Why Stress Makes Healthy Choices So Hard and How to Reset and Rewire Your Brain

Why is it so hard to choose what's actually good for us? We all know what we need: restful sleep, meditation, eating clean, and exercise. But instead, we often find ourselves choosing to scroll instead of stroll and reaching for that third cup of coffee or that glass of wine instead of water. And somehow we don't make the healthy choices that would help us. And day after day, these little choices add up. So what is it? Is it laziness? Is it weak character? I'm here to tell you that it's not laziness or a fault in your character. It's just the way that our brains are trained. And especially when we're under stress, our brains go back to the oldest habits, the deepest grooves, the paths that we know by heart, even when those paths don't lead where we want to go. Today I want to talk about why our brains are drawn to the easier choices, the more addictive choices, and how we can actually snap out of it and coach our own brains. Today we're going to dive into that and figure out a way to take more control over how we train our own brains. The main skill that we're going to talk about is the relaxation response, which is the complete opposite of the stress response. And then I'm going to walk you through 3 short exercises that will help you elicit your relaxation response so that you can have more control over your own brain and life. Stay till the end because by this time we're done, you'll already have started changing the pathways in your brain. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a mom, a medical doctor, double board certified in diagnostic radiology and lifestyle medicine. I have a master's in education from Harvard University, and I've created and taught resilience curriculum at the Juilliard School, NYU School of Medicine, Columbia Law School, and many other organizations to help people perform at their peak while improving their mental and physical resilience. So over the years, I wanted to answer this one question: why is it so hard to do the things that make our lives better for us? I'm putting all of the learnings the last 20 years, seeing disease from the inside out and teaching resilience to high performers, into a book called Relax to Soar. I just published a planner called Relax to Soar, but I'm going deeper with the book that I'm writing now. RelaxASoar is an acronym and a system. It's a method to train our brain and to automate these healthy habits and bake them in throughout our day. It's a method to train our brain to work for us, not against us, so that we can have the habits of mental and physical resilience without relying on willpower for every single choice that we are bombarded with throughout our day. I've tested it with tweens and teens and adults alike—lawyers, doctors, professionals, parents, Juilliard performers, and executives—and now I'm writing this book to go deeper into each pillar of Relax to Soar, the Relax to Soar Planner. It's available for purchase at mindbodyspace.com/store. You can also download the free Relax to Soar introduction. Just comment relax and I will send it to you. I will also send you upcoming episodes where we're going through the entire mnemonic Relax to Soar. Next week we're going to talk about restful sleep. So one of the main reasons why we have so many unhealthy choices that are tempting us on a daily basis is that our modern world worships grinding, pushing harder, sleeping less. Eating ultra-processed foods and taking care of ourselves are often replaced by pharmaceuticals and easy fixes. The idea is that we're young enough that we don't have to worry about it, or it's too far off in the future and we can't relate to our future health. It's true that plenty of people grind their way to success without really thinking about their health as much, and they get that prestige and money and all of that. But what you might not see, and I saw as a radiologist, is that Disease starts early and there are signs of it inside of us. Once disease takes root, it can show up decades later and it can cost you. This low-grade inflammation that turns into autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, chronic metabolic diseases. And not only that, it could also bleed into our relationships that quietly deteriorate. But the thing is that we're living longer than ever. So I wanna share the tools that will help you in your 30s, 40s, wherever you may be in life to prevent these diseases because they're not inevitable. And now Now this is the amazing part. Neuroplasticity is real. The ability to train our own brains is real. We can change our brains, and then we can change it till the day we die. We can learn to sleep better. We can regulate how we respond to other people and ourselves. We can learn to avoid the daily toxins in our environment, and we can build the habit of regular movement as well as meditation and eating clean. When we build these microhabits into our daily lives, it literally changes us down to the cellular level, and we could do it at any age. The younger the better, obviously, because our brains are a lot more plastic and habits will be built in for the rest of their lives. But we can change it anytime in our lifetime. It's never too late. The thing I want to talk to you about today is that setting good habits does not really happen when we're under stress, because when we're stressed out, the brain locks into old patterns and returns to what it knows best to deal with this stressor, because it has to be efficient with its energy, because the brain takes up almost 20% of the total energy in our bodies, even though it only weighs about 3 pounds. So what happens is that under stress, our brains resort to habitual behaviors, deeply encoded pathways that has been rehearsed the most and gives us the fastest reward. So that could be a sugar rush or that jolt of caffeine or that relaxation you feel with the first glass of wine. So those are immediate rewards that our brain likes to go towards. When we're under pressure, our brain returns to what it knows the best. And let's face it, we live in a culture of chronic stress. Chronically underslept, chronically overstimulated, chronically pushing harder to measure our own worth against others. So if it's emotional eating or sitting on the couch for hours doomscrolling, those are the habits that we resort to, especially when we're stressed out. That's when we need it the most too. So it's ironic. So when we want to make these new habits more automatic, the healthier habits, those behavioral shifts require that we calm our brains down. We need to be in a receptive state of mind, so anti-stress mode. And that is where our brain is open to learning new things. That state has a name. Dr. Herbert Benson, a Harvard cardiologist, named it 50 years ago. He called it the relaxation response. Here's why we need the relaxation response in order to train our own brains. When we're in the stress response, our attention gets very narrow and focused on the only thing that the brain cares about is that survival mode. And whether that threat is imagined or real, the brain wants to really deal that. So it wants to solve that thing that we're worried about, that we're anxious about. And in modern life, we have a lot more stress from imagined thoughts than we do from real physical danger. Like, it's not often that we're being chased down by a car or a lion— you've all heard that— whereas we're constantly worried about things to come or something that happened in the past. So mainly in our mind. So the relaxation response is the physiologic opposite of the stress response. In this state, which we also call the rest and digest system, we are open to new ideas. We learn better, we are more flexible, our memory is more available, and our attention widens and becomes more receptive to things. Physiologically, it's also the opposite of the stress response. Our heart rate drops, our blood pressure drops, and our breathing slows down. The rest and digest system. And this is because when our brain does not feel threatened, we can sit and digest our food, and we can relax and put our guard down. Everyone can elicit the relaxation response, just like the stress response. It is a part of human physiology for being alive. The The thing is that in modern life it's less accessible to us because we don't have those natural moments of slowing down and naturally bringing about the relaxation response like we used to when we didn't have electricity 24/7. And if you elicit it regularly, there's a large body of research that shows not only does it fight stress and make you feel better, it's fighting stress at the cellular level, decreasing the inflammatory cascade. It also supports the pathways that make mitochondrial function and insulin regulation more efficient. So this is how we can change at the cellular level. You not only feel better, but your cells are functioning better. And this is why the first R of Relax to Soar stands for relaxation response. It is the basis of all of the behavioral change for the microhabits that come after that. Every thought pattern, every habit that has been ingrained in us was built in a certain physiologic state, and changing those patterns requires a different state of mind. Practicing the relaxation response also gives us a psychological edge, and that edge is called meta- metacognition. Metacognition is the ability to notice what we're thinking and to notice how we're behaving while we're doing it. So you could do it even right now. You can be sitting here watching me, listening to me, and you can also be hearing your own thoughts like, what is she talking about? How does this relate to me? Yeah, I can relate to that. All of these thoughts you can see and notice if you tune into your metacognition. It's the ability to see and be aware of our own thoughts and behavior. That is what allows us to be able to coach ourselves. And the relaxation response response helps us tap into becoming familiar with our thoughts. So whether you're a mom or you need a better mom, in the end, we're all going to be parents to our own brains. So we're with ourselves 24/7 a day, and the voice that has the most influence over us is our own. The relaxation response allows us to become more aware of that voice and become clear on how to use it to help us thrive. I'm going to lead you through 3 practices that can elicit the relaxation response. Months. And after each practice, I'll tell you a little bit about the science of what you experienced. The first is a body scan. We're going to release tension in our muscles. This matters because our mind and body share one nervous system, and when our muscles are tense, that signal travels super fast to our brain and registers as stress or fight or flight danger. We want to turn that signal down, so we're going to relax the body. The second practice is the relaxation response as taught by Dr. Herbert Benson, which is basically a process where you break the chain of everyday thinking. And we're going go ahead and do that practice for 2 minutes as well. Our everyday thoughts are one of the biggest and most underestimated sources of chronic stress in our lives. The way we see the world, the way we interpret difficult situations, the relentless inner commentary that's going on in our heads— this practice quiets it down and allows us to hone that skill of metacognition so we can see which thoughts we want to choose and believe in. Finally, the third is intention. Our brains need a roadmap. Being able to tell our brains where we want to go, how to get there, is one of the most powerful things we can to direct our own behavior and thought processes. The research is clear that when we direct intention and we mentally rehearse and activate the neural pathways that are going to get us to that end result, to that goal, it helps us to get to that goal by making it an actual reality in our mind. Just like if you wanted to plan a party, you would have to think about what kind of party you wanted, what it would look like, who would be there, and all the supplies you would need to get. So that's why setting intention and seeing ourselves where we want to go in our mind's eye is such an important practice. Within this practice, I'm going to ask you a few questions that will begin to orient your brain toward the life that you want. After each practice, we're going to have a little moment of reflection, and there you go. You've already started to change your own brain. Let's get started with the body scan. So please find a comfortable place. You can hit pause if you need to find a comfortable spot. Sit down with your feet on the ground, and if it's comfortable for you, close your eyes or lower them. Now imagine a spotlight. Bring the spotlight over the top of your head and just notice if there's any tension there on the top of your head and let it go.

Just release it on your out-breath. Let it soften.

And now bring that spotlight over your forehead. Your eyebrows, your eyelids, and just let the tension melt away from the muscles.

Let it soften. And now over your jaw, your cheeks, your nose, your lips. Even your tongue. Just allow it to release, letting it relax. Now on the next exhale, release the back of your head, your neck, and shoulders, allowing your shoulders to fall away from your ears. Now your chest, let it open and relax on the exhale. And your back, let it expand and release on the exhale. Now your abdomen, and lower back. Release. And now on the next exhale, release the tension in your spine from the top of your head all the way down your back, vertebra by vertebra by vertebra, letting all the muscles release just a little bit. Now scan your body from head to toe and release any muscle tension that you find, even if it's just a little bit. One more time, on the next exhale, release any remaining tension from head down to your toes. How do you feel right now? Do you notice the difference? Did you notice the tension releasing? Did you notice where you were holding the most tension? Now gently open your eyes. How did that feel for you?

Now you can do that anytime, anywhere with a single breath.

Inhaling, try it with me. And exhaling, releasing all the muscles in your face, your neck and shoulders, and down your spine. Did you feel that?

One more time, take a deep breath in. And exhale. And you can take that kind of body scan breath anytime, anywhere.

And you can also come back to this recording if you want to be guided through it. Now the next practice.

This practice is called the relaxation response, the way that Dr. Benson taught it to me. And the method is beautifully simple.

The first step is to choose a focus word.

It could be a word like calm or peace or love, whatever feels good for you. It could also be a phrase from your religion, whatever works for you. And now step 2 is to silently repeat that word or phrase to yourself, and when you notice your mind wandering— and I say when because it will— just gently bring it back to that word or phrase. And as Dr. Benson would say, just say, "Oh well." So nonchalantly noticing your mind has wandered and gently bringing it back to the word or phrase. This attitude of nonchalance is the key to the relaxation response because it keeps you from being stressed out about your mind wandering, because it's going to wander. It's normal.

So even if it happens 1,000 times, it's perfectly fine. Just bring it back. So now sit comfortably and put your feet on the ground. Relax your neck and shoulders and lower your eyes or close them, whatever feels good for you. Pick that word or phrase that you're going to use throughout your meditation. And now go ahead and repeat that word or phrase silently to yourself. Over the next 2 minutes, I'll keep the time, at the end of which you will hear a gentle bell. Now slowly release the word or phrase. Now slowly release the word or phrase.

Take a deep breath in and exhale. Take another refreshing breath in and exhale and open your eyes.

How do you feel now? Just check in with yourself.

How were your thoughts?

How often did you notice your thoughts wandering?

There's no right or wrong way to practice this, so if your thoughts had wandered 10,000 times, it's totally fine.

Just noticing your thoughts and gently bringing it back to your word or phrase, that's the practice. This.

So now here's what happened in your body. You broke the chain of everyday thinking. Again, it's one of the most significantly underrecognized source of stress in our lives. Our anxious thoughts, our to-do lists going over and over in our minds, that's a source of stress. So that was the relaxation response, and here's what happened in your body. You broke the chain of everyday thinking, one of the most underrecognized sources of chronic stress in our lives. Our everyday of worries and to-do lists, all of that. So what happened? Your heart rate slowed down, your, your blood pressure came down, your breathing rate slowed. Maybe you noticed some of that happening to you. That was your relaxation response, which every human has the access to. The more regularly we practice this, the more effects— the more the effects will accumulate. So this is where change happens at the cellular level. So now let's go into practice number 3: setting an intention, giving our brains a goal. This practice is our future self. It's really important because studies have shown that most of us don't feel a connection with our future selves. In fact, we treat our future selves like a total stranger. So in order to change your thought patterns and behavioral patterns to more healthy ones, it's really important that we connect with our best selves in the future, to have an emotional connection with ourselves in the future, so that we care about ourselves in the future. Because it's really hard to think about, oh, way in the future, this is going to affect me in a negative way. The thing is, we can make our future self our best friends, and get to know them just like how we love our loved ones. And we would make choices and sacrifices for our loved ones in a heartbeat. And that's where this intention and goal setting comes in. So let's get ready for this exercise. Take a deep breath in, release the tension in your neck and shoulders on the exhale.

Close your eyes or lower them. And now start to imagine yourself in the future. It could be 6 months from now, a year from now, 5 years from now, 20 years from now, even the end of your life, whatever you wish to choose. Pick a time. Now see yourself at this future time. You are at your best self. See the details of your face, the expression on your face, your tone of voice, the way you look, your hair, your clothes, the way you hold yourself. Remember, this is your best self in the future. Where are you? Who are you surrounded by? It could be no one. It could be solitude. Whatever comes up for you is perfectly fine. If you're having trouble visualizing it, you can just hear sounds or see or feel it in a different way. Now embody your future self from the inside. Feel how you feel— energy, a calmness, at peace, and reflect back on all the small choices you made on a moment-to-moment, day-to-day basis to get to this best self version of your future self. And again, just let it arise without forcing it. Just see what you've done. In the past to get you into this future state. Now notice how that feels from the inside, knowing that you had made these choices moment to moment, day to day. Now let it all go. Come back out of your future self and seeing your best self in the future from the outside again. Notice all the details, how you look, how you sound. And now allow this future self to dissolve into sparkling lights. Bring this sparkling light over the top of your head and allow it to come into your head and into your heart center, lighting up your chest, glowing. See and feel the glow and the warmth and let it fade. Now take a few deep breaths and come back. Open your eyes.

Whatever came up for you is perfectly fine. You can direct your future self visualization even more as you practice it by writing down what you would like for yourself. Who are you surrounded by?

What do you—

what are you doing? How do you sound? How do you Think of all those things and get to know yourself. And you're going to befriend yourself because again, we don't connect with ourselves in the future. It's almost like a stranger to us. So this practice allows us to become closer to that person, ourselves in the future, so that we can actually take the actions that we need and that we would for a loved one for ourselves in the future. But you gave your brain a direction just now, not a demand, not a task, sort of a direction. And it just, you let it come up for yourself, hopefully. And your brain is a filtering organ, so it pays attention to things that are seemingly important to you. And that would be setting goals or having a new interest. For example, if you are interested in a cooking class, have you noticed that maybe you start to see more things about cooking classes or meet more people who are interested in cooking? That's because our brain is filtering our attention into something that we desire for ourselves. Because the brain can't take everything in all the time. It has to filter out things. It prioritizes things. That's just how our neural circuitry works. And that's what this practice was all about— getting familiar with our goal-directed cognitive neural circuits. Okay, so let's review what we did. We settled our bodies, telling our brain that it's safe, and made ourselves more receptive to new ideas and new habit formations. Then we took the two steps to elicit our relaxation response by breaking the chain of everyday thinking. Then finally, we set some intentions for ourselves and became familiar with our future selves so that we can actually care about who we are in the future and what's steps we have to take to get there. As you do these micro habits, so they're going to become ingrained into your days. And that is why I made the Relax to Soar Planner. It's available for purchase at mindbodyspace.com/store. You can also download the free Relax to Soar introduction. Just comment relax and I will send it to you. I will also send you upcoming episodes where we're going to be going through the entire mnemonic Relax to Soar. Next week we're going to talk about restful sleep. Please share this with anyone who's stressed out and who could use a little bit of science to get more healthy behaviors automated into their lives. Until next time, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. This is the Mind Body Space podcast. Please connect with me on Instagram @mindbodyspace and YouTube Mind Body Space. Take deep breath throughout the day. It all adds up and balances out your stress response. And I will see you next week. Thank you for being here.