The Pursuit Of Health & Happiness With Dr. Greg Hammer

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof. Welcome back to another episode of the Change Proof Podcast.

Proof Podcast. I'm Adam Markel, and I'm so happy that you're joining me today. I've got an incredible guest. His name is Greg Hammer. He's a doctor, recently retired professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, pediatric intensive care physician, pediatric anesthesiologist, wellness and mindfulness lecturer, and the author of Gain Without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Healthcare Professionals. He has published widely on the topics related to pharmacology and perioperative care for children undergoing cardiac and thoracic procedures as well as organ transplantation. Dr. Hammer is a health enthusiast and meditator utilizing non-duality and mindfulness-based approaches, including the GAIN method. I can tell you right now, you're going to love this conversation. So many insights that Dr. Hammer is going to share with us. I'm not gonna refer to him as Dr. Hammer in just a moment, so you'll see why, or we'll discuss that at the outset. Sit back and enjoy this incredible guest and our wonderful conversation. Okay, Greg, and I'm gonna say Dr. Hammer one time, and it'll be Greg from here on. And I, for my listeners, that's with permission. I asked for permission on that. And actually, I think that's, uh, just given what I know about you initially, and I, I know why it's Greg to begin with. So thank you for that. You have a very impressive work history, CV. Not everybody's intro reads like yours does. But I'm gonna ask you the same question that I love to ask at the start of these things, which is, what's one thing that isn't a part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you?

My love for ice hockey as a participant. And it's the one sport I can actually watch a little bit. I, I usually save it for the Stanley Cup, but ice hockey is about as much fun as a human being can have as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, well, first of all, if anybody was like seeing this on YouTube, you saw my face kind of like make a little shocked look. I wasn't expecting that, which is perfect. That's the great, that's the perfect answer. The thought to me came immediately, like you're a Californian who loves ice hockey, but I know you have some roots in the East as well. So I got to ask you, where did the love of hockey come from? Where did it, where did that all start?

Oh, you know, it came from my youth. I actually grew up outside of Chicago. I went to school in Boston, and I did some training in Philadelphia as well. But from a very early age, my, you know, in the winters, the local elementary school that I attended had a guy named Harold who was a crossing guard, and Harold would spray one of the fields with water in the wintertime. And so we'd get this just terrific surface full of bubbles and ruts, and it created quite a surface for skating and playing hockey. But That was part of the game. My brother and I used to take our skates up there and our hockey sticks and a few pucks, and a bunch of others would congregate. It was just such a great experience. And we loved watching the Chicago Blackhawks back in the day when there were 6 teams in the NHL. So yeah, it came naturally. We come from a very sporting family, so we were always into sports and athletics. But my brother and I are very close, and that was our favorite.

You went to Andover, right? Did, did you?

I did.

You play hockey when you were there?

I played as a freshman and then I just played club hockey when I was there. And then I went to Northwestern and I played on the hockey team there starting as a freshman.

Wow. I have a buddy. I live, I also live in California. You and I are a couple hundred miles apart. I think you, you up in the north and me in the south. But, but I have some, there's some folks nearby, friends of ours that are from the Chicago area and they can't give up their Blackhawks hockey for anything. It's like they live for it. And I think it's one of those things that, as you say, it sort of builds resilience in the most sort of obvious way on a physical level. But it's more than that because to deal with the discomfort of, first of all, being on the skates, like you said, to learn on a field that was sprayed with— there's ruts and things. I mean, it's not like skating on a Zamboni arena ice. It's a completely different thing, right?

Yeah, absolutely. No, and, and being a Blackhawk fan builds resilience as well.

And that does too. Although, yeah, yeah, I get that. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting Getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. So, look, I wanna jump in and, and as I said before we hit record, just sort of follow the breadcrumbs where they lead us. I was reading this morning about just how many people are out there speaking, podcasting, and, and even in some ways hawking their solutions when it comes to longevity, when it comes to health and wellbeing, et cetera. And I, I follow a lot of that stuff. I, I use a lot of those products as well. I find myself leaning, leaning into that. A lot of people are clearly. But I thought just get, get your perspective on longevity. And, you know, we can track this and, and, and sort of see where we want to begin with it. Does it's, you know, is, is it the habits that we create, resiliency habits, perhaps even early in, in life? Is it something that you can sort of pivot like on this, on the rink and change and create those things later in life in your experience? You know, and what does it look like outside of all the products and all the hype? Yeah. What does it look like to do things that are actually gonna help you to live longer and stronger mentally for, you know, brain health and the rest of us as well? So that's a very packed sort of intro, and you can start anywhere you want, but we want answers, Greg. Okay?

Sure. Well, you know, we're all interested in healthspan. We don't wanna live to be 120 if we're unhealthy or unhappy. That would be punishment. So we all really want to have a good quality of life. And so we call that healthspan, the combination of good health and longevity. And, you know, there are basics in terms of our physical wellbeing that are well documented with good science that we can follow. There's, you know, then areas of uncertainty. And by the way, you know, I practiced medicine for a very long time and Not everything we do in medicine is evidence-based, right? We can't wait for randomized controlled trials for everything. So a lot of the supplements and other lifestyle habits, if you will, that are touted, some of them may not be fully proven. So we have to do a risk-benefit analysis. If something is not too inconvenient and there's some good science that indicates it's probably going to contribute to our healthspan, and the risk is low, then we embrace it. But we all want healthspan. And so there are really, you know, from a physical standpoint, physical wellbeing, sleep, exercise, nutrition, supplements, couple of drugs actually, which show promise that are readily available. At least one of them is. And then our mental and spiritual wellbeing. And again, my first book was called Gain Without Pain. It's about a mindfulness meditation practice based on gratitude, acceptance, intention, and non-judgment. GAIN is an acronym for those 4 elements. These are relatively straightforward and easy things to do because we know with regard to the quality of our life and our longevity that there are a handful of factors that really age us and they undermine our wellness both physically and mentally. And they are stress, and inflammation. Those 2 probably pay, play the largest roles. And then of course, you know, our, the physical and spiritual wellbeing elements are interacting totally very closely with those, with stress and inflammation. So we could go into any one of those areas that we could talk about physical wellbeing. We can talk about spiritual wellbeing. They're very closely interrelated. Of course, you can't really separate them. And then we could talk about the components, say, of physical wellness, The importance of sleep, exercise, what kind of exercise, nutrition, supplements, drugs. There's a lot of different conversations we can have, Adam, and I'm happy to go wherever you'd like.

I love it. So, Greg, I, I wanna first just ask you, you use the term healthspan, which I think is a— that's a really a different way to look at it than lifespan. And I'm thinking in terms of lifespan of a podcast that I heard some maybe about a year and a half or 2 years ago called Lifespan, based on a book written in part or in collaboration with David Sinclair, who's a—

Yes.

Researcher, I think, at MIT and Harvard. And it's— I, first of all, just wanted to think of it in that distinction, that there's a distinction between lifespan and healthspan. And I think you put your finger on it when you identified we'd all love to— well, not maybe everybody, but I know I'd love to live to be 120. So would my wife. We set the intention long ago that we were going to have this amazing 75th wedding anniversary. We created a kind of a vision board for it and some invitations for people to come and join us on the beach in Cape Cod for a clambake, you know, 75th. And we'd be— each of us would be just— think she'd be just shy of 100. I'd be just 100 or a little over that, you know. So to get to 120, and, and have all the pieces and parts working, especially the brain piece of it, the brain health part of it, and the body is different than just making it there at, you know, any and all cost. Qualitative versus quantitative. And, and yes, I think that's, you, you agree that that's an important distinction for people to have?

Absolutely. You know, there, there've been a lot of interest in these so-called blue zones around the world where there are a lot of centenarians that prevalence of people living over the age of 100. And the thing about these centenarians is that in general, they tend to be pretty healthy until shortly before they die. So they have a short period of declining health prior to their demise, as opposed to what we see more commonly in the West in particular, which is that we get to a certain age, it could be 50, 60, 70, and then we have a relatively long, slow decline. So we're sick for a long period of time. We use a lot of, you know, the resources in our health system. But more importantly, you know, we are— we feel that we're a burden to others, our family members, and we're just unwell for a relatively long period of time. And so I think when we look to these Blue Zones and these centenaries—

And it's costly as well. And the whole concept of how you could somehow live in, whether it's memory care facility or in other ways, be getting compassionate care, The cost of that is enormous, and people might spend all their life savings or have some other outcome as a result as well. Sorry to interrupt you, but I just— the cost is insane in this country for that, isn't it?

Oh, absolutely. And, you know, the cost of medical care is a huge issue. The percentage of our gross national product devoted to healthcare is— I don't know if it's over 20%, but it's getting toward 20%. It's not sustainable. And so, We need to, just from a public health standpoint, really figure out ways and implement as many of that scientific understanding in a public health domain so that we become more like the centenarians living in the Blue Zones and, and less like the preponderant number of others in the US and elsewhere.

Yeah. I mean, look, people can look that up and probably have already. I mean, there's, like you said, there's number of shows on, on any number of streaming platforms, but if you haven't, if For the folks listening to this, definitely, I think there's some really interesting things to pick up from the documentaries on Blue Zones. But you, you were gonna say something at that point when I interrupted you. So about this idea of living, folks living kind of almost right up until their expiry date, but living healthily up until that point. Was there more that you wanted to say about the Blue Zones?

No, I think just, you know, in keeping with what I said about our physical wellbeing and our spiritual wellbeing and You know, part of the latter has to do with community. I think there are 3 things that we need to focus on, especially as we age, and they are continuing to grow and learn for brain health, among other things. Being in community with others. I think that's a, a big issue with the centenarians living in these blue zones is that they're well integrated with their families. And, you know, they have a lot of wisdom. They're highly regarded by their family members. Typically. And then the third, beside learning and growing, being in community is service. And again, this is something that's really been deemphasized in our culture. But for me, when I thought about my retirement from Stanford, at least 10 years before I pulled the trigger, I identified those 3 as really my directives to, to figure out a way to grow and learn every day. to be in, in close community with others and to serve. And those were all part of my job for 35 or so years. But then, you know, once we retire, we have to have a plan in place. We have to have the I in GAIN, which is intention. And as you said, you, you had this sort of vision board for your 75th anniversary. I love that. We do have to have purposefulness. We have to plan. We have to invoke our plan with intention. And so, yes, I think this idea behind growing, learning, Being in community and serving is, again, simple, basic, and essential.

Yeah. I would love it if you'd once again just let people know about the acronym GAIN. Obviously, this was, this was a book you'd written. How that book came out, the subtitle being The Happiness Handbook for Healthcare Professionals. Is that correct?

Yes.

GAIN Without Pain. So I wanna, wanna talk about that audience of people because I also, our organization serves that community quite frequently as workplace consultants and, and as a keynote speaker myself. an author. So what does GAIN stand for? And then let's talk about that community that the book was directed toward.

Sure. GAIN stands for what I think are the 4 essential domains of happiness, and they are gratitude, acceptance, intention, and nonjudgment. And, you know, we love acronyms in medicine, and I rely on acronyms to help you remember things. And I thought, well, you know, 5 elements might be more than even I can remember. 3, I'm probably gonna be leaving something important out. Can I do it in 4? Can I embrace what I think are all of the domains of happiness in 4 letters and 4 domains? And so that's partly how I came up with GAIN.

So gratitude, people might go, all right, I've heard this before, or, you know, attitude of gratitude. It, it's pretty popular. There was a study I read some, some years ago. It was a UC Davis study looking at people that had gratitude practices. So I, I wanna say something, and then if, if there's more, let's explore it because this is a deep well for anybody that thinks, oh, I've heard heard something about gratitude. I kinda get that. You may, you may get it, and, and maybe you don't get it as, as well as, as is possible, I suppose. I know I keep getting it daily how flippin' important it is to live in this, in that state of appreciation. And this UC Davis study was really amazing because people that had gratitude practices, which we could discuss what those are, I know we, we have them in our house, they are healthier, they are happy, happier, they have fewer Complaints of all kinds, including health complaints, and they actually move their bodies about an hour and a half per week more than people that do not have gratitude practices, which is you know that and that one kind of surprised me as well. But there's a whole host of benefits that they were attributing to simply these practices that people have regarding what they're grateful for.

You know, I think just kind of going back to what is the science behind these findings, for example. there's association. So people who are grateful and have gratitude practices tend to be healthier, live longer, are happier, et cetera. It's partly, it's not necessarily just cause and effect that you have the gratitude practice and then that creates this sort of, you know, euphoria, what have you. It's an association. It's a, there's a lot of selection bias, as we say, involved because the people that have a gratitude practice tend to be more pragmatic, more optimistic. This is just common sense. I'm not, quoting any scientific data here, but I think gratitude, we can all agree, is intrinsic to happiness because we can imagine somebody or may know somebody who's poor and happy, or somebody who's not in the greatest of health, has physical challenges and is happy despite that. But you can't really even imagine somebody, Adam, who's ungrateful and happy. That's sort of the test. And it's not difficult. And we can go into this in more detail if you'd like, but I'm fascinated by the neurologic circuitry in our brains and how our brains are wired. And they're really, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, our brains have evolved in ways that suit survival. So we're wired for survival, and that includes having a negativity bias. We're very wary. We are obsessed with the future. What's the worst thing that can happen with our negativity bias? We catastrophize. And that may have been adaptive 150,000 years ago when our forebears were sitting around a fire in a cave imagining there might be a saber-toothed tiger lurking outside the mouth of the cave. They had to, there was an advantage to actually thinking of what the worst thing that could happen was and being very wary and being focused on the future and even on the past. But Not necessarily present, and if they were wary and and concerned about what was the worst thing that might happen, they may have lived longer, procreated more, and so the genes that sort of code for these neural circuits propagated in the population. And here we are today, 150,000 years later, and this is the way our brains are wired. But it's no longer adaptive to be kind of on the edge of you know this negativity and stress and being ready to fight or flee at a. drop of a hat, it doesn't suit us anymore. And the good news is we can actually rewire our brains. We have this amazing quality called neuroplasticity. And I think gratitude is one of the elements along with the other 3 in GAIN that can help us do that. And it's never too late. And, you know, having a gratitude practice is extremely simple. But tell me if I'm droning on a bit too long, but I, you know, Because of our negativity bias, I often think about the fact that we have negative thoughts right off the bat before we even get out of bed. So we're lying in bed and I'm thinking, you know, maybe I played golf or did something and my knee is a little bit sore. I start focusing even before I get up. I've got this pain in my knee. I, you know, why me? And so as I swing my legs and get out of bed, I'm more aware of it and I'm thinking about it as I go to the commode. And why not instead, as soon as we start to have those negative thoughts, think about the miracle of our physiology? Think about the fact that while we were sleeping, and maybe this is too graphic for people, but our kidneys were working, filtering our blood, removing these toxins from the blood, putting them in a solution that gets sent down to our bladder. Our bladder, for the most part, is kind to us and Helps store that so that we don't have to get up and go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Maybe we get up once or twice, and then we go over to the commode in the morning and we have this sort of pleasurable release of this stuff. And what a miracle that this is working for us 24/7, for most of us. And so as we begin to move around in the morning and, and start to get outta bed, let's just be grateful for the physiology that is just Just blows me away. You know, the more I study it, the more amazed I am. And so anyway, this is just an example of our negativity bias, but how we can really begin to rewire the brain just by being grateful for what we have.

Yes. That, that neuroplasticity means we literally have the ability to change or to grow at any point in time that that system is still operative. And that, that in and of itself is something to be grateful for. I'm not bored. You know, I could listen to you. You asked how long I could listen to you and on about that because it's been of interest to me for a really long time and such that I tortured myself to— I didn't look to see if you've ever done a TED Talk or anything like that, but I got— I said yes to one some years ago. It was an experience, an amazing experience, but also very— a torturous one. And the through line of that talk was all about what you just said. How do you actually begin the day and what flows out of that? that choice that we make to start the day. And, and it's interesting, I was a lawyer for 20 years, and, and so my mind's still kind of, even though I've been retired from that for 12 or so, but I still think in terms of some of those pragmatic things. Like, I didn't have a contract last night when I went to sleep that I would even wake up. And I've never yet met anybody in my personal life or in my professional life that, that's ever told me that they did, that they had sort of an agreement. That was in, you know, in writing. Example, I'll ask you, did you have a contract last night when you went to sleep? You're going to wake up today, Greg?

No, no such contract.

No such contract exists. So sometimes if I wake up and I, and I have a little of that dicey feeling at the beginning of the day, I could tell kind of when I put my feet on the floor, which used to be something that I lived with. I lived with that for a period of about a decade, really, through my practice of law when I, I was ignoring everything except being vigilant, everything, but really, like you said, sort of allowing worry to drive what I did for, you know, for most, for most of the day. I think when I wake up today now and that little twinge of sort of anxiousness or angst or even anxiety hits me right out of the gate, I just go, hmm, in this moment, what's, what, what is happening all around this globe? I'm taking a breath and someone's taking their last breath in that Exact same moment. And and while that might sound like hyperbole, it's first of all, it's truth. It's absolute fact, and it's an immediately brings me into the present moment to decide whether I'm I'm grateful for that breath that I'm taking as other people are leaving. And it's it creates a whole changes. It's a state change. Everything changes in that moment, and it actually makes makes that moment quite sacred for me. And not going off on a on a tangent on the spiritual side of things, but but it's hard for me not. to be, to feel appreciation for my life, imperfect as it is, as all of ours, we share that. In that moment, it, it, it gives, it creates an opportunity, then an opening that, that is pretty beautiful. So it's a different, it's a, and it starts that very first moment of the day. So do you, Greg, do you still have to manage your thoughts from waking?

Yeah. In fact, I often, in the haze of semi-consciousness, as I'm just beginning to emerge from sleep in the morning, Often have feelings of anxiety, and I'm going through a year of transition because I retired at the end of '23, and I knew it would be a year of adjustment because every day I went to work, I was, oh, the professor is here, you know, et cetera. You can't help but have that image become part of your identity. And even though I, from a spiritual standpoint, and I have a strong spiritual practice, I don't believe there's a hierarchy. Et cetera, you know, you, you can't help but be supported by the community of others sort of holding you in high esteem. And I felt that that was my condition anyway. I knew that when I stopped doing that, it would be an adjustment, even though I thought about it a lot and I think I was well prepared for it. So, you know, I have feelings as I'm in that semi-conscious state in the morning often of what am I doing? Am I serving a purpose, et cetera. It's, it's generally when I'm not really fully awake yet. When I get up and I get all the visual cues, open the blinds, let in some light, appreciate my kidneys, et cetera, things change. But so many of us feel that way. And, and it's important for anybody who's listening to know that we're not alone. We all, our brains are wired this way.

Yeah.

Right. We're not gonna completely change them. All we can do is improve the circuitry so that it's more adaptive because in many ways it's, it's essentially maladaptive the way we think. So I—

and it wasn't before, but it, but it is today. And I think this is sort of a bridge that we must almost— that we have to create because it's, as you say, it's— it is wired into our genetics to sort of lean that way.

Yes. So, you know, I don't— I try not to resist those thoughts. I make a point of being the observer of those thoughts. I think that's really what, you know, an essential ingredient to mindfulness. We become the observer. And, you know, the A in GAIN is acceptance, and the opposite of that is resistance. And resistance is directly proportional to suffering. So there's a formula in the book, suffering equals pain times resistance. So the pain is there. I lost my son 7 years ago at the age of 29. That pain is not going away, but if I resist it in so many ways that we can resist uncomfortable or painful thoughts and feelings, My suffering increases. So when I have those thoughts in the morning, I don't try to push them away. I breathe into them. And, you know, my strategy is that I will actually take long, slow, deep breaths, activate my parasympathetic nervous system, and breathe in acceptance. So I accept these thoughts. I accept that I retired, that I'm going through this transitional period. At times I'm uncertain of my purpose. At times I'm feeling like I'm not part of the community anymore. These are natural thoughts and I, I actually observe them and maybe even lean into them and embrace them. And so I think it's important not to think that gratitude is simply going to solve all of, you know, your problems or the negative ways of thinking and being that we have, but it sure is an important ingredient.

Things that we hang onto, and mostly I think we hang onto things or resist things being different than the way we think they ought to be is simp— so the root of that is our expectations around them. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely.

So working on our expectations, I think is, again, none of this stuff is easy. Just, I mean, I don't know that this needs a, it's certainly, I don't, I don't know that it needs what's like bumpers around it, but the, around the conversation, because I think people realize that nothing in life is necessarily easy. And if you don't realize that, well then, then that's a great awareness to begin with already because It's not promised that it'd be easy.

No, but, you know, we—

But it could be meaningful and it can be, can be worthwhile. And, you know, and that's different. Those are different expectations than it should go my way. It should happen when I want it to happen. It should be fair, even just even. And I was a lawyer for a long time. And, and you're working through these things after a long and illustrious career and knowing that you still want to remain of service and maybe even of greater service now. than been previously. So you've had to let go of lots in the process of transitioning into the present. Yes.

Yes, absolutely. We, you know, I, I knew I, my career was not my identity. It's not who I am. But nevertheless, this sort of does get ingrained into the way we think and, and experience. So it does take intention, the I and gain, in order to let go of those. And I think expectations, as you put it, And that construct. This is not who we are. We are, and I don't want to get into the spirituality of it too much unless you'd like to go there, but, you know, I believe in the consciousness-only model. We're all just made of consciousness. We're not some construct that is built on the career that we had or, you know, our relationships with other people or, or what have you. But it takes a plan in order to let go of those feelings and those experiences. And like you said, it's not easy. And again, I think our negativity bias comes into play when we feel as though we're uncomfortable or we're suffering. We assume that it is easier for everybody else, that this is our dirty little secret, that we have this negativity bias, that we feel insecure, that we have depression, that we experience anxiety. And no, this is not our dirty little secret. So you are all this way.

Wouldn't it be great if we really believed that? If everybody really believed that, and not just believed it, but, but lived with the understanding that we are all, you know, behind, behind the, the facade and the, the meat suit and the rest of it, that we're all just really feeling the same ways about ourselves and about our relationship to the rest of the world around us? It's—

well, I think that is a hugely important Understanding. And if I'm asked at the end of a podcast like yours and lots of others, if there's one thing I'd like for people to know, you know, coming from my heart or what have you, it's just that. It's that our negativity, our feelings of depression, sadness, isolation, anxiety, fear, they are not ours alone. We're all wired this way. So it's not our dirty little secret. I don't know if you're familiar with the writings of Arthur Brooks, but it's the idea. One of the ideas that he writes about is that through discussing and sharing our thoughts of weakness and negativity, we actually become stronger. And that's the paradox apparently. But I believe in that so strongly, and I have for a very long time had no problem falling on my sword when I think I'm wrong. I probably I am overly self-judgmental and think I'm wrong even when I, maybe there is no such thing. I have no problem apologizing. I have no problems discussing my sadness, my fears, my anxiety. Again, we're all wired this way, and I think when we let go of this construct that tends to suppress or resist those thoughts and feelings, we become liberated, we become happier, we become stronger. So if I were to actually have the opportunity to transmit one message, it would be that this is not your dirty little secret. We're all, this is how we're wired. We're all like this. And I think just that understanding itself is so helpful to people. It's just, it's transformational.

Yeah. And you said earlier that it's no longer that our negativity bias is no longer adaptive. I want, I want to lean into that for a second as we move through the, the G-A-I-N. Because, you know, a lot of people think that— know that Darwin is famous for certain things, and, and one of them people will attribute to Darwin is a sort of statement that it's the survival of the fittest is what we're, you know, what we see, and, and that's what evolution has looked like. But that's not actually what he said, even though somehow— and shocking, shocking as it is that something that someone said or wrote has misinterpreted or relayed incorrectly— he actually said the opposite. It's not the fittest. That survive. It's not the most intelligent of the species that survive. It's the most adaptive to their changing environment that survive. And, and because in our work, I'm a resilience researcher, write about that topic. And as they say, we, we work inside of organizations to help to create more resilient teams, et cetera. We're fascinated by it. And that concept of how you adapt to change is a marker of resilience, I think is really important. So when you said that our negativity bias is no longer adaptive, And yet so many of us, when we think about why we resist or unwilling to admit when we're wrong or protect, you know, at all costs our, our precious self-esteem or whatever it is, it's like, it's this fear that will, that being vulnerable will lead to annihilation. I mean, that's that negativity bias. So how are we as a species gonna, going to become more adaptive and therefore create longevity and also solve a lot more problems and have a better quality of life across the globe, even if we still have this negativity bias kind of leading the charge in so many of us?

Great question. I don't know about something on as grand a scale as that, but I think at least you and I can have a conversation about what we might embrace and what anybody who's watching and listening to this might embrace. And first, we have to identify what are the issues of greatest import. So we talk about healthspan. What are those modifiable variables that adversely affect our healthspan? And it all is very much intertwined with this sense of negativity. So, and I'll tell you my definition of resilience based on my work and what's most critical to me. And, and this all relates to what I was going to say. What are the modifiable variables that are maladaptive That do relate to this negativity bias. One of them is stress. So it's the, you know, we, we talk about evolution. The acute stress response is a fascinating array of hormonal and other changes that occur very quickly. We're primed for them to begin to be generative. They include secretion of epinephrine, also called adrenaline, another hormone called cortisol. Most people are at least somewhat familiar with that. Lots of other hormonal changes and other physiologic changes associated with the acute stress response. And this evolved activation of the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flee. And it's, was an adaptive response, this acute stress response. When, you know, we can go back to that 150,000 years BCE, it was an adaptive response that helped us flee from a predator or stay and fight a foe or perhaps a predator. It's no longer adaptive. And yet the reason that we have the acute stress response is because it's From an evolutionary standpoint, it's ingrained into our physiology, but in general, it's no longer adaptive and it's typically triggered by thoughts rather than actual threats, right? I'm walking down the hall, my boss wants to meet with me, feeling like my heart rate's going up a little bit. Maybe I'm a little sweaty, maybe even I'm a little bit jittery. It's just triggered by thoughts. It's not adaptive. These are not responses that are necessarily beneficial. We get flooded with emotion and adrenaline. It's the acute stress response when we're in a disagreement with our spouse or a friend or an acquaintance or a colleague or what have you. It's not really adaptive for us to be flooded with adrenaline and cortisol at those moments. So the fact is it's okay to have this acute stress response. Here's where resilience comes into play. Resilience is the ability to neutralize the acute stress response when we recognize that it is not adaptive. That's my definition of resilience, which obviously has many different manifestations, but The chronic stress that we experience—

Will you just repeat that?

Yeah.

I'd love for people to sit with this, hear this, and then, and we'll lean into this a little more afterward too. So,

sure. Resilience is the ability to neutralize the acute stress response when it is understood to be maladaptive or not adaptive. So we have this flooding of adrenaline, cortisol, many other changes. I don't really need this right now. I'm not running away from a predator. Let me take a few deep breaths, do what I need to do. Let me embody resilience and have these adverse changes neutralized, come back down to baseline so that they don't become chronic. And if we don't have that resilience to neutralize the acute stress response, that manifestation of stress becomes chronic. Chronic stress is at the core of aging. Stress and inflammation. This is my understanding and my thesis. So if we're not resilient, we're going to suffer from chronic stress, and that promotes cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, and even cancer because our immune system is suppressed when we have chronic stress. And so this is one of those modifiable variables, Adam, that we mentioned. This is something we can actually do something about if we have the eye and gain or intention. And so I'd love to hear about what you call resilience. Obviously resilience has many different manifestations in different environments. I'm really speaking about sort of physiologic resilience, if you will.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you'll ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than three minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Now, where are you? Where's simpatico? Because for so many people, I will. Speaking on behalf of a larger population of folks that we've researched that say that resilience is bouncing back, how you endure stress or how you endure hardship and any number of other things. And that endurance and grit, and no offense to the folks that have written and talked about grit, whether on a TED stage in Angela Duckworth's case or in her book Grit, but, and it's valuable and it's an aspect. But I think that's the problem is that people think that the answer to their, to the stress in their lives or the other challenges is really to be more gritty or to grind somehow that they can, they can work their way through it. It that way. And in many professions, including in nursing and anything to do with healthcare, what we saw through the pandemic is that's clearly not the case. And we saw it across every industry that we've ever been involved in, that, that methodology, which might have worked in the past— and I don't even know that it worked in the past, frankly— is just upside down now. That, that you cannot grit your way through those things. You cannot run a marathon that has no end. So for us, resilience is about recovery. And what you just described was, again, in other words, it's just beautiful that when something is non-adaptive, meaning it actually isn't going to help you in the moment or in the future even, that in that instance, that response, if that response isn't adaptive, isn't going to help you, then it has to be neutralized. And the way we would say you neutralize it is through recovery practice. Through that breath or through some other, or through that 20-minute walk, you know, or lying with your legs, you know, putting your legs up the wall in the middle of the afternoon instead of grabbing another cup of coffee or focusing on getting a truly beneficial night's rest or hydration from the start. Like you say, you start the day, I'm thankful for my kidneys and I'm also dehydrated because I sweat all night. And you bring up inflammation, which I guess inflation and inflammation are pretty related, but I mean, inflammation often is the result of dehydration as well as other things. Is that— and I'm asking a doctor, so is that BS that I just said, that, that we can often feel that there's inflammation in our bodies because we are dehydrated?

Sure. I mean, that's a— it's certainly a stress to our body to be dehydrated. And is there an inflammatory response to dehydration? I mean, there may be, but, you know, it is a stressor to our body. And so it's, you know, not a healthful condition, but it's one that hopefully we can remedy quickly. But yes, I mean, I think, you know, I think of resilience in a very physiologic sense, but what you said is absolutely true. You're not going to be resilient by toughing it out. It reminds me, you know, I think we talked about physical wellbeing, sleep, exercise, nutrition. Sleep is, has been hugely underrated. And this idea that, oh, well, you know, believe me, I've had a lot of nights of disrupted or absent sleep. And, you know, but the idea that you can make up for it on the weekends, or the grittiest approach, we'll sleep when we die, or we'll sleep when we're dead, is just completely untrue. If you want to have a healthy long life, you got to have a plan with regard to your sleep and your sleep hygiene. So that's just one example of exactly what you said. You're not going to tough it out by just depriving yourself of sleep night after night and expecting to be healthy.

No. And it requires— so the I in GAIN is intention. And so it becomes even a question in conversation of what is your true intention? Do you have the intention of sleeping well tonight? And if so, what would you do to prepare for that? Sometimes I'll ask people, you know, if you were— because the Olympics are coming up as you and I are recording this, the Olympics in Paris are going to be starting. And, and if you were to have an Olympic event tomorrow, what would you be doing? Would you, would you be drinking tonight? Would you be drinking a couple, a couple of cocktails this evening? How would you be thinking and preparing for sleep? What else would you be doing? You know, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually speaking, even, like, what would you be doing? And while for many people getting up in the morning to take care of the kids or take care of their work is not an Olympic event, and it may not be an exact, a direct kind of fit, it becomes that question of intention. Do you intend to sleep well? And frankly, what would you do to prepare for sleep if— and I think we just don't know. So in fairness to all of us, I don't know. I mean, you studied long ago to be a doctor, and you probably started that journey to become a physician in high school or maybe earlier than that. But even then, even with someone who is so on point in terms of what you wanted to do, I assume, in your career, were you really being taught at that point, or even at various other points in your professional training, the value of sleep or how to monitor sleep or what? Because so many doctors that I know, even the younger ones that are like friends of our kids, they don't sleep very much. And nurses don't sleep very— people in healthcare don't sleep very much. And you know what I'm saying? It's, it's an interesting dichotomy there, isn't it? Um,

no, we didn't. The components of physical well-being were not stressed. Almost quite the contrary. Sleep, Exercise and nutrition. I had the intention of studying at least one of those, which was nutrition, because nutritional science is my undergraduate major. But yes, I totally agree with you. These are things that we've largely ignored. And as I said, you know, I think it's a great example of what you were highlighting that, oh, we'll deal with this with grit. That's certainly what we thought in medicine. You know, this is a tough field. You're going to have sleepless nights. You gotta be tough. You gotta have grit. You gotta have resilience. The definition of resilience was— Duck it up. Power through it.

Yeah.

And I mean, nothing could be further from the truth. That's not resilience. That's kind of craziness. So yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, Adam.

So do you monitor your sleep today?

I have, I don't do it. I tried some of the apps and devices and, you know, I, I decided in the end they don't do that much for me. I do monitor my glucose continuously from time to time. See if I have one of these Libre. And I'm not— no conflict of interest. I'm, I'm not receiving any funds or even free sensors, but I think continuous glucose monitoring and seeing how our sleep affects that and what is our sugar first thing in the morning and so on, there's a lot of benefits to that. I tried these apps and so on, and I found that they were either— I didn't think they were completely reliable or informative in that they were going to change anything I was doing. I, you know, I Can usually tell when I've slept well or not. And, but I always have the intention of sleeping well. And so I, I try to practice good sleep hygiene and just with good nutrition, you know, obviously there are going to be times when you have transgressions and you don't necessarily do everything according to the principles of good sleep hygiene. But I certainly have that intention well integrated into my lifestyle. Yes. So I, I think about sleep hygiene really on a daily basis.

I do as well. And, and I'm gonna— I'll rattle off a couple of things and tell me, like, literally just press back if you object or think that this is BS. So working on your circadian and ultradian clocks at the start of the day. So if I can get out and see the sun early in the morning and take 5 or 10 minutes looking at the direct sunlight, as well as at the end of the day to be out at, you know, at dusk and see the sunset, preferably if possible. These are good things to set the rhythms of the body to get your body attuned to when we should be going back to bed, right?

Absolutely.

Okay. So that's the first one. Back to hydration, for an example. I was reading this and, and I thought it was interesting because I have a partner in bed who's— she runs hot at night now. And one of the things that, that I was reading was that when we hydrate our bodies, again, back to just what hydration can do, we are cooler at night. We— but if we're dehydrated, then we might be hotter at night. It might even exacerbate the heat at night. Is that, again, true or false, do you think?

No, that's true because when our, our blood volume is a little bit low, the blood vessels in non-essential organs, including our skin, tend to constrict to divert blood flow to our brain, to our heart itself, and to vital organs. So when your skin blood vessels constrict, you're not able to lose heat through your skin readily, right? And so you can see your skin may look a little pale, a little, you know, we would say vasoconstricted. And so you're, you know, since high blood flow to the skin is a great way to dissipate heat from the body, when you're dehydrated and you're a little vasoconstricted, you're much less able to get rid of that heat. And so your body temperature can go up.

Yes. So this, this section of our show should probably be like that. We'll put brackets around it for, for sleep, for better sleep or something. Because if there's anything that I wish for people, I wish a bunch of things, but, but better sleep is one of those things. You know, we're different people when we're sleeping well, when we eat well, when we Move our bodies is when we have people to talk to. This is just a few things that really help us to be, you know, to be able to deal with the world as complicated as it is. One of, one of those things for me is legs up the wall practice, which is sort of a gentle inversion for those who like yoga and, and whatnot. And I will do that in the middle of the afternoon as a way to recapture energy as opposed to coffee. And just 20 minutes with that, lying on the ground with my legs literally up, up the wall with my tush to the baseboard kind of thing. And my wife and I, we will do it in bed Before sleep for 10 or so minutes, sort of listening maybe to like one of those non-sleep deep rest, those NSDR scripts or meditation or what have you, or music. And, and it

sounds like a Kodak moment, Adam.

I, I mean, it is a Kodak moment.

It's you and your wife.

It's a, it's a funny, it's a funny thing that we do that. But so that works. Not drink. Look, I, I still like to drink and I'm not gonna give up, you know, the occasional alcohol, whatever. But I know that if I need And want to sleep well that night, and let's say I've got something going on early the next morning that I, I want to be at my best for, I realize that it's not so much the being hungover. I don't drink that much anyway, but it's the fact that my heart rate elevates, like from exercise or drinking or a number of other things. Your heart rate goes up, and I will not feel rested in the morning if my heart rate does not get to its low point somewhere in the middle of my sleep. Mm-hmm. Somewhere in the middle. And that for me is usually like in the 48, 49, 50 range in the middle of the sleep, then I wake up feeling rested. If what happens is it takes almost the entire night for my heart to go from 70, 60 down to that resting number, I don't hit the low until 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM. I wake up feeling groggy, not hungover, but just not ready to rock it at, you know, like rock the day or whatever. And is, again, from your perspective, that makes sense?

I think, you know, the, the better documented adverse effect of alcohol on sleep is that alcohol interacts with the same receptor that we target in anesthesia primarily, and that's the GABA receptor. GABA stands for gamma-aminobutyric acid. And when that receptor is occupied by an alcohol, an ethanol molecule, it helps us be unconscious, but it disrupts our sleep. So if you, if I were to look at your EEG after you've had, let's say, even 2 beers or what have you, you know, relatively proximate to the time you went to sleep, even just 4 hours or so, within your bedtime, I would notice that your EEG, your brainwave patterns are not consistent with physiologic sleep. You know, we go through these 4 stages of sleep and, and by the way, those are not passive. There's a lot going on in the brain when we're asleep. There's removal of a lot of junk from our brain. These proteins that we've heard about, these amyloid and tau proteins that tend to accumulate in people with repetitive head injury like football players, and are quite overly represented in patients with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. When we're sleeping, our brain is actually getting rid of those. And there are a lot of other constructive things. But when that GABA receptor is activated with alcohol or a Valium-like drug, or even diphenhydramine, which is Benadryl, which is in a lot of over-the-counter sleep drugs, it's also a GABA agonist. Our brainwaves and ability to have fully restorative sleep are altered. And so I, I'm not sure about the heart rate, if that's just an association or if there's anything causative about your heart rate not getting as low as it might and your sleep. I think it may just be a covariate that the alcohol is actually activating the GABA receptor, and that may be interfering with your heart rate achieving its minimum level, but it's definitely interfering with restorative sleep. And caffeine is another thing, you know, so caffeine is another thing. You talk about putting your legs up against the wall. If anything you do that prevents you from having that cup of coffee in the afternoon is doing you a favor. Caffeine, and I had a, ran a lab where we did pharmacology research. Caffeine has a long half-life of, let's say 5 hours. So if you have a cup of coffee, and this definitely affected my attention for having good sleep hygiene, ended up Stopping my afternoon cup of coffee from being enjoyed. Yeah. That cup of coffee you have at 1 o'clock may result in a peak concentration in your bloodstream, let's say at 1:45 or 2 o'clock. That's like having half a cup of coffee at 6 o'clock, 5 hours later, and like having a quarter of a cup of coffee at 11 o'clock in the evening. And if you're sensitive to caffeine like I am, that would definitely disrupt my sleep or prevent me from falling asleep and staying asleep. And so I stopped having coffee after my, you know, 8 or 9 o'clock cup in the morning. Used to be 6 o'clock, now it's more like 8 o'clock. But, you know, I think these are all elements of, you know, if we're going to have intention toward healthier restorative sleep, which is essential, that's why I put it as first in the sleep, exercise, nutrition trifecta. We have to consider all of these elements and, and I applaud you for doing so.

Yeah. And, and the good news here, I think for everybody is that We— our bodies are different. Our physiology is different. As you say, you're more sensitive to caffeine. My father-in-law used to be able to sleep like a baby, and he'd have a cup of coffee at 10 o'clock at night. I mean, a full, you know.

Right. Bell-shaped curve, we say.

Yeah. So, so I think the good news or the, the news that, that's fit to print here is that if we're intentional about it and we are looking at finding those answers, then we will likely find the answers that are right for us about how to get better sleep. And, and so the N, the nonjudgment, let, let's talk about what that looks like. If it's, yeah, please. What, so what, what would you say the most important aspect of nonjudgment is outside of sort of what may, many people have sort of heard through their spiritual practices or through their religion or, or just what even comes up for them, you know, when you hear that phrase nonjudgment?

I might simply say, Adam, that we, there's a difference between discerning and judging. Judgment is placing a value on something. And with our negativity bias, we tend to attach Negative values to others, to the world, and most harshly to ourselves. So when we judge somebody or something, we are not seeing things as they truly are. We're coloring them with our own set of biases, and they tend to be rather negative. And this is especially true when we judge ourselves. So dropping the judgment is just seeing things. I like to say with You know, in a rather neutral way, but in a little bit of a beneficent way as well. So kind of a certain kind of indifference, but we might call it beneficent indifference. And, you know, we have to work at doing that. We have to have a plan to do that because our brains are wired not only to discern, but to judge. And our brains are wired to do so in a negative manner. So it leads to unhappiness. You know, when we consider somebody bad, It kind of makes us feel a little bit bad. It doesn't really give us a hit of dopamine. It probably gives us a little hit of adrenaline or something that is not necessarily adaptive. So it takes practice to learn to not have this knee-jerk reaction to judge and to drop judgment. So in the, in the GAIN meditation, which we can do in as little as 3 minutes, when we practice deep, deliberate breathing, we activate our parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve, and then we do a self-guided tour of gratitude, acceptance, intention, And when we get to nonjudgment, one image and one method I like to teach and practice, visualize an image of the Earth apparently suspended in space, one of these beautiful NASA images.

Can we— I'm putting you on the spot here, but could we do the 3-minute meditation for people that are ready, who are not driving a vehicle at this moment? But, you know, sure.

If we have 3 minutes. Yeah, I'd be happy to.

Let's do that. Why not?

Okay, so just get— let's get in our chair, kind of sit comfortably. And I'm going to close my eyes. And we first want to just focus on the breath. So a slow, deep inhalation through the nose, maybe to a count of 3, slowly in and feel the chest and abdomen expand slowly into a count of 3, and then pause and hold this expansion for a count of 3, and then slowly and deliberately let the breath go without effort to a count of 4. Into a count of 3, pause to a count of 3, exhale slowly and deliberately to a count of 4. And if each count is 1 second, our respiratory cycle is 3 plus 3 plus 4 is 10 seconds. So our respiratory rate or breathing rate is 6 breaths per minute, which is nice and slow and healthy. It's activating our vagus nerve, the main conduit of our parasympathetic nervous system. This is slowing our heart rate. Lowering our blood pressure, our blood sugar. So we'll just do this for a couple of breaths, slowly in, pausing, very slowly out. And we contemplate that for which we're grateful. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to connect with you, Adam. I'm so grateful for my loving community here, my family, my friends, my dogs. I'm so grateful for my health, my relative wealth. I have food on the table, a roof over my head, unlike some others who are less fortunate in the world. I'm grateful for this day. It really beats the alternative. I'm just so grateful to be alive today, to see the sun, to experience the warmth. And I link this to my slow, deliberate breath. And we move to the A in GAIN. acceptance. And I can't help but think and feel an unpleasant, even painful thought and experience. And I bring this thought and this experience closer and closer. I imagine opening my chest, bringing this experience into my heart, opening my heart, bringing this experience into my heart as I breathe deeply and slowly. And I'm actually going to nurture this feeling with my heart. I welcome it in. I abide in it and with it as I breathe deeply and slowly. I hold this uncomfortable experience until I can ask myself the question, can I live with this pain forever? And the answer is yes. And as I slowly and deeply breathe, I transition to the I in GAIN, which is intention. And my intention is to be present. You know, our brains are wired to be very distracted with the past and the future. Happiness lives in the present moment, and all we want is happiness, all nearly 8 billion of us. So as we breathe slowly and intentionally into our stomach, into our chest, feeling the expansion, the magic of the airflow, think about the intention of being present. The sensation of the chair against my body, the tingling at the soles of my feet, the sound of an airplane going by in the distance. And even for 5 or 10 seconds, just hold this present set of experiences, these sensations. Hold them to be true. As I slowly and deeply breathe, just abide in the present moment. And I also notice my intention to be kind and generous and loving and present. And as I slowly, deeply, deliberately breathe into my chest, into my stomach, we get to the N in GAIN, which is nonjudgment. And I picture an image of the Earth. suspended in space, one of these lovely NASA images. And I noticed that the Earth is a beautiful planet, but it's just a planet. It does not have the qualities of goodness or badness. It is neither good nor bad. It's just the planet that it is. And it's only logical for me to understand that I too am just a human being. I'm just the person that I am. I'm not good. I'm not bad. I don't hold the qualities of goodness or badness. I'm just a human being. I simply am the way I am, neither good nor bad. And I link this understanding to my breath, slow and deep. I am simply the human that I am, neither good nor bad. I am simply that I am. And we breathe this I-am-ness in, hold it, and let it go. And just focus on the breath a couple of more times. And then we slowly open our eyes. And that may have been 4 to 5 minutes, but it doesn't take long. And as a daily practice, what happens, Adam, is that we do that in the morning. And then when we're not living in accordance with these very simple principles, when we're being ungrateful or we're judging, a light bulb goes off and we can have a little laugh to ourselves. And redirect our thoughts. And what we're doing is actually rewiring our brain. And I think even after just a few days, we notice a difference. We notice that we identify when we're being judgmental. We're driving in our car, we do our GAIN meditation, we have a cup of coffee, we're driving to work and somebody cuts us off on the road and we start to form all these judgments and a light bulb goes off and we have a little laugh to ourselves. We get a little hit of dopamine. instead of that extra adrenaline. And that is just a person driving. I'm driving. Neither of us are good or bad. We just are the people that we are. And anyway, it's very simple.

That's beautiful. I mean, I'm speaking for everybody when I say I got so much out of that. And to take that moment in the day doesn't have to be just at the start of the day. It's great at the start of the day. In fact, To me, it's the, it's the optimal way to begin the day. And yet you can do it at any point in the day, like we're doing it right now. So, Greg, that was just beautiful. And I feel like there's a theme that's run through this conversation. And, and your, the subtitle of your book, Gain Without Pain, is the Happiness Handbook for Healthcare Professionals. But I can't help but say that the process and what you've shared about gain is for everybody, for everybody in every walk of life and every pursuit that they're up to. So I have to ask you, at least, you wrote this probably because you had firsthand knowledge of just what a difficult job it is to be a healthcare professional, and you wanted to support that community of people. Is there any more to it than that in terms of directing it, directing this content you share with us to that audience of people?

No. I, I became very interested in burnout in medicine. And then, you know, I've had a long practice of Advaita or non-duality. And so I wanted to combine everything I felt and knew to be true in a way that might help others. Mitigate Burnout. And my publisher thought it's better to be kind of a bigger fish in a smaller pond. So make it to a specific audience. But here I am talking to you 4 years later, actually. And so, yes, I mean, most of the readership, I think, are not necessarily in the healthcare field.

I wanted to let folks know that because if they're looking at our show notes and they wanna buy the book and they think somehow this is more directed to healthcare folks, we do a lot of work on the, the crisis of burnout. This, Yeah. That exists in the healthcare profession as well. And yet this is, this is so universal. The price of liberty in many respects, I think the price of liberty is, is vigilance. And what we're talking about is how do you consciously construct your day? Well, if you were the conscious creator of your own life experience for the day, what would it look like? What would you be thinking about? How would you set yourself up for success? And having my wife and I having 4 kids and 2 big dogs most of the time and gerbils, goldfish, and lots of things, I know what it's like to live in a busy home with a lot on our plates and a lot to do, and there's a lot around us. There's a lot of energy around us in the world, especially now, but kind of always. But you can still set yourself up for success in your life by attending to these things, by being vigilant about your— about the thoughts that you entertain from the start, from that very first one, like you said, when you're just sort of becoming awake in the morning and throughout the day. And just so much value in what you've shared today. I, I think potentially we'll— I know, I know our folks would want it. I would like it. And you don't have to say anything now, but I'd love there to be a part 2 because I think there's just so much more we can even get into. And but as we land the— this plane, I'd love to give you that opportunity. As you had said earlier, if you're gonna share something other than what you've shared to this point for folks in terms of their creating a healthier and happier life for themselves going forward. And if that means to age of 100 or it's to some other age, What would that advice or counsel be to them?

That's a great question. I think, again, try to embody and embrace the principles of GAIN. Understand that our brains are wired to be negative, and it's not your dirty little secret. We're all in this together. We're very much alike. And try to incorporate the 3 domains of learning something every day, being in community with others every day, and trying to do something good for someone else that in a situation where you don't expect to be paid back, service. So learn, commune, and serve. And I think we'll all be better off.

Indeed. And I'll, I'll add to that for myself that the whole of life is a process of letting go. I think that we're not always focused on it, but if we, if we give it a second's thought, we realize that that's truthful. And for us to be able to let go of things more easily, especially the things that we get agitated about and the things that we obsess about that create cortisol response that's coursing through our, our veins, Continuously, it seems. And going back to your definition of resilience, to be more conscious about how we neutralize the acute stress response to when, when that response is non-adaptive. I think this is really, really important when something is not keeping you, you know, safe from getting eaten or, you know, whatever it might be, a threat to your— to, to be able to find moments where you can neutralize and recover, that is just, it's restorative. I, I don't know how else to put it. And, and in, in the world we all inhabit, our, the problems don't go away and the stress doesn't go away. I don't, I don't believe you're kinda gonna get rid of the stress unless, I don't know. I don't, somebody gotta tell me how to do that. But when we understand how to recover adequately, then we're able, I think, to have the energy to outperform the problems and, and find, find the solutions. And, and, and in that more empowered state, stress does not impact us in the same way. You're nodding your head, so I, I, I get a sense you agree with that. Yeah?

Of course. Yes. Very much so.

Way cool. Dr. Hammer, I just have so enjoyed this conversation. I know our folks have. And so last thing to the community, if you've got questions, and I, I would imagine you may, but please just go to, to the site. You can go to adamarkel.com/podcast. Leave your question or comment for Dr. Dr. Hammer there, and it will not be a bot. I promise there'll be no bots responding to your questions or your comments. And of course, if you know somebody that would benefit from listening to this, share it. It's helpful to us when you help the algorithm to put this content in front of other people. So thank you. And I selfishly acknowledge that that's to our benefit. But I also— my— I believe this podcast is in many ways an act of service. And with people like Greg today, it's just clear that good information is It's vital. It's life-changing. It's transformative. So share it with somebody. Pass it on if you're inclined to do so. And again, thank you, Greg. What a pleasure. Thank you, sir.

My pleasure, Adam.

Man, oh man. I absolutely could speak to Greg, to Dr. Hammer, just for hours and hours and hours. We had to sort of put a stop in there. But when we ended our recording, he was sure to tell me that he'd love to come back and have at it again for a part 2. There's just so much. You know, you could just honestly feel how committed to to service Dr. Hammer is, not just with his time, but just how generous he is in his thinking, how flexible I could feel he was in thinking through the things that we were discussing and pivoting along the way with me, so that we were ourselves enjoying that conversation and gaining from the experience. And that's how we. Absolutely know that it is valuable to others because we're just universally connected in that way. And gain in particular, G A I N gratitude, acceptance, intention, and non-judgment is a system for happiness, not just for healthcare professionals, even though that's the book that he wrote. I think it's just universally true that we all benefit from how we approach the day, from our the level of of intentionality, of vigilance. That we have, and our liberty is tied to that vigilance in so many respects. I loved what we talked about, and I, I know that this is a valuable conversation for others. So please, if you do know somebody that would benefit, whether it's a colleague, a family member, a friend, we'd love it if you'd share this episode with them. We talked about sleep. I think we got into that at a pretty decent depth. We really talked through Dr. Hamer's process. And this is fundamentally, I think, again, where, where we all have to, when we're thinking about living longer lives, having a healthspan as opposed to just a lifespan, I think there is so much in his definition of resilience, how it is that we learn to neutralize acute stress response when it is non-adaptive, when in other words, it does not help us to evolve. And to grow. Ultimately, Darwin's theory, which I agree with, is that our species thrives as a result of adaptiveness. Our ability to adapt to changing environment is our superpower over thousands and thousands of years. It is not about grit exclusively. It is not about our capacity to simply suck it up or grind and ignore what our bodies would otherwise be telling us, what our minds would otherwise be telling us. And when we do ignore those things, as we've seen that happen, that the, the effect of that and what is exacerbated today are the signs of anxiety or the symptoms of anxiety and depression and other physical issues that people deal with because of that exacerbated non-adaptive stress, acute stress. And, and so we can do something about that. We can become more aware and therefore change our experience of living, our experience of the world, so that we can actually live longer and be healthy at the same time. Nobody would wanna live longer. I certainly wouldn't wanna live longer if my brain health wasn't there, if my physical health was lacking. So one of the things that I'll, I'll just reiterate that, that Greg shared with us was that 3 in particular, 3 things he would suggest would lead to that longer, healthier life. One is to be continuously growing and learning, to also curate our relationships and our, the communities that we spend time in. That's the second one. And thirdly, to seek out fresh opportunities for service on a regular basis, if not each and every day. I know that that is what I focus on in, in my days at the very start of the day, and I have to come back to that as often as as I can remind myself of that as, as frequently as possible, that, that opportunity for service is with us all the time, and that it is truly what makes life so valuable and so worth living as well. So grow and learn, seek relationship, seek to build relationships. If, if you're not in a community and you don't have the best relationships or the ones that you truly want and deserve, then that's something that you can work on. And find those opportunities to serve in some capacity, to be giving of yourself to others. And there's, again, endless, endless ways in which to, to do that. And those 3 things, I think, are a very simple recipe, if you will, for that healthspan. And I know I got so much out of this conversation. So looking forward to part 2 with Greg Hammer and looking forward as well to your thoughts, your comments for us. You can go to adamarkel.com/podcast to leave that comment, question, if you could rate this show on the platform that you are consuming it, we so appreciate that because it helps the algorithm. It helps us, it helps this, this particular content reach more people, and a 5-star rating will do that. But whatever is true for you is, is the feedback that we're looking for in any event. Also wanna shout out something else that I, I don't typically say, but in our business, WorkWell, we are a workplace consultancy to create happier places to work, happier and healthier places to work. Uh, we focus on wellbeing in the workplace. And often we are deploying our strategies in organizations of all kinds. Many of, many times it, it, they are healthcare or related organizations, but it's every kind of industry you could think of that we, we are working to make healthier. And we are always looking for great talent. And Dr. Hammer is a great example of the kind of talent that is on our team, meaning we have a number of folks who are semi-retired or have retired from their, their 3-decade-long career. As an executive within a, you know, a prolific organization, et cetera. And they still want to serve. They have the heart for service, but they understand, as Dr. Hammer was telling us, how healthful it is to, to remain of value and service in your life going forward. And so we have a lot of people that after their careers, their corporate career or that career in service in government or in other areas in nonprofits, because we, we have a, a Great diversity of, of faculty on our, on our team of contributors to WorkWell that they still want to teach. They still want to share. They may want to teach for the very first time, to mentor others, to create curriculum and, and design and, and be involved in the execution of that solution on behalf of a corporate client or a, a client of any kind of ours. So it is a shout out. It is sort of an RFP, if you will, that if you are interested Because you are either at retirement or nearing retirement and wish to be of service by teaching, mentoring, being involved in the execution of a learning and development project, organizational development. If you're interested in, in change, if you're, if the topic of resilience is something that you lean into and, and would love to be involved in, in helping organizations and their employees be more resilient, to be healthier mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually speaking, then reach out to us. You can also leave a comment there. Or you can email us at team@adammarkel.com, team@adammarkel.com, and let us know that you may have an appetite for a conversation around that, and we will set something up with a team member. It might even end up being myself. So please let us know. And it felt good to know that, that Dr. Hammer is still— that this is the next iteration of the evolution of his mind and the wisdom that he's gained through so many years of service that he is now doing these, these other things to continue to add value in the world. And actually, Dr. Hammer and I have already had a conversation about him joining our Workwell team as well. So if that is intriguing to you, please reach out, let us know. For now anyway, again, I just wanna say thank you so very much for being a part of our community. That is, this community has continued to grow, and it's because of you and folks like you that that is the case. And it is a beautiful thing. I feel really grateful and blessed to be a part of it myself. And for the honor and the privilege to serve in this way. Ciao for now, everyone.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.