Brian Johnson teaches how to reframe stress as neutral and even performance-enhancing through cognitive reappraisal. He shares a breathing pattern: inhale for 6 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 7. Practice makes the calm response automatic.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one is on dealing with stress. It's inspired by A mind for numbers. Barbara Oakley.
Thank you.
Now she's talking about students dealing with stress related to a test. But the reality is we all have stress, and it impacts us in pretty much the same way physiologically, depending on what we're up to. But what research shows is that it's how we respond to the stress response that dictates how it affects us. So you have two choices. Let's say you're sitting here and your heart starts racing. Your palms are getting a little sweaty. Those are your sweaty palms, right? And you're kind of, whoa, what's going on? You have two choices. You can say to yourself, oh, my God, I'm freaking out. I need to calm down. Something's wrong with me. God, I'm gonna choke. Or same exact physiological response. You can take a deep breath, smile.
And say to yourself, wow, my body's kicking in.
I'm excited right now. Everything that's happening to me is good. It's allowing me to increase my performance. I'm excited. Thanks for the energy. I'm gonna go Crush it. Kelly McGonigal talks about the exact same idea in the Upside of Stress. She describes it as the biology of courage. Check out below. We've got her notebook below where she talks about the research that she shares.
In her great book, the Biology of Courage.
By simply changing the way we interpret the physiological response, we change the way it actually impacts our biology and our performance. Big idea. So if you're dealing with stress in your life and you're feeling the physiology ramp up, notice what you're saying to.
Yourself and realize that that's good.
Nothing's wrong with you. You can use this energy. It's neutral. It's how you interpret it that determines how it affects you. Other ways to deal with stress, whether it's tests or otherwise. Take a deep breath. Breathe. It slows down your mind, brings oxygen to your brain right when you need it most. The breathing pattern that I personally love right now is 6. 2, 7. Inhaling to 6. Let's do it right now. Inhale to 6, Hold for two, exhale for seven. Now I inhale through my mouth. I'm sorry. Inhale through my nose, hold for two and exhale through my mouth with my tongue against the top part of the roof of my mouth near my teeth. Inhale to six, Hold for two, exhale for seven. Breathing is a huge way to calm down your nervous system while you're doing that, you can tell yourself you're excited. And remember Practice makes permanent. This is a book about learning and moving from working memory to long term memory. If you want to get good at anything, you have to practice it diligently, patiently, persistently. And it's not about practice making perfect, it's about practice making permanent. So if you want to be able to tap into your breathing and your cognitive response during a stressful time, you have to practice it. I practice this breathing technique every single morning. It's how I start my meditation. It's what I do when I'm doing a little afternoon napitation. It's what I do right before I fall asleep when I get into bed. Six, two, seven. Whatever it is for you, practice it. You can do it in a minute or two throughout your day, or 10 or 15 minutes during your meditation. Practice makes permanent. Remember you can deal with stress by noticing the physiology and choosing the most empowered response. I'm excited you've got this. You're cultivating the biology of courage as you breathe deeply in practice to ingrain it permanently. Hope you enjoyed.
Look forward to sharing more.
Have another awesome day. See ya.
Hey guys, this is Brian. A lot of people don't know what.
I do beyond these YouTube videos I.
Put up, so I thought I'd give you a quick tour of our membership platform. Thousands of people have joined us already. 10 bucks a month get access to a ton of stuff that's in addition to what I put up on YouTube for free. So the basic idea is you just watched a micro class. Hope you enjoyed that.
I share.
I just started doing these micro classes, but I Now share over 50 of these per month. We've shared dozens so far and it's basically quick class on my absolute favorite stuff across the different domains of optimal living. Two to three maybe five minute little micro classes on how to optimize your life. In addition to that, you get access to every single one of our philosopher's notes. We now have over 250 philosopher's notes on some really, really good books. A lot of them. Each one of them you're familiar with the PNTV videos if you've watched many of those. But we also have PDFs and MP3s of our Philosopher's notes. So here's let's take a look at what a PDF looks like. This is an example of a philosopher's note. It's a six page PDF where I basically share some of my favorite thoughts, riff on it, talk about how other teachers say the same things and give you a nice playful kick in the butt to go out and apply the wisdom that is a philosopher's note. I record that as an MP3 that you can download as well. And 250 of those, I produce 10 of those at least per month that I share with you in addition to the micro classes. And then you also get access to all of our old classes. We have the five day immersion, reboot habits 101, confidence 101, getting stuff done 101, meditation 101, then future classes including relationships 101, energy 101, purpose 101, biz 101 goals 101, etc. So there you go. Really blessed to have some extraordinary support. And I will share with you where you go to sign up. I'll put a link to this, but basically cruise on over here, you can sign up. And this is the kind of response we've gotten so far from our members. It's pretty neat.
I've made more positive changes in my.
Life, my brief membership only three months so far, than I did through years of counseling. Yes. Brian Johnson, you are a rock star.
Thank you very much.
That's very kind of you. And I'm making huge strides in optimizing my life As a result of your philosopher's notes and optimal living classes. I spend $19 a month on my gym membership to take care of my body. A mere $10 a month on an optimal living membership is the biggest value invest investment I've ever made in my emotional, mental and spiritual health. Thank you for the incredible work you're doing to inspire us to be rock stars in our own lives. Unbelievably inspiring and humbling. In 24 hours, we received hundreds of extraordinary notes from members around the world. So there you go.
That's a quick look at what we're up to.
10 bucks a month. Hope to astonish you. There you go.
