Dear Friends,
In the midst of stressful moments, I recall this visual from Yale Professor Dr.Laurie Santos: Our thoughts don’t just exist in our minds. A single thought can launch a cascade of stress hormones in our bodies. When she shared it, I thought about how often I allow that cascade to course through my body every day.
Here’s how she described it in our conversation for Fast Company…
This is another domain where our inner voice can be a friend or an enemy. If I know something stressful is coming and I’m like—This week, I have so many meetings. It’s going to be terrible—that voice is affecting not just how I think about what’s coming up, but it’s also affecting physiologically what’s happening to me. I’m spiking my own stress hormones and the events haven’t even happened yet. Whereas if you talk to yourself and say: This is great. I’ve got a whole day of meetings. It’s going to be a lot, but cortisol is going to kick in. It’s going to bring glucose to my bloodstream and I’ve got this. There are times when we greet stressful moments with excitement.
So, it’s remembering that we have a choice of how we frame those things; And, recognizing that the way we frame them is having these longer lasting effects about whether we’re turning on our fight or flight system and launching a whole hormonal cascade of stress hormones. The way we talk to ourselves matters a lot for what happens to our physiology.
My mantra this year was “No Resistance.” I didn’t require myself to overcome or even reframe challenging moments; Only not to resist them. My goal was to put a dam in that cascade and stop my fight or flight response from being activated.
Surprisingly, compassionate self-talk replaced resistance, another tool Dr.Santos shared in our interview. I’ll admit that I was wrongly skeptical of the practice over the years. Still, it’s been the simplest and most impactful tool in improving my mental health (go figure!).
Here’s how she recommended trying it…
This is work by Kristen Neff, where she talks about self-compassion as being partly about mindfulness. So, recognizing what emotions you’re dealing with: I’m having a tough time right now. Second is a process of common humanity. You react to that negative emotion by saying: But, everybody faces this. I’m human. I’m going to go through this stuff. Then, finally you react with self kindness. You say: What can I take off my plate? How can I take care of myself? Those three steps can be a powerful way to update your self-talk so that it’s kinder to yourself.
The more I practiced self-compassion, the more my mental health improved. Dr.Santos helped me see that we can use our thoughts to calm, rather than agitate, our nervous system; Inspiring feelings of peace, and even levity, in the process.
Dr.Santos’ course, Psychology and the Good Life, is the most popular in Yale’s history. To expand its impact, she created The Science of Wellbeing, a free Coursera class that over 4.5 million people have taken, and hosts The Happiness Lab Podcast, which has been downloaded over 100 million times.
Her wisdom made a transformative impact on me. So, I’m especially excited to share our conversation and hope it may be similarly illuminating for you. We did a deep-dive on how to change how you experience stress, define new metrics of success, and create space for serendipity (and much more!)
Now, take a moment to reflect on a source of anxiety in your own life. How might self-compassion change the way that those thoughts manifest in your body?
With love,
Jenna
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