally recommend tapping on a daily basis. To me, it should be as much a daily practice as brushing your teeth because we experience stress and anxiety on a daily basis, especially because we're walking. Most of us are walking around with a small device that is constantly telling us what to be upset about. [00:08:49] PF: Yes. It's reminding us not to relax, basically. [00:08:51] BY: Yes. “Hey, were you relaxed?” “Oh, wait till I tell you what's going on in Washington,” or whatever or a text from a friend saying, “Hey, here's something to be upset about.” So we're constantly being triggered by things, and it's like being – falling in the mud on a daily basis but never taking a shower. [00:09:14] PF: That's a great analogy. I love that. [00:09:16] BY: We practice physical hygiene on a daily basis; brushing our teeth, taking showers, whether we need it or not. Very few of us wait for a week and then notice that people around us are holding their nose and going, “Oh, that's right. I haven't taken a shower in a while. I should probably do that.” But with stress, most of us don't have a daily hygiene practice. So that's what tapping is. As we do that, we are less likely to be triggered. If we are triggered, it is going to be less profound. [00:09:47] PF: Yes. I want to dive into that. If you don't have a practice, and then you get stressed out, and you start tapping, is it going to take longer? Is it going to be more difficult for you to relieve yourself in that situation? Or how does that work? [00:10:02] BY: It's hard to say because we never really know how much is in there. There are times where we can start tapping, and the shift is profound. It's in a matter of moments. We may be experiencing stress or anxiety at an 8 out of 10. Just a few moments of tapping can bring us down to a one or even a zero, sometimes. Now, we see this happen. It doesn't happen all the time, and sometimes we bring it from an 8 down to a 7.75 after several minutes of tapping. It's like, okay, it's a little bit better. To me, hey, any relief we get is great. But what takes it down to a zero, it's hard to say why sometimes it's faster than other times. So it's not necessarily going to take much longer, but we increase the odds of it being quicker. We also increase the odds of not getting to an eight if we have a regular level because stress also has compound interest. It builds up. The thing that we're getting freaked out about may not be the thing that's happening right now but just all the other things that have been building up for a while. [00:11:16] PF: That whole cascade effect is kicking in. So what does a tapping practice look like? Is it people want things that are quick? Can you do it in a quick amount of time? Can you tell us like what is the recommendation? If you're the doctor and this is a prescription, like what are we doing? [00:11:32] BY: Yes. It's like with washing our hands during the pandemic. They said 20 seconds. Sing happy birthday. That's how long it takes to wash your hands. Now, obviously, if we've been – if you're into auto mechanics, you've been working on the engine of your car, 20 seconds is not going to clean your hands after working on your car. So there are times where we want to do it longer. But if you can only do 20 seconds, that's great. So with tapping and with brushing your teeth, they say two minutes. These are set amounts that this is helpful as a regular practice. So with tapping, if you can only tap for a couple of minutes. Hey, when you get up first thing in the morning and you're on the can, you can multitask. [00:12:19] PF: That's an easy one to do. If you're tapping, you can't be scrolling on your phone. [00:12:24] BY: Yes. [00:12:24] PF: Another bonus. [00:12:25] BY: Yes. It's certainly going to be much healthier for you to be tapping rather than scrolling. [00:12:33] PF: So what do you recommend? Okay, that's one way you can do it is every morning when you first get up and sit down. [00:12:39] BY: Yes. Tap while saying affirmations. Now, this is why I've created the YouTube videos. So I have like 1,200 videos on YouTube on a multitude of subjects. So whatever might be coming up for you, whether it's feeling anxiety, whether it's feeling stress, feeling anger, feeling fear, there's a tap for that. If it's something more positive, it's like, “Well, I don't want to – maybe I'm not aware of something bother me right now, but I do want to improve my relationships. I want to improve my finances.” There are tapping rounds for that. So if you're not sure what to tap on or what to say, I'm there for you. You can just go on YouTube and follow along. I've got videos. They're ranging from 3 minutes to 15 minutes depending on how much time you – [00:13:24] PF: That’s excellent. [00:13:26] BY: I have people who say, “I spend an hour going through different videos.” Some people, it's just one quick video. I have one called Amazing Day Quickie. I had done a video called Have an Amazing Day, which was like eight minutes. Then I did a four-minute version for people. It's like if you can't take eight minutes to have a better day, here's four minutes. Even just that little bit is going to make a positive difference. Over time, we improve the status of our nervous system. [00:13:59] PF: What if you're going into a day that you know is going to be particularly challenging? Maybe it's having to deal with an ex or something going on with your children or your in-laws, right? Something where it's there's a lot of potential for triggers and stress. Is there something special that you can do to kind of like rev up your system? [00:14:18] BY: Yes. Certainly, when you know you're going into something like that, I would say to someone check on how you feel right now. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and just thinking about that event. How much anxiety are you feeling right now? Notice where in your body you feel it. What are you most afraid of? Start tapping right then because you can clear a lot of that fear even ahead of time. Then when you get to that event, when you get to that meeting with your ex or whoever it is, it's like, “Hmm, I'm not feeling as bad as I expected to.” Then there's subtle tapping that we can do where they might not even notice. I – [00:14:57] PF: I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask how we can do that. [00:14:59] BY: I'm looking forward to the day where everybody knows about tapping. It's just an accepted practice for downregulating stress. You could start tapping in front of someone, and they'd say, “Oh, that's a good idea. I could probably do that too.” When world leaders at Camp David are tapping to clear their egos and all the stuff, and it's like, “Oh. Now, we can find some common ground here without being all uptight,” because that all comes from fear. Ultimately, there's love and there's fear. If it's not feeling like love, it's coming from a place of fear. When we do the tapping, we calm that down. So we can do it ahead of time. We clear that anticipatory anxiety and then in the moment finding subtle ways. So we can tap in subtle ways. Like there are fingertip points that you can tap, and you can do that under the table. No one will even know that you're doing it. You can also hold your fingers on certain points and just breathe and stimulate the points in that way or maybe gently rubbing. People probably won't even notice you're doing it. [00:16:11] PF: That's such a great tool to have in your arsenal because when anxiety hits and you're in a public situation, then you’d really start feeling the overwhelm because it's like, “Okay, I have to get out of this gracefully, and I'm surrounded.” So it's a great little secret weapon to have. We've talked a lot about it in terms of anxiety. I wanted to kind of dive into that a little bit deeper because that's become such a – it was already an issue. But post-pandemic, it's become such a huge challenge for people. Can you kind of address how we can use tapping in an anxious world? [00:16:48] BY: Yes. That was a huge thing. During the pandemic, I was doing a number of Facebook lives and YouTube lives, just recognizing. I mean, it’s – tapping’s moment has really come. There's always been a lot of anxiety. [00:17:00] PF: Thanks, COVID. [00:17:01] BY: But it really amped up. We were so afraid of so many things, and it just drove all kinds of different issues. So I really at that time and my colleagues were really trying to get it out there and letting people know, “Hey, guys. There's a simple way that you can help your body calm down.” Again, like I was saying earlier, it doesn't make you stupid. It's not like, “Oh, I can just go out and put myself in dangerous situations and not care about it.” But we can reduce that anxiety. I can have common sense. I can make good choices without being driven by fear. So just allowing ourselves to tap if it's even just a few minutes a day but also anytime that you're aware of it. It's like, “Hey, you know what? I'm feeling a little uncomfortable right now. Can I do some tapping right now?” I'm at the point. I'll tap in front of people. I don't care. I'm all over the – [00:17:56] PF: It’s like, “This is what I do.” [00:17:58] BY: Yes. I’m all over the Internet tapping anyway. I've shot some tapping videos in public places; sitting outside Starbucks, at the zoo. You can see people walking by. It's like I want to normalize this so that people can tap in that moment and not feel because I know what it is to have anxiety and to feel that pain. What do I do? What do I do? There's nothing I can do. Oh, wait. Yes, there is a way. This is – my body is having this response, trying to tell me there's something to be afraid of. Fear and anxiety, like all of the uncomfortable emotions, anger and things like that, it's a fire alarm telling us there's something to pay attention to. When we're not – with the fire, it’s like the fire alarm goes off. “Oh, I should grab my fire extinguisher and put out that fire.” Or find out, “Oh, there's no fire, and the batteries need to be changed in my smoke detector.” But with anxiety, very often there's nothing we can do. So we're in this fight or flight, and we don't know what to do. But tapping is something that we can do and look at what is there that I can do in this moment. I might look and see there's no real danger here. It's allowing our self to recognize what I'm telling myself that's causing the anxiety is not true. I'm able to calm that down as I'm doing the tapping. There may be a part of me that resists that. We resist change. We're afraid of making changes. We want to keep things the same. So even if our lives are crap, part of us says, “Yes, but it's my crap. I know how to deal with it.” [00:19:36] PF: I’m comfortable with it. Yes. [00:19:38] BY: Exactly. I dealt with it yesterday, so I know I can deal with it today. Doing it differently feels uncomfortable, so I don't want to change that. So when I try to make changes, I have this anxious response. As I tap myself down and I recognize, oh, I can relax while I think about this change. You know what? I could actually handle this. I could make my life better in so many ways. I could allow myself to be happier, and that's cool. [00:20:05] PF: That's awesome. So it helps with anxiety. What are some other areas that you've seen people implement it to really make some big changes in their life? [00:20:15] BY: Paula, how much time do you have? [00:20:17] PF: How about 16 days? [00:20:22] BY: There's an expression with EFT. So EFT stands for emotional freedom techniques, which was one of the – what most of the tapping techniques are based on. The expression is try it on everything. Any place in your life that is not as ideal as you'd like it to be, there's probably something you can tap on there where you're holding yourself back. If I'm not making as much money as I like, if I'm not having the kind of relationships that I want, if I'm not as healthy as I want to be, what stops me? If there's some belief, some fear, some stress that's causing me to stop myself from taking the positive actions that would create this better version of myself, this healthier, wealthier version of myself, this happy version of myself. What limits happiness? Like we were talking just before about Michelangelo's David, I always use that as this metaphor. Michelangelo said the statue was already there, perfect inside the marble, and he just had to remove what didn't belong to reveal the masterpiece inside. That, to me, is a perfect metaphor for what we're doing with tapping work that our healthiest happiest version of ourselves, our most successful version of ourselves is here inside, covered under all this excess marble, which is anxiety and fear and doubt and feelings of unworthiness. These are tappable issues. As we clear those, we naturally think more highly of ourselves. We naturally behave in those more productive, healthier, more successful ways. [00:21:51] PF: That's excellent. You are doing so much good work to get this message out in the world. I know you have so many videos we can watch. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find you. We're going to send them to your YouTube page, where they can find all kinds of important resources. But as we wrap this up, what is it that you hope everyone who's listening to you takes away from it? [00:22:12] BY: Well, I would love for you to take away that you really are this magnificent child of the universe, worthy and deserving an awesome life, and that there is this simple tool that can help you clear that. That's why I have a program on my website, so free five-day program called Tap Into Your Best Self that helps you clear away the misunderstandings about yourself. I like to call myself a gift unwrapper. [00:22:39] PF: I like that. [00:22:40] BY: You are a gift to the world, and you'll unwrap that and share yourself more freely. [00:22:45] PF: I love it. Thank you, Brad. I appreciate your time with us today. [00:22:48] BY: Well, thank you, Paula. Happy to be here. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:22:54] PF: That was Brad Yates, talking about tapping. If you'd like to learn more about Brad, check out his YouTube videos on tapping, learn more about his books, or take his free five-day tapping course, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Celebrating 10 Years of Happiness With Deborah K. Heisz [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 437 of Live Happy Now. Ten years ago, the Happiness Movement was just beginning to gain a global presence, and that paved the way for a birth of a company called Live Happy. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm talking with Deborah Heisz, CEO and co-founder of Live Happy LLC, as we look back on 10 years of sharing happiness. Deborah’s going to explain how her work in personal development led to discovering positive psychology and how that opened the door to launching a company that remains committed to sharing the many ways we can discover greater well-being. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:41] PF: Deb, we're 10. [0:00:43] DH: I know. Isn't that crazy? [0:00:45] PF: Oh, my – [0:00:46] DH: I don’t know what happened. [0:00:47] PF: I know. See, now, here you have an advantage, because you're a parent, so you're used to raising 10-year-olds. [0:00:53] DH: I can't believe my kids are over 10 either at this point. When they say, time flies, they mean it. That’s unbelievable that we're 10. [0:01:02] PF: I know. It was so important. I mean, 10 years is a huge accomplishment for us to have reached there. This just seemed like a great time to talk with you. I wasn't there in the very beginning. I was about three months late to the party, but I'm glad I got invited and I'm glad you've let me stay. Can you take us back to the mindset behind Live Happy, because there was such a compelling argument for creating this movement and creating this platform and it was unlike anything that people were doing. Take me back there of what was going on and what made this ball get rolling. [0:01:37] DH: Well, the initial – my experience up to that point had been in personal development, which was great. I was founding editor-in-chief of the current version of Success Magazine. We were putting out content for people to improve their lives. Really, micro business owners, small business owners, and with tips on how they can have a better outlook on life, or a better attitude from the experts. Since you guys can't see me, I'm doing air quotes when I say “the experts.” Because there's a lot of people that put out content on personal development. Some of it's great, like my co-founder, Jeff Olson and his book, The Slight Edge, and others of it, we're not going to name any names, just not so great. [0:02:18] PF: Really questionable in the science. [0:02:21] DH: Yeah. Well, lacking in science. What happened was, as I'm working on that project, on that publication and really diving into personal development, which I really believe in, I believe we should all be working on ourselves, that there's ability for us to enhance our lives, we can all get better, we can all become better humans, this thing called positive psychology came on my radar. There is an organization called the International Positive Psychology Association and they put on something called the World Congress. At the time, I believe it was their second world congress, and some people that I was working with on Success, the owner and some other went to this and came back and said, “You know what? This positive psychology stuff, it's personal development, but with real science.” I started digging into it and looked at it and it's like, you know what? There is a lot here. There's a lot of stuff they're studying and a lot of things they've learned about human behavior that where people – how people can enhance their lives, that is scientifically based. Because positive psychology is the study, and it was really started by Dr. Martin Seligman, who has been all over our publication for the decade, the decade, right from the beginning. It really started with him standing up in front of the American Psychological Association and saying, “Look, psychology isn't just about helping sick people get well. It could also be about helping well people thrive.” That was the foundation of positive psychology. A lot of people started studying it. He's professor at UPenn. A lot of the positive psychology program at UPenn, a lot of people we've talked to come out of that program. But really, for me, it was, this isn't just somebody talking about experience. There's real data that this works, that if we can take these simple principles, these simple activities and incorporate them into our everyday lives, we can be happier. People need to know this. For me, Live Happy became the ultimate personal development project. It was getting better, becoming a better human, building better families, building better communities based in science. Scientists are really good at studying stuff, and then they publish and share papers with other scientists, so the general public never hears about it. [0:04:45] PF: Exactly. [0:04:46] DH: Never. I mean, they're really good at talking to each other about everything, and the rest of the world isn't even aware of the conversations occurring. We looked at it as this is an opportunity for us to take this fantastic content to a broader audience, to the rest of the world, and that's what really founded Live Happy. Jeff was a big believer in personal development. I’m a big believer in personal development, worked in that space for the previous decade, and now I guess, two decades. Well, but it really was about bringing that out and helping others understand they can make choices that will make them happier. When we talk about happiness, I think it's really important. I know, everybody who listens to the podcast regularly has heard us talk about what we mean by happiness. We don't mean I'm running around with glee with my hand thrown in the air, because I just scored a touchdown, or did a homerun kind of happiness. We mean, the kind of happiness where your personal well-being is higher. Things that you measure to determine how your life is going, how you're feeling about life in general, about how congruent your life is with your dreams and where you want to be, that's what we mean by happiness. [0:06:00] PF: You bring up such a good point, because that has been really instrumental in my development and growth during this last decade, because it let me recognize that I ended up doing a presentation at IPA called when happiness has a bad day. It allowed me to accept that bad day like say, “Hey, this is actually cool. It's fine if I'm sad for a week. That is okay. I still have great levels of well-being.” A bad day does not mean I'm not happy. I think it really has – I'm among those people that's been able to really broaden that and stop judging day by day what happens and look at it over time. Look at the overall satisfaction of my life, instead of the dopamine hits. [0:06:45] DH: It's huge. It makes a huge difference in your life when you start looking at it from that perspective, from the long-term, from the whole, its entirety. I think we've all been exposed online to various toxic positivity discussions. Happiness is not this toxic positivity, where you're positive about everything in life. You always say yes. You always are going, “Oh.” That's almost a disease in itself, right? [0:07:16] PF: It can be dangerous, if you're not acknowledging, if you're not allowing yourself to feel the negative emotions. One, you're not going to enjoy the positive ones as much. Also, you're glossing over some pretty important feelings that need to be dealt with. [0:07:34] DH: That's not what we're talking about when we talk about live happy anyway. You see that outside view in that, hey, this is everything that's toxic about positivity, that there are real problems in the world, that there are real challenges that people need to overcome. Not everyone can just live happy. One of my favorite things that we've done is we don't run away from that. I mean, our top downloaded article is post-traumatic growth. Just basically, how do you grow out of bad things that happen to you? How does that impact your life? It's a remarkable article and it's a really good article and it's on our website. We don't shy away from the fact that you can't be happy in that arms in the air, running around, circling the bases, I hit a homerun every day of your life, because it's life. We're talking about living happy, which is not that, right? [0:08:38] PF: Exactly. Let me ask you, as you were coming up with the concept of the magazine and mapping out what it was going to cover and how it would be involved, how did you determine all that? [0:08:52] DH: We didn't want it to be fluff. We wanted it to have a scientific backing, which wasn't to say that every article was about science, but we wanted it to be scientifically based. We also wanted it to have practical information in it, as well as inspirational stories. Really, we just started dissecting what we felt was good content, versus what we felt was too light, because a lot of stuff that people want to put in is just, that's nice, but that's fluff. We didn't want to be fluffy. That's the best way I know how to put it. [0:09:26] PF: Exactly. [0:09:27] DH: We also didn't want to be so overly technical that your average broad audience couldn't pick it up and read it and get something out of it. A lot of these papers that we read that create ideas for articles, as you know Paula, really go so deep into the science, you almost need a master's degree to start reading the paper. [0:09:47] PF: I had to Google a lot of stuff, when I was – I would be reading a paper and it's like, I don't even have the slightest idea of what they mean by that, or what other study they're referencing. It's like, it was such an educational experience for me, just to be dropped into all that. [0:10:05] DH: It can be a rabbit hole. [0:10:06] PF: It was. [0:10:08] DH: We also, really, particularly the early years, I think less now. Now that we've got a very, very established guardrails on what we will and won't do, we got a lot of stuff that was just fluff. We had a lot of stuff that was just like, pop people's ideas. I want to say, diet of the week, but it was happy idea of the week. This might make you happy. We really shied away from that. Another important piece was we wanted to integrate family. We wanted to integrate home. We didn't want it to be a workplace-only magazine, but we also wanted to include work. Success was really a workplace-only that had some personal development when we're working on it. We wanted to take that and make it a whole life concept. We wanted that to put that positive experience on a whole life perspective. That was really important for the magazine, particularly for me coming out of success, where I felt like, when you talk about business and you talk about personal development, everything ended up being tied to money and monetary success. As we know, money and monetary success and happiness are not – they don't necessarily exist together. [0:11:20] PF: Right. Right. [0:11:21] DH: For some people, it's an neither or. For others, it can exist together. For others, they've got nothing to do with each other. [0:11:26] PF: What I loved about Live Happy, what I loved about it from the beginning is that each issue, you would have a different approach. It doesn't mean the one that was the last month didn't work. It's just that different people have different things that work for them. I think that was always, for me, it's been a delight, because I got to explore things that I wouldn't have known about. I wouldn't have known to research them, had it not been for Live Happy. [0:11:52] DH: One of my favorite things we did was the book, Ten Practices for Choosing Joy, which has my name on it, but the whole editorial staff participated in. It says my name and the editors of. I have to tell you, and the editors of. It should have been the editors of and Deborah for the amount of time you guys spent putting that together. One of the things I love about it is Ten Practices for Choosing Joy, for those of you who haven't read the book, it's available on Audible. It may, or may not be out of print on Amazon, but I recommend you get your hands on it, because what we did was we did Ten Practices for Choosing Joy, and for each practice, whether it was attitude, health, spirituality, mindfulness, creativity, these are all things that there was science behind practicing these things. Can bring you joy, live happy type joy. Each chapter has the science behind what the studies say. Some people put it into practice and then some things you can do to put that practice into your life. We say in the book, and I've said over and over and over again, just because there are 10 practice of choosing joy, you don't do all 10. Pick one, or two, integrate that into your life before you even look at number three, right? [0:13:10] PF: Exactly. Find the one that works for you. It's like a catalog, basically. [0:13:14] DH: It is. Pick the ones that you think. If it's resilience that you need to focus on, focus on that. Don't focus on resilience. It's a recipe for failure trying to do too much. When you talk about the magazine, and by the way, we started as a print magazine, folks. We’re not that anymore. We should probably talk about that in a second. When we look at every issue, we had a slightly different look. Same thing with the book, we had a slightly different focus. It all contributes to your happiness, to your joy, to your meaningfulness in life, to finding your purpose. But you don't do it all. Is just, you pick up the practices that speak to you and make it work. [0:13:54] PF: Yeah. You find what's good for you. It's just like a diet and exercise plan, or a spouse. You find the one that works for you. [0:14:00] DH: If you can't stick to it, it won't. [0:14:03] PF: That's so true. Another thing that is turning 10 this year are our Happy Acts. I think, again, your timing on creating Live Happy was so phenomenal, because the world day of – International Day of Happiness had pretty much just been declared. We were there when that was all picking up steam, and we were able to be part of that. Do you want to talk about, especially that first International Day of Happiness, you were on the floor of the United Nations. [0:14:35] DH: Yeah. I was there. Jeff, Co-Founder, he got to speak to the United Nations. I spoke the following year. We really were right there at the beginning of the International Day of Happiness. It was coincidental. We were doing the magazine and that happened. It wasn't that that happened and then we started doing the magazine. [0:14:54] PF: That's what I mean of the timing was just perfect. [0:14:57] DH: It was. But it was really important and we've continued to see the World Happiness Report every year, we put out. What was happening is governments around the world and the UN was a forum to discuss this and to start talking about it and analyzing it a little better, really had started looking at the well-being of their populations as being a measure of successful country. Happiness, their countries had started with happiness officers, which is something that never happened before. Ministers of happiness. Sounds like we're in a Harry Potter movie. It's the Minister of happiness. Ministers of happiness. Governments were starting to pay attention to this. It truly is, and we're a part of it. I think we're a leader in bringing that information to the general public to a general audience, but there really still is a movement that was started about 10 years ago towards improving the well-being of humans through practices that they themselves can take on and paying attention to that as a measurable outcome. That World Happiness Report every year, there's a list of happiness countries, happiest countries and why. It's been very interesting. But the privilege of speaking at the United Nations is one I'll never forget. It's such an honor, and for Jeff to have that honor that first year and for me to be able to follow it up the second year, it truly was, for me, the indicator of how important what we're doing is. [0:16:29] PF: Yeah. Then, what made you decide, “Okay, we need to do our own thing that's going to be our own celebration and observation of this and create happy acts”? Because that's been so enduring and really to me, something that just is, it’s so unique to live happy and it's something I really love that we do. [0:16:50] DH: Well, I think it goes back to what I was talking about earlier, where scientists study stuff, but they don't share it, right? For me, it really was the, we need some way to get the word out, something simple to get the word out, that there are things you can do to make the world a happier place, to make your world a happier place. We conceived of Happy Acts, which I've described it like this from the beginning, is a social intervention campaign. Meaning, we get people to stop for a few minutes and do something with intent, to make the world a happier place. Even if it's just smiling more. Even if it's just talking to a stranger. Even if it's just dropping a thank you note to someone. Something simple to show gratitude, show grace, show thankfulness, help someone else, buying that cup of coffee for a stranger, we've all seen that go viral. But to make sure that it's done with intent. That's why the cards, that's why people, I will make the happy – the world a happier place by. We're not asking you to make the world a happier place by starting a global charity. Oh, you want to put that in a card and follow up with it? We’re all in. We're asking you to just think about something you can do and realize, which is why it's social intervention, realize that there is something you can personally do to make the world a happier place right now. That's why we did it. I think it's been a great success. I think the world has changed a little bit since we did it, obviously trying to do Happy Acts during a pandemic was a little bit – [0:18:29] PF: That wasn't so good. [0:18:31] DH: Yeah, people don't go to walls, or walls. We did. We did. But we had a great online experience those years. I'm looking forward to making a few tweaks. I'm looking forward to getting back to everybody early next year and talking about how that changed. [0:18:43] PF: I know. It also spun off the Halloween Happy Acts, which we're doing in, I guess it's, yeah, later this month. [0:18:50] DH: No, and I love that. [0:18:53] PF: Yeah, I think there's so much potential for us to be able to do different things with it for different times a year. I'm excited to see what we continue to do with that. [0:19:01] DH: Note, podcast listeners, Halloween Happy Acts, that's later this month, but not later this month. You can check it out right now online. [0:19:10] PF: Yes, you can. You just mentioned podcast listeners. That was another element that you brought in and brought in very early on, even before a lot of people really understood what was going on with the podcasting space. [0:19:26] DH: I'm so thankful we did. [0:19:28] PF: I know. I'm glad you got in there at the time that you did. Really, that was a way you saw that as a way to amplify the content that we had in Live Happy Magazine. Can you talk about that? It was so interesting the way it started and then how it's evolved. [0:19:43] DH: At the time, I did. We were doing these great interviews with these thought leaders, these very eloquent, passionate people. You sit in the interview and you're doing the interview, and you know this, Paula. You're doing the interview, and you're like, “I wish everybody could hear this,” right? This is right near the beginning of when podcasting was starting to take off. It's like, well, everybody can hear this. We started doing some of our key interviews for the magazine is for the podcast. That was why. I thought it was so important, not just for us to take the information and drill it down into an article and pull a few quotes, but for people to hear how passionate these people are about this, how important it is, how detailed the information was. We started there and then we – when we quit doing the print magazine, we still have the website, which puts out original content on a regular basis, and we still have a newsletter, which puts out independent original content. If you guys are not signed up for the newsletter, you need to. Go to livehappy.com and sign up. Free to everybody. Please, take the opportunity to do that. As we started to move from the print format into a more digital format, the podcast also evolved into being the key content, where we used to do a feature article. Now, we do a feature podcast, is the best way to know how to describe it. We're still have all the same great content we had, but in a way that's more accessible. Frankly, I think in a way that broadened our audience. Because I think, when we were doing the print magazine, people didn't really understand it was for everybody necessarily, that it was a little bit more of a science-heavy, because reading can sometimes be science heavy. It was a little less accessible to everybody. I think the podcast with most of them being 25 minutes or less, really, people can listen to that as they walk their dog, as they drive to work. It's two people talking, or more, but usually, two people talking and they get so much more out of it. Then, of course, we had the follow up materials on the website if people want to delve more into that topic. I just think it's made the content so much more accessible, and that evolution took place over time, but I'm really happy where we are right now and where we've ended up. It's been a phenomenal, I think eight years of podcasting? [0:22:10] PF: It is. Yeah. [0:22:12] DH: Eight years of podcasting. [0:22:12] PF: Hard to believe. [0:22:13] DH: Ten years of Live Happy. I'm getting old. What am I going to do next? [0:22:19] PF: We'll have virtual something. We'll have our avatars doing this for us, I guess. One thing that I've noticed with the podcast is sometimes, people will reach out because someone had sent them a podcast, because just as with our practices, not every episode is going to resonate with every person. Some things like, that's not really my thing. But then, especially like the pet loss episode is one that I know has been shared quite a bit and that's something – that's a great thing to have in your back pocket. Hey, your friend loses their pet, you just send them a link. I know firsthand of that having happened. There's other situations, like other episodes that we've had that people can just share and say, “Look, this spoke to me, because I know you're going through it and I thought you'd want to hear it.” I think, to me, that is really the power of podcasting. That's the power of the reach is to be able to just have that, to give to anybody at any time when they need it the most. [0:23:14] DH: I agree. I think, be able to share that. I think accessibility is key. [0:23:21] PF: We've had 10 years. We don't want to quit anytime soon. What do you think? What do you see for the next 10 years? How do you think we're going to grow and change? [0:23:30] DH: I think that as the world has changed, more people need this content. I think, our number one goal has always been reach. It's always been building a happiness movement. It's been building a group of people who really understand the power of things like gratitude, who really want to make a difference in their local communities and their families. For me, over the next 10 years, we're going to continue to try and reach people where they are, where they have the most access. Whatever is after podcasting, I'm sure we'll go into. Whatever is after the Internet, I'm sure we'll figure that out, too. One of the things we've discussed recently is in expanding our presence on social media, to reach people who aren't necessarily looking for podcasts, or looking online to go read an article and figuring out how to do that in a way that isn't just flippant, that isn't just, “Oh, that made me laugh,” but something that actually adds value to someone's life. We did something before called The Happiness Minute, it was in the wrong format. Maybe we bring that back and maybe that's a TikTok. Where my head spins is, how do we continue to get the message out? How do we continue to get this message to more people? How do we evolve Happy Acts to get the message to more people? How do we evolve, get more involvement? Because this is something anybody, whether they're two, or a hundred can participate in and can make a difference in the world. Our mission hasn't changed. Sometimes the medium changes, but we're going to continue to try and expand to reach more people in any way that we can. That's where I see us going in the next 10 years, and continuing to produce the fabulous content that we produce, that you help us produce, Paula. It's been a great ride so far, but we're just getting started. [0:25:14] PF: Yeah. Saddle up. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:25:21] PF: That was Live Happy CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, talking about how we got here. If you'd like to read some of our great content, sign up for our free weekly newsletter, or follow us on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Unwinding Anxiety With Dr. Jud Brewer [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 436 of Live Happy Now. Anxiety is so pervasive today that more than 40 million adults in the US are living with it. But this week's guest is trying to change that. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I am talking with Dr. Jud Brewer, a New York Times best-selling author and Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center. In his 2021 book, Unwinding Anxiety, Dr. Jud shared his scientific insights into how to break the cycle of worry. Now, those steps are also available through an app, and he's here today to tell us how we all can learn to break free from anxiety. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:45] PF: Dr. Jud, thank you so much for joining me today. [00:00:48] JB: Thanks for having me. [00:00:50] PF: You have written, researched, done so much work in the area of anxiety. This is such a huge, huge problem for people. To start it off, this has been problematic for generations. I wondered why we're not getting better at managing it, given the amount of time we've had to learn about it. [00:01:07] JB: This is way before neuroscience was even a field . Neuroscience is a very young field of study. It wasn't even coined until like the 1970s. But if you think about this approach to changing human behavior and working with ourselves, it's about I think, therefore, I am. I think, therefore, I could think. I can think my way out of anxiety. So that's been a dominant paradigm for a long time. Even I love – one of my favorite comedy skits is from the 1970s. This guy, I don't know if you remember Bob Newhart. [00:01:41] PF: Oh, I loved him. I loved Bob Newhart. [00:01:44] JB: So he had a skit called Stop It, basically, where this person, this woman comes into his – he's playing a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Woman comes into his office and says, “I have this fear,” talks about this fear. I won't give away the skit. Then he basically just says, “Stop it.” But he's highlighting what has been this dominant paradigm back in the sixties, seventies with cognitive behavioral therapy. Still present to today as the dominant thing is just control yourself, to stop it. If only that worked, if we could find that switch in our brain that we could just flip off that anxiety switch or that worry switch or that overeating switch or that whatever switch. It just doesn't work that way. [00:02:28] PF: Right. It's like growing up, my mom would be like, “Well, just calm down.” It's like that is what I'm trying to do. Literally, I'm trying to calm down and I can't. [00:02:37] JB: Yes. The more somebody tells us to calm down, the more anxious we get. [00:02:41] PF: Yes, exactly, exactly. Then we feel like we're doing something wrong. Like, “Why can't I get this under control?” Is that part of it too? We felt like we have to do it ourselves. [00:02:50] JB: I think that's a lot of it, where it's just like, well, what's wrong with you if you can't control your anxiety. So we also get into loops of self-judgment and unworthiness and guilt and shame and all that stuff. [00:03:04] PF: So is it more prevalent? Or are we just hearing more about it? Are we more willing to talk about it? Because it seems it's everywhere I turn, I hear conversations about it. I see reading materials about it. So I don't know if we're just more comfortable with talking about it or it really is a bigger problem. [00:03:22] JB: It's hard to know whether something's increasing, decreasing, or staying the same if you haven't measured it. So I don't think it's been measured historically as much as it's been measured today. So what I can say is we do know some of the factors that contribute to anxiety more, and we can certainly say those factors are pretty prevalent. So for example, our brains don't like uncertainty, and that's actually a built-in mechanism to help us survive. If we hear some rustling in the bushes, think of our ancient ancestors. You can't just ignore that and be like, “Yes, whatever. I'm going back to sleep.” [00:03:55] PF: It’s probably just a tiger. I’m fine. [00:03:57] JB: Yes, yes. It – pet tiger, pet tiger, not the dangerous non-pet tiger, right? So, yes, just a tiger. No big deal. So our brains are set up for survival in that way. In modern day, we've never had so much access to information, right? So it's like our brains are like, “Oh, more information, good.” But you can't drink from the fire hose. On top of that, there's a lot of unintentional misinformation and then intentional disinformation. So back in the day of our ancient ancestors, there was no such thing as the deep fake tiger or the whatever, the intentionally misleading tiger. It was like tiger or no tiger. So now, we have to become the expert on everything. When we hear something, we're like, “Well, is that true or not,” and then – so our brains start to go into overload because not only is there a ton of information, but we don't know what to trust, what not to trust, and we're not the experts. So I would say that certainly wasn't available back, before the Internet, for example. The Internet's really made information much more available and also mis and disinformation as well. So that's one piece in modern day that historically hasn't been there that is certainly contributing. [00:05:14] PF: And we don't get that time away from it. We used to have like you walked away from your life a little bit. Your work life, whatever it was. You had your evening. You could kind of decompress. That doesn't happen now. So what's that doing to give us this heightened always-on circuit in our brain? [00:05:31] JB: Yes. Well, there's a – it's now coined the FOMO, fear of missing out. That fear of missing out is not just social. So that can start in someone's teenage years or even probably earlier. But also in adulthood, it’s not only the social FOMO but also the work FOMO. So it's like, well, I could be checking my email to see if I'm missing an email. I could be doing this or that. Or somebody can always get a hold of us via text and say, “Hey, call me immediately,” when there used to be work-life boundaries. [00:06:02] PF: Yes. I read an article in the New York Times this past week, and it said that texting from work is starting to invade our personal space. I'm like, “That's just starting.” Like – [00:06:12] JB: Starting. I was going to say what. [00:06:14] PF: That’s been going on for a little while there, NYT. So it is. It's absolutely overloading. What is it doing to the brains of kids who are growing up in this kind of always-on environment? [00:06:28] JB: Yes. That's a good question. We now have a generation of digital natives, which means children that were born and don't know what it's like not to have smartphones, not to have social media, not to have the Internet. It is an uncontrolled experiment. [00:06:46] PF: On your children. [00:06:48] JB: Yes. That you didn't sign a consent form for. [00:06:53] PF: And you’re probably not going to like the outcome. But, yes, it is. It's going to be – it will be interesting to see. Will the way that anxiety is addressed with that generation be different than, say, someone like myself, who actually saw the screens go off like at 2am when they're babysitting, and there's no more TV for hours? [00:07:13] JB: It's a good question. Happy to be wrong here, but my hypothesis is that, regardless of whether we're a digital native or not, you treat it the same way. Part of that is that our brains are so adaptable that we can certainly remember what it was like to not have a cell phone or not have email or not have the Internet. But it just feels like ancient history because that's not what's happening right now. So whether we were born before or after, it doesn't really matter because what we're dealing with is the present moment, like what's happening right now. [00:07:52] PF: That makes perfect sense. You have done so much research in a lot of areas, but we want to talk about specifically what you've done with anxiety. I'm interested in learning what made you start researching anxiety. [00:08:04] JB: Basically, I was really anxious at the end of college, and I didn't know it to the point where my body had to give me some very clear signals through I developed irritable bowel syndrome. One of the big drivers for some people of irritable bowel syndrome is anxiety and stress. So my guts were letting me know, “Hey, pay attention. This is not good.” Also, fast-forward eight years later, when after I had finished my MD-PhD program, I started getting panic attacks during residency. So those were kind of precursors for my personal experience with this. Then interestingly, I – my lab – so I had started studying mindfulness training when I started my career as an assistant professor because I was really interested in how people can change addictive behaviors and habits. As a psychiatrist, I was really seeing the limitations in current treatments for addictions. So I really wanted to put – contribute there. I felt like people with addictions were my people, and so I really wanted to help there. So I started developing these programs. I developed a program for smoking. We actually got five times the quit rates of gold standard treatment, so that's – [00:09:16] PF: Oh, that’s amazing. [00:09:17] JB: Yes. I was thinking, wow, this works pretty well. Then we even developed an app for eating called Eat Right Now. A study led by Ashley Mason at UCSF found a 40% reduction in craving-related eating. That’s even gone, so we're like, “Wow, that's pretty good.” That program is now actually CDC-recognized as a diabetes prevention program, the first one that's based solely on mindfulness as a way to change it. I would say mindfulness. We can talk about this in a bit, but mindfulness really targets some of these neural mechanisms which other programs don't. But somebody in our eating program said to me, “Hey, anxiety is actually triggering me to stress-eat. Can you create a program for anxiety?” I was thinking, well, I'm a psychiatrist. I prescribe medications. But I was realizing, if you look at the data, there's this scientific term called the number needed to treat, which basically gives you a rough and dirty of how many people actually benefit from a treatment. That number is 5.2, which means one in five people benefit from the best medications we have out there. So I was basically playing the medication lottery when treating my patients with anxiety. One in five, I didn't know which one of the next five was going to benefit, and I didn't know what to do with the other four. So I was getting anxious about how to treat my patients with anxiety .So that question that somebody had asked me from our Eat Right Now program, can you create a program for anxiety, was kind of burning a hole in my ear, and I started – so I went back as a scientist and looked at the literature. Somebody back in the 1980s, ironically back when Prozac was introduced as the first SSR that's supposed to help anxiety, they had largely ignored the psychological research, where this guy Thomas Borkovec, had suggested that anxiety could be driven like a habit. When I read that, I was like, “Anxiety, habit. I research habits. I never thought of anxiety as a habit.” I was like mind-blown. So I developed this Unwinding Anxiety program and as a researcher wanted to study to see how well it worked. Get this. We started as like who's – what's the hardest population for us to work with? Oh, yes, physicians. Like we’re a pain in the ass. We don't take care of ourselves. We learn to armor up. We learn to be martyrs because if we're focusing on ourselves – we could be saving patients’ lives, and so don't waste our time on ourselves. Of course, that's why we get burnt out. So we did our first study with anxious physicians, and we got this whopping 57% reduction in anxiety. We also got burnout. But I was like, “Wow. Okay, this might have some legs to it.” So we got some funding from the NIH and did a randomized controlled trial in people with generalized anxiety disorder, like the worst of the worst. They wake up anxious. They feel anxious all day. Then they have trouble sleeping because they're anxious. Rinse and repeat. Really, really challenging condition. Here, we got a, ready for this, 67% reduction in anxiety, yes. The number needed to treat there, remember with medications, it's 5.2. The number needed to treat here is 1.6, the smaller number. [00:12:15] PF: Oh, my gosh. [00:12:16] JB: Yes. So we're like, “Wow, this is pretty good.” We went on to work out the mechanism. We did more studies showing that you could even improve sleep by treating anxiety, all this stuff. So all of that is to say work effects conjecture his hypothesis that you could treat anxiety as a habit was just so important. Here we are able to test that hypothesis in a way that's accessible for anybody with a smartphone. Here we're getting gangbuster results. It's really exciting to see that the theory lines up with the practice and also that the practice can be very pragmatic. We set these programs up to be 10 minutes a day for people to incorporate them into their busy lives. Importantly, what we're seeing from the data is that it's really helpful for people to reduce their anxiety. [00:13:02] PF: There's so many aspects to anxiety, and one thing is being able to access that help when you need it. So what are some of the tools that you teach people? We'll get to your app in just a moment. But what are some of the tools that you teach people to use so that when anxiety hits, they can start managing it then? [00:13:22] JB: Yes. I go into all the details in the Unwinding Anxiety book, but people don't need to read my book to get this. I think of it as a three-step process, where the first step is to map out our anxiety habit loops. Now, I didn't even know. As I mentioned, I didn't know that meant anxiety could be triggered like a habit. So the first thing for anybody to know is that anxiety can be a habit. The way that works is you need three elements to form a habit. You needed a trigger or a cue. Behavior is the second step. Then a result or a reward from a neuroscience standpoint is the third. The way that works is that the feeling of anxiety can trigger the mental behavior of worrying. Yes. Mental behaviors count just as much as physical behaviors, right? Then that mental behavior of worrying makes us feel like we're in control or at least doing something, right? Because it's better to worry than not to worry. [00:14:12] PF: Oh, interesting. I think most of us don't even think of worrying as a form of control. Again, it's just a habit. It's just – it's what I do. [00:14:21] JB: Yes. Well, I think that's accurate because worrying doesn't actually give us control. But the research has shown that for enough people, it makes them feel like they're in control, or it distracts them from the feeling of anxiety that it's rewarding enough, at least initially, for it to feed back so that the next time somebody feels anxious, they worry. Then like you point out, it quickly becomes a habit. [00:14:43] PF: Interesting. So you've got these three steps. Then how do they – how does that equate into being able to handle them? [00:14:51] JB: Yes, yes. So that first step. We've talked about the first step is just mapping out these habit loops. So being able to identify what's the trigger, what's the behavior, what's the result. We can actually even simplify that to just puts the behavior, and it tends to be worrying, like you're highlighting. But sometimes, it can be distracting ourselves with social media, stress-eating, emotional eating, drinking alcohol, things like that. Second step is where we really lean into the neuroscience. The way that works is our brains are going to keep doing a behavior if it's rewarding, and they're going to stop doing that behavior if it's not rewarding. If we're not paying attention, and we don't see how rewarding or unrewarding a behavior is, we're going to just keep doing it. We actually did a study with our Eat Right Now program to have people where we had people specifically pay attention to what it feels like when they overeat. It only takes 10 or 15 times for somebody to overeat and pay attention to see that that reward value is not rewarding. That reward value drops below zero in their brain, and they start to shift that behavior. So it doesn't take a lot of time. It doesn't take any effort. Notice how none of this requires willpower. This is really all about awareness, paying attention in the present moment. So feeling of anxiety triggers the mental behavior of worrying. If we don't pay attention to how rewarding or unrewarding worrying is, we're going to keep doing it because we're going to think, “Oh, this is just what I do,” like you pointed out. If we start to ask the question, what am I getting from worrying, and we really feel into our direct experience, we start to see something pretty clearly. Worrying makes me more anxious, right? It doesn't solve my problems. It doesn't help me predict the future. All it does is make me feel more anxious. That gives us a negative prediction error, where our brain says, “Hey, is this worrying thing really working for you?” No, no. It's not. It's not. Pay attention. Then we start to become disenchanted with the worrying. That's step two. That step applies to any habit. When my patients come in and want to quit smoking, what do I have them do? Pay attention as they smoke. They come back. I had a guy. He’d been smoking 40 years, right? We calculated the number of times he had reinforced this process. Ready for this? It was like 293,000 times. [00:17:04] PF: Oh, my gosh. [00:17:06] JB: And he hadn't been paying attention. So I said just set up a follow-up appointment and told him to go home and smoke and pay attention. He comes back and he's like how, "How did I not notice that before,” right? Cigarettes taste like crap. So it's much easier to quit smoking when you really see, feel, taste, smell what cigarettes are like. [00:17:25] PF: That's amazing. Yes, because you can’t – I can see how that works with any habit. That's absolutely amazing. [00:17:30] JB: Yes. Smoking, overeating, anxiety, all these things. Self-judgment, big one in western society. We're really good at beating ourselves up. We can start to ask, “What do I get from this,” right? So that's the second step. Third step is actually leveraging that same process. So if our brain is going to only do things that are rewarding, and they start to become disenchanted with these other behaviors, our brains are going to look for something better. Spoiler alert, it's not social media. [00:18:00] PF: Yes. Dang it, I got my answer wrong. [00:18:05] JB: Yes. Just scrolling on our social media feeds or checking our email, it might scratch that itch, but it just makes it itchier. It's like poison ivy. So we need to find things that are intrinsically rewarding that help us step out of these old habit loops. The good news is they're already there. We already have them. We just need to dust them off and use them a little bit more. Two main flavors here. One is curiosity. The other is kindness. Let's see how we can apply both of them. So if we have anxiety and we start worrying, we can worry, which tends to come into the mental flavor of, “Oh, no. This is happening,” or, “Will this happen,” or, “What's going to happen?” We can flip that to, “Oh.” That oh awakens our curiosity, and we go, “Oh, what does this anxiety feel like in my body?” We can even ask questions like is it more on the right side or the left side, front or back? It doesn't really matter what the answer is, but that awakens our curiosity like, “Huh, where is this? What does it feel like?” When we go looking for the anxiety, it starts running away because what we start to notice is that these physical sensations are constantly changing. If we're not feeding them by worrying, they tend to go away on their own. They might not go away instantly, but we can start to see, “Oh, these are physical sensations. They might be unpleasant, but I can tolerate this.” That curiosity helps us work with them. There's this saying attributed to Marcus Aurelius who is a Roman emperor and a stoic. He says, “What stands in the way becomes the way.” I love that because we can think of anxiety as a problem, or we can think of it as an opportunity to learn. Oh, this is what unpleasant sensations feel like. That curiosity helps us develop that distress tolerance. Instead of running to our phone to distract ourselves, we can turn toward this experience. By turning toward it, it's like the rats that scatter when you turn on the lights, right? It’s not as powerful as we thought it was. So that's how curiosity can help. I think if it has flipping that, “Oh, no,” whether it's a craving or worrying or whatever to, “Oh,” awakening that curiosity. The other flavor that I talked about was kindness, and that can be very helpful when we're judging ourselves. So we can compare judging ourselves, what do we get from this, to kindness. What do we get from this? No-brainer, right? Which one feels better in the body, being kind to ourselves. Yes, right? So here, this third step helps us step out of the old habit loop of judging ourselves by stepping into the new behavior of being kind to ourselves. Then because that is more rewarding, it becomes the new habit. Same for curiosity, it helps a step out of the old worrying habit loop and into the new habit of being curious. [00:20:56] PF: Those are such incredible techniques. Obviously, they take practice. It takes one remembering to do them when it strikes, which might be the hardest part of it. Once anxiety kicks in, it kind of feels like just grab your hat and hold the hell on. You don't really have the chance to do anything. But if you have a plan and you know, “Next time I feel anxious, this is what I'm going to do,” then you can start changing it. [00:21:20] JB: Yes. It's kind of like if you're flying in an airplane, lots of people have fear of flying in an airplane. Talk about lack of control. So the pilot comes on, and she says, “Attention, there's going to be some turbulence. Buckle up.” We can go, “Oh, no. Turbulence.” Or we can go, “Woo-hoo. Oh, no. Here we go.” [00:21:38] PF: Am I going to be YouTube famous? Hey. [00:21:42] JB: Yes. We have no control over that turbulence, but we certainly have control over how we respond to it. [00:21:47] PF: That's terrific. With your book, Unwinding Anxiety, it was widely acclaimed. It has helped so many people get through it, and that led to creating an app of the same name, which we're going to let our listeners try out for a month for free. But talk about how the app allows them to implement these principles and kind of how that works for them. [00:22:10] JB: So the app is set up as a – we have these core trainings where it's 10 minutes a day for 30 days to help people get the core understanding of how their mind works and how to work with their minds. So it's about 10 minutes a day, videos, animations that kind of teach a concept and then importantly have people start to put it into practice that day. Okay. So that's the psychoeducational component. The other components are we've got in-the-moment exercises. So when somebody feels anxious, they can buckle up, and we've got some great practices to help people ground, help people get back into the moment. So we can get their brains back online and working. The other piece is through those 30 core modules, it walks them through this three-step process. We use the analogy of gears, like driving a car. You shift into first gear, second gear, third gear. On top of that, there are a bunch of theme weeks that help solidify the core concepts. Then also, and this is actually one of the favorite parts of my week, every week, I run a live group through Zoom at noon Eastern Time on Wednesdays for anybody to join and ask a question. So we can actually go through what they might be struggling with live. So there, we can reiterate the concepts of three gears. Then we can see where somebody might be struggling to shift into one of the gears. Then, usually, in 5 to 10 minutes, kind of identify that and have them through an exploration process together. Have them see where they might already have it, and they just don't think they do or give them a couple of things to play with, and then let us know how it goes. So those are the key elements. We also have a very active online community where we now, over the years, have developed this very large crowdsourced knowledge base, where people ask questions. I answer the questions. Then over the years, people – there's basically a very rich library of answered questions because 80 or 90 percent of the questions that people have are the same, and they've already been answered. [00:24:06] PF: That's terrific too because just knowing you're not alone in your anxiety journey can be absolutely huge. Having someone else say, “I felt the exact same way, and here's what I did,” instead of going like, “Dude, that sucks. I'm really sorry.” [00:24:21] JB: “It sucks to be you.” [00:24:23] PF: Exactly. “Ah, so glad I didn't get that.” But, yes, I think that's so helpful. That community approach is really incredible. [00:24:31] JB: It is. Community is everything. [00:24:33] PF: So all the work that you've done in this space, and you're continuing to do more. What is it that you really want everyone to know about anxiety and, two, like really hope this accomplishes in the long run? [00:24:44] JB: Well, I would say the most important thing is for people to know it's not their fault, right? They think there's something wrong with them. They're broken. They can't be fixed. Well, there's nothing wrong with them. This is just their survival brains that have gone a little off track, and they can actually get them back on track in a relatively simple way, right? It's not magic. It's not to say one and done. But it's also not to say, well, you've been anxious for 30 years. It's going to take another 30 years to help you become unanxious. That's the good news. I've had plenty of patients, et cetera, success stories, where people come in 30 years of generalized anxiety disorder, full-blown panic attacks. Within six months, they're like, “Wow, I don't know what to do with all this extra time now that I'm not worrying.” [00:25:34] PF: I love that. How freeing is that? [00:25:36] JB: I'm like, okay, great opportunity to go help the world. [00:25:40] PF: Yes. There you go. This is such an important conversation to have. The work that you're doing is so incredible. I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me today and talk about it. I'm really eager to share your work with our listeners because I don't want to say I think they will. I know that people will get so much out of this. So I appreciate you coming on today. [00:26:01] JB: Well, I really appreciate you having me. This has been a great conversation. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:06] PF: That was Dr. Jud Brewer, talking about Unwinding Anxiety. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Jud or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're on this episode's landing page, be sure to check our anxiety links and resources, including a one-month free trial of the Unwinding Anxiety app. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day happy one. [END]